Basstrike Fishing Blog

Using soft plastics baits for bass fishing is the best method anglers can develop their feel for bass bites. Fishing with lures or baits requires a lot of patience in order to feel or know when the fish has bitten or picked the lure, especially when it keep quiet. In that case, you shouldn’t expect a big splash as the surface topwater lures or hard baits. To avoid wasting valuable time, it’s necessary to know the right soft plastic lure to use for a particular bass fishing situation.

We will spend hours if we are to explain how to choose the right plastic in details. However, we are just going to make this brief. Before will continue, it’s essential to explain what soft plastics are. Soft plastics are a mixture of plastic, glitter, sand, salt and coloring shaped into something that a bass would perceive to be living. Soft plastics are available in a large range of colors, sizes and particularly shapes.

Most of the soft plastics seen around can be rigged on hooks such as wacky rig, nose hooked, Texas rig, Carolina rig or otherwise hooked, or rigged on a kind of jig head and fished open hook. It’s compulsory for all bass anglers to master how to fish a plastic worm. You will also be a great bass angler if you can learn how to find bites on a still plastic worm and differentiate a bite from a rock bump.

Worms

Plastic worms are the easiest soft plastics that you can use to learn bass fishing. It was many years ago since use a soft plastic worm for bass fishing, and until today, the method is recognized as one of the productive bass fishing methods all over the world.

Plastic worms have various lengths and tails. There are plastic worms with curl, vibe, straight, paddle tails and other forms of worm tail. Each tail gives the plastic worm a particular lively action as it is lifted off and allowed to settle. Vibe-tail plastic worms have a cut on their tails purposely to allow them to vibrate slightly while reeling them into the water.

Plastic Worm fishing can be done in many ways and they work in different conditions. The narrow profile of these worms allows them to come through cover, but long curl tails might make them get hooked on things (such as grasses) under the water. A plastic worm is best used for fishing on long casts and thorough examination of the water to determine if bass can be found in the water. Also, plastic worms are the best choice for muddy or clear water. They can be used on Texas rigs with bullet sinkers. Most bites on plastic worms feel like a slight pressure, tick or a feel that the bass is swimming off with the fishing line.

Creature lures

This kind of soft plastics often designed like worms with slender profiles and with various appendages. These worms may imitate creatures that don’t swim or live in water such as lizard, but it is the appendages that make them look alive or give them action. Also, these worms perform well on Texas and Carolina rigs. You can use them as bait for sight fishing, flipping sparse cover, pitching around isolated objects and working large water areas. The appendages with these worms make it difficult for them to penetrate heavy cover which is better fished using flipping baits that have a more streamlined body structure. The baits can be divided into small sizes, and they can be fished on shaky heads for the bass to bite.

Beaver

These are distinct streamlined baits that are made to penetrate thick cover and reach big bass live. Beaver baits having slightly ribbed oval body structure with flaps at their tails, can slide along and dart in and out of thick cover, and attract bass to bite. Since the first beaver bait was designed, it led to the production of a new type of soft plastics that have been used with great results in America. Owing to the narrow profile and solid body of beavers, they are the best choice for flipping bushes, punching matted vegetation or pitching to docks, laydowns, stumps or other kinds of cover around.

Tubes

Tube lures are also great soft lure. The tube’s come out to let anglers know a crawfish also can be a kind of soft fishing lure. It is concluded that the 3-4 inches profile possessed by tubes is the best for bass. That could be because it has the same profile with most preys. Tubes are plastic baits having hollows and many tentacles representing a tail. They can be used with jig head to fish smallmouth bass, or flipped after attaching them with a Texas rig, sinker and a offset worm hook. Tubes are very flexible, fall with irregular spiral action when used on a jig head and the best bait to use when going for sight fishing.

Soft Body Frogs

These are soft plastics designed to imitate frogs and are used best in matted vegetation. They have a flat, wide body and two kicking legs. These make it easy to straight reel them on heavy fluorocarbon or braid. Moreover, these frogs act as a delicate buzzbait that gurgles when being retrieved to lure bass. You can use this kind of soft plastics for fishing over fall and summer grasses. While offset worm hook is the only thing needed for fishing over fall and summer grasses, better double pronged toad hooks are now being produced for this kind of fishing.

Soft Stick Baits

When these soft stick baits were first produced, they almost looked like real live bait. Soft stick baits are combinations of plastic, sand and salt. The old soft stick bait was simply used by rigging it on an unweighted hook, casting it out and allowing it to flutter to the bottom of the water. If it’s not picked up by a fish on the first cast, it could be lifted up and allowed it to flutter again. You could later reel it in and cast it out again.

The modern soft stick baits in the market have ringed bodies. This kind of soft plastic is simple and the best bait for bass in clear water, because it attracts bass when it is inside the water. The varieties of soft stick baits can be used as shaky head worms, drop baits and on Carolina rigs. You can’t beat the results of using any soft plastic stick baits on bass spawns. Soft stick baits are best used as follow-up baits to get any bass that failed to be caught by other baits or lures. However, you have to be a great line watcher when using this kind of baits. On feeling a slight line jump or tick or a see your line slowly moving to its side, know that a bass has been caught.

Craws

Soft plastic craws are designed to imitate crawfish which is a food loved by all bass. Most of the craws in the market have a 3-4 inches profile with two claws or different appendages that look like claws at one. The bait is hooked at the rounded end on a jig head or Texas rig. You can flip it by itself or use it as a jig trailer. For smallmouth bass, you can use the smaller types on shaky heads and the bigger types can be used both as flipping baits and jig trailers.

Trailers
Trailers are soft plastics designed to be fished with spinner baits, swim jigs, casting jigs and other tools. The trailers have undulating tails as well as vibrating and flapping tails when they move. Less active trailers perform better in colder water, and the twin-tailed type performs better in warmer water. There are many colors that will match your jigs and spinnerbaits, but using a totally different color does great.

Drop Shot Baits

Some slender profile plastics and finesse worms were designed and produced for drop shot rigs. When you use this plastic on a drop shot rig, it won’t catch a lot of water that can make the rig to spin while bringing it out. Also, drop-shot baits have a streamlined profile that makes them swim and dance in water with slight vibrations and twitches used on drop shot rigs. Some drop shot baits appear unproductive, but when used for fishing, you will be surprised by the numerous big bass they will catch.

Soft Jerkbaits and Shad Tails

The soft jerkbait is not only a soft plastic lure to fish, but also is an extremely versatile bait you can customize them. You can operate it dart and swim like an injured or dying bait fishi when rigging weightless on an extra wide gap worm hook. When the bass see it will attack for food. This is the law of the jungle in nature.

Shad tails usually have paddle tails or v tails. Except jerking around, the shad tails also can reel on a slightly weighted hook for flexible action and vivid profile in the areas the bass hanging around. Furthermore, it can be added a jig head to be fished like a swimbait or hopped and jerked around like a jerkbait.

There are so many soft plastics people used in the world to fish, we only introduce some of them. If you have any good ideas about soft plastics feel free to to contact us. Let’s share the knowledge and experience to all the fishing lure fans.