Lately, some of my soft plastics have been coming back sans tail. What's the most likely reason for this? Hung up on brush, little dink fish picking em off or a decent size fish short striking it? When it happened, all I felt was a light bump, like the bullet weight on my Carolina rig bounced off of something. What's the cure for this?

Sometimes a slight change in color can stop short strikes, maybe try dyeing the claws/tails of your bait a bright color to give them something to aim at, usually works for me.

But if its cover ripping it off Idk if there is much you can do except fish somewhere else lol

I've had tails and claws ripped off by small fish before. Happens somewhat often.

Bluegills and sunfish tear tails off pretty often. If it is bass though, you might try adding some JJ's or Megastrike to give them that little extra to make them commit. 

Are the tails pulled off or cut off? (you can tell by looking at the plastic) If you have northern pike down there that's a possible explanation. Those toothy critters can slice through anything. 

Bluegills and sunfish tear tails off pretty often. If it is bass though, you might try adding some JJ's or Megastrike to give them that little extra to make them commit.

^^ this

No northerns down here. At least none that I know of. It sounds like I'm gonna have to try some JJ's and see if that does the trick. I keep hearing about it, but I've never thought to pick any up. If I just get one color, which one should I get?

Chartreuse

Bluegill 

The big bluegill love eating the tails off of my rage tail baits and speed worms/craws.

Bluegills are usually the culprit. 

I had the same problem recently fishing a 10 inch worm.  The little blue gill and sun fish bite the last inch of tail off and then the worm action is a lot less appealing, at least to me.  I recently went into a local store to replace my stock of the 10 inch worms.  The sales guy, who seemed to know what he was talking about, said that the Berkley worm plastic was a lot tougher than the Zoom worms I was using.  I have to say that it sure seems to be true.  I haven't lost any tails on my Berkley worms as yet.  I wonder if there are anybody else has noticed this??

I personally don't have much problems with bluegill until I put on a scent like JJs but them d**n war mouth perch will chew through bags of worms if your fishing a place with lots of them....

Zoom and RT baits aren't very durable at all. I always seem to lose tails off Zooms u tail worms and the claws off the rage craws.

In Florida, the most common culprits are bowfin and pickerel (toothy creatures),

where a 7" plastic might come back 4" long  (runs into money when they're Keitech swimbaits).

 

Roger

Sunfish, bluegill, and turtles have gone after my ribbon tails before.

I personally don't have much problems with bluegill until I put on a scent like JJs but them d**n war mouth perch will chew through bags of worms if your fishing a place with lots of them....

 

 

Yes! Exactly! Worse thing you can do in bluegill infested waters is to dip the tail of the worm in scented chartreuse dye. You'll never see that tail again. 

If it is Ribbon Tails, I always loose them after a few casts.  I have never had good luck with them being durable.  Like mentioned above, it could be bluegill.