Fishing Terms Glossary and Definitions
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• Tail-Spinners - Compact, lead-bodied lures with one or two spinner blades attached to the tail, and a treble hook suspended from the body; designed to resemble a wounded shad; effective on schooling bass.
• Tagging - Marking, or attaching a tag to an individual or group of individuals, so that it or they can be identified on recapture; used for the study of movement, migration and stock delineation, for the examination in a stock and for the recovery of biological specimens.
• Take-Out - A term used to specify where boats are taken out of the water at the end of a float trip.
• Taper - An area in a body of water that slopes toward deeper depths.
• Terminal Tackle - A term that refers collectively to bobbers, sinkers, leaders, hooks, lures, snaps, swivels, and other gear that go at the end of a line.
• Texas Rig - The method of securing a hook to a soft-plastic bait - worm, lizard, crawfish, by burying the hook point into the body of the lure.
• Thermocline - The distinct interface between surface waters and cooler, deeper waters; region below the surface layer of the sea or lake, where temperature declines abruptly with increasing depth.
• Tight-Action Plug - A lure with short, rapid side-to-side movement.
• Tiptop - Line guide or Eyelit at top of a fishing rod.
• Topwater Lure - A lure that floats and is designed to be used to create some degree of disturbance on the surface during retrieve.
• Trailer Hook - The extra hook, or cheater hook added to a single-hook lure, such as a spinnerbait.
• Transducer - A device that converts electrical energy to sound energy, or the converse.
• Transition - The imaginary line where one type of bottom material changes to another.
• Treble Hook - Hook with single or bundled shaft and three points.
• Tributary - A creek, stream, or river that feeds a larger stream or river or lake.
• Triggering - Employment of any lure-retrieval technique or other fishing strategy that causes a fish to strike.
• Trolling - Several lures are towed behind the fishing vessel and retrieved as strikes are made.
• Trolling Motor - A small electric fishing motor, typically mounted on the bow, that is used as secondary means of propulsion, for boat positioning, and to maneuver quietly in fishing areas.
• Tubing (float fishing) - To float down a river or stream in an inner tube like craft while fishing.
• Turnover - The period when the cold water on the surface of a body of water descends and is replaced by warmer water from below.