Innovative and sometimes seemingly weird rigging methods have continually turned up on portions of the Texas coast.

Story and photography by Danno Wise

When I was in my formative fishing years decades ago, there were essentially two ways for Texas saltwater fishermen to hook a soft-plastic – right and wrong. The right way was laying perfectly straight on jig head. The importance of rigging it exactly right was reiterated ad nauseum. If you were fishing soft-plastics in freshwater, you could choose between Texas- or Carolina-rigs. However, the hooking method was the same between these two setups —  the bait was threaded on a weedless hook so that it lay perfectly straight.

Eventually, jig heads migrated to freshwater and saltwater anglers began utilizing weedless hooks. However, outside of that, not much changed. That is until a few freshwater anglers began hooking worms as if they had no idea what they were doing. What widely became known as the wacky rig had actually been in use by a handful of East Coast bass fishermen since the 1950s. However, it didn’t become mainstream until nearly half a century later. Shortly after its use swept across Texas lakes, some anglers on upper coast bays began employing variations of it for speckled trout.

Since the turn of the century, innovative and sometimes seemingly weird rigging methods have continually turned up on different portions of the Texas coast. Some of these rigs have been invented in the Lone Star State others have been imported elsewhere. The one thing they have in common is they break the basic tenements of soft-plastic rigging techniques that were once considered implacable. However, come summer the fish in the bays get lots of fishing pressure. Sometimes it takes something different to get their attention. So, while the standard rigs still have their place, when the bite gets touch it helps to rig it like it’s wrong.

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