What if I told you the rig in my hand is better than a Texas rig, better than a Carolina rig, and better than a drop shot? Okay — maybe not better than all of them. But it has helped me catch fish in a brand-new way, from the bank and the bass boat. It’s called the free rig, and it combines the casting accuracy of a Texas rig, the bottom-probing precision of a drop shot, and the water-covering ability of a Carolina rig into one soft-plastic setup. Let me teach you all of it.
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Every now and then a rig comes along that makes you say, “That’s genius.” I’ve thrown the Texas rig my whole life, and the drop shot and Carolina rig a lot recently — but I never thought to combine the best qualities of all three into one lure. As usual, the Japanese bass market already did, and the result is the free rig. It’s been in the US for a number of years, and it took Jordan Lee of all people to introduce it to me.
Free Rig Quick Reference
| Component | My Setup | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | Open-eye teardrop drop-shot weight | Slides freely; bottom-heavy so it falls fast |
| Hook | 3/0 VMC Redline wide-gap finesse | Great hookup ratio on small plastics |
| Plastic | Flat, high-surface-area baits (fry, flat beaver) | Shimmies and drifts slowly on the fall |
| Rod | 7-ft-3 medium-heavy, most sensitive you own | Weightless bait — you must feel everything |
| Line | 12–17-lb fluoro (standard) or 8–12-lb (finesse) | Fish it heavy for cover or light on spinning |
How to Rig the Free Rig (It’s Almost Too Simple)
The rigging is so simple I can’t believe I never thought of it. Step one: thread your line through a drop-shot weight with an open eye. Mine is a Decoy with a plastic insert so it won’t fray the line, but there are several teardrop-style free-rig weights that work the same way. Step two: tie on your hook — I use a 3/0 VMC Redline wide-gap. Step three: snip the tag end, add a soft plastic, and that’s it. The weight rides free on the line above the hook, separate from the bait.
The beauty is its range. You can fish it as a regular setup — 12, 15, or 17-pound fluorocarbon for standard offshore and grass fishing — or go full finesse with 8-to-12-pound fluoro on a spinning rod and a lighter weight. It’s like throwing a drop shot, except it’s a free rig.
Sensitivity Is Everything
Lately I’ve loved it on my Lew’s Elite combo. It’s expensive, and I’ll be honest about that — but for this technique, when the soft plastic is weightless, you want the most sensitive rod combo you own. For a lot of folks that’s a spinning rod; for me it’s a 7-foot-3 medium-heavy Elite. The reel matters far less than the rod here. I want to feel everything going on down there with my free rig, because as you’ll see, feeling the bite is the whole magic of this thing.
What the Free Rig Actually Does
The free rig separates the weight from the soft plastic, giving you all the benefits of a weightless bait but letting you fish it far deeper than a true weightless plastic can reach. You might say, “Tyler, a Carolina rig does that too.” The difference: on a Carolina rig the weight is pegged or tied behind a swivel. On a free rig the weight swings completely free.
And what about an unpegged Texas rig? That’s the subtler one. It’s all in how the weight sits on the line. A Texas-rig weight is centered on your line, and I don’t think it slides up as well when you hop it off the bottom. The free-rig weight rides with the line running over the top of it, making it bottom-heavy — and from everything I’ve seen underwater, that weight falls a lot faster, creating more separation between weight and bait on every hop.
Hopped slowly on the bottom, the free rig keeps the weight close to the bait — a bit like a Tokyo rig. But I think it’s better: a Tokyo rig uses a thick wire to attach the weight, and the free rig’s hookup ratio is infinitely better. I’m throwing out every Tokyo rig I own — and a few I don’t — in favor of this.
Go Small, Flat & High-Surface-Area
You can rig any soft plastic on a free rig — but you probably shouldn’t. Most anglers I see fishing it, in videos and in tournaments, are going small, not big — the same stuff you’d throw weightless up shallow or on a drop shot. A 10-inch magnum worm or a big creature bait with tons of appendages isn’t the play. What matters most is surface area and the ability to drift down slowly.
The baits I like: the Strike King Caffeine Shad in watermelon, green pumpkin, or shad — it looks like a dying baitfish or bluegill. The Super Fry, the same bait I throw on the back of a Carolina rig, is a fantastic free-rig bait. And the flatter the better, especially rigged flat-side down. That’s why baits like the Deps Bullflat blew up in Japan — when you hop it and that weight drops, the flat bait really shimmies on its way down, triggering a bite.
What the Free Rig Is Doing Down There
On the cast, the weight is forced down to the nose of the soft plastic — a small, heavy package that flies for great distance and accuracy. As it falls, the weight slides up the line into a Carolina-rig-type position. When you hop it off the bottom, that weight slides back down toward the bait. And when you stop the lift to let it sink, the weight slides down, hits bottom, and the soft plastic drifts slowly and weightlessly the rest of the way down. That slow, free fall is where the bites happen.
Here’s the coolest thing I’ve ever felt with a soft plastic: when I lift it off the bottom, I feel the weight hit first — one tick. If I feel a second tick or thump after that, a fish has eaten my bait in the water column. I can barely feel a drop-shot weight touch down, but the free-rig weight is slightly heavier, so I know exactly when it’s a bite versus just the bottom. I’m waiting for two thumps, not one.
Because the weight swings free, my line sometimes twists. When it does, I give it a pull so the weight can’t get caught in the twist above the lure. Small thing, but it keeps the rig falling right — and man, this thing casts. I can bomb it a mile.
Does It Replace the Texas Rig?
So the big question: do I love the free rig enough to replace the unpegged Texas rig in all applications? Honestly — I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, feeling that weight hit bottom and then feeling a fish eat is a super-cool experience. But for most people watching, myself included — especially for pond fishing and the majority of bass fishing — I don’t think the free rig gives me a big enough advantage over an unpegged Texas rig.
Where it does shine is with flat soft plastics — beaver styles, some fluke styles — and especially when you take it into truly finesse territory: lighter weights and smaller baits than I even used on the water. I’ve watched Tactical Bassin hand a 10-year-old a spinning rod with a free rig and put them on fish. So I’ll keep a free rig tied on in the boat or kayak on many days throughout the year — but the unpegged Texas rig still has a place in my box that the free rig isn’t replacing.
Related masterclasses: Texas Rig · Carolina Rig · Drop Shot · Creature Baits · Best Soft Plastic Worm · Fishing Line
Source: Based on video content from TylersReelFishing — “Will This REPLACE The Texas Rig? (Free Rig Masterclass)” · youtube.com/@tylersreelfishing
Q&A Flashcards: The Free Rig
Tap any card to reveal the answer. Great for reviewing before your next trip.