Story by Ken Duke
If you know me, you know I love a good “rabbit hole.” I revel in the opportunity to take a deep dive into some aspect of bass fishing history and see if I can learn something. If I do, I like to share it with others who also enjoy learning about our sport.
Yes, I like learning new ways to fish a swimbait or to modify a jig, but I really prefer to learn about the history of our sport and how we got to where we are right now. And my favorite rabbit holes are the ones that no one else has been down, looking for answers to questions that—quite possibly—no one else is asking.
About 16 years ago, I wrote and published an article in a prominent bass magazine about the history of the soft plastic worm, which was invented in 1949 by Nick Creme or David DeLong … depending on who you believe, though I think Creme has the better argument with his “Wiggle Worm” (now known as the “Scoundrel”).
One of the first things I learned was that the plastic worm was just a fishing curiosity until the Texas rig came along. The early plastic worms came “pre-rigged” on a monofilament harness with colorful beads, a propeller, and a pair of weedless hooks. They were designed to be cast out and cranked or twitched to activate the propeller, and sales were pretty good, but not great.
The plastic worm didn’t take off as bass fishing’s greatest and most versatile lure until some anglers in East Texas started using Creme’s replacement worms (designed to be put on the harness once the original was torn up) as a bottom crawling bait fished behind an egg sinker that had been cut in half (to create a slip sinker that would fit well against the head of the worm) on a Sproat-style hook that had been turned around so that the point was buried inside the body of the worm. The rigging made the bait relatively snag-free in the newly-impounded waters of East Texas that were full of brush … and bass.
By the way, if your worm rig does not include a slip sinker, it is not a Texas rig. It is merely “self-weedless.” Terminology is a pet peeve of mine, and it needs to mean something.
I never did figure out who was the first angler to create a Texas rig, but I found several anglers who claimed the honor. Problem was, I always found evidence that repudiated their claim. Truth is that the Texas rig “evolved” … like most bass methods or techniques evolve. One angler makes a modification. Another angler sees it and improves upon it in some small way. Eventually it gets widespread use and attention, though most methods and techniques never truly stop developing.
The other day I decided to look into the earliest references to the “Texas rig.” I find that kind of stuff interesting.
The legendary Bill Dance is one of the greatest plastic worm anglers of all-time and an early proponent of the Texas rig. He first wrote about it in his 1971 book Techniques of Bass Fishing, calling it the “Ole Texas Rig,” and adding that he learned the method four years earlier (1967). Was it called the “Texas rig” then?
Two years later, in There He Is! Bill Dance’s Book on the Art of Worm Fishing, Dance references the Texas rig as having been developed in the mid-1960s.
And my research backs that up, but the first time I can find a reference to the “Texas rig” in print was 1971, either in Dance’s first book or in the June 10, 1971 edition of The News Examiner, a Louisiana newspaper covering St. James, St. John, and St. Charles parishes. That article was written by Tony Calcagno.
Before 1971, everyone seems to have called it the “slip-sinker” rig, though they’re almost always talking about what we know as the “Texas rig.”
And there’s every reason to believe that the Texas rig came out of Texas. For one, during the late 1950s and throughout the ’60s Texas was the epicenter of new impoundments. Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Tawakoni, Palestine and other reservoirs were all completed in that period, causing a boom in bass fishing interest that may never be equaled.
For another, these reservoirs all had something in common. They were all full of brush and flooded timber—the kind of cover that bass love but which play havoc with exposed hooks. Thus, the Texas rig would have been a natural development.
Finally, the demand for plastic worms was so great in East Texas that the Creme Lure Company relocated to Tyler, Texas in 1960 to be closer to that market.
So, the Texas rig almost certainly came out of Texas or thereabouts, and the Lone Star State drove early sales for the lures. Just who was the first to put it all together or to call it the “Texas rig” is hard to say … but I’ll keep looking.
And for future reference, I can tell you that the “Carolina rig” was originally known as the “South Carolina rig.” But that’s another story for another time.
