Texas Rigging Decoys

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Avoid tangles by using the Texas Rig for all your decoys





By Will Brantley

If you hunt mostly in shallow water, you might want to Texas-rig your decoys. Tim Soderquist, a former waterfowl guide who now works for Ducks Unlimited in Texas, rigs all his decoys this way. "A big advantage of Texas-rigging is how quickly it allows you to put out and pick up your decoys," he says. "But it also really cuts down on tangles."

Soderquist rigs each decoy with about four feet of 500-pound-test offshore fishing line. He uses two-ounce teardrop weights (also called bank sinkers) and 2.3 mm crimps (also sold in the fishing tackle section) to secure the line.

He threads about six inches of one end of the line through a crimp and then runs the tag end through the weight. He finishes by bringing the end of the line back through the other side of the crimp, clamping it tight, and trimming off the excess.

Soderquist threads a similar loop on the other end of the line through another crimp and then through the keel of the decoy. But he doesn't cinch the crimp all the way to the decoy's keel. "I like to leave the loop between the crimp and keel large enough for my thumb to go through," he says.

The heavy fishing line doesn't tangle like nylon decoy cord. And you can roll the lines of a dozen or so Texas-rigged decoys into a circle, tie them in place with a loose overhand knot, and secure them with a carabiner (D-ring).