The Tokyo Rig first came on the scene in 2018. It originated as a finesse rig for pressured bass known as “The Jika Rig”, which is an EWG hook with drop shot weight attached to the hook eye via. split ring. As the rig made its way overseas, it first flew under the radar and it wasn’t until VMC debuted a TV commercial at the 2018 ICAST show that the rig caught on in North America. The Tokyo Rig made its debut in my boat a year or two later, when on a mid-October guide trip, customers and I used it as a deep structure-swimming tool to get down quickly to wintering smallmouths. Our rigging choice then was with 4-inch paddletails, dragging them along bottom. Suitable for structure based smallmouth fishing strategies, the Tokyo Rig soon fared better and has become a more effective tool for largemouths. “I seem to find more and more uses for the Tokyo Rig,” says Bassmaster Elite Series and Z-Man Fishing Pro, Luke Clausen. “If there’s wood, brush, thick vegetation, stuff like that, it’s just weedless and stays on the bottom. There’s a lot of ways to fish it,” he admits.  The Tokyo Rig stands out from conventional Texas-rigged plastics an