Has anyone ever noticed that a beat up, chewed up, soft plastic bait will catch more fish than a new one? I stumbled onto this many years ago, fishing 4" plastic grubs over a deep ledge. I caught 4 bass on the grub, and received a pull. When I tried to set the hook there was no fish. Reeling back in, it looked like a panfish had grabbed the tail and torn part of it off. I only had 2 grubs with me so I continued to cast the torn grub, and caught a couple more bass. Finally, the grub was shot, and beyond using. Putting on a new grub of the same type, I didn't catch a fish for the next 30minutes.  I've seen this happen many times with plastic worms, craw type baits, lizards and even brush hog type creature baits. It's happened enough times that I don't think it's coincidence only. There's some reason for this. Although I'm not much of a Ned rig fisherman, I've read reports that the Z man plastics work better after they've become more beat up. Guys seem to have better luck with them, after some fish have been caught, and the baits are torn, and in rough shape. For years now, I'm not in any big hurry to change a soft plastic bait if its caught fish, even if it becomes rough looking. I'll move the hook slightly to get a good Texas rig, or re rig ball head jigs etc, to.keep using the same plastic bait. Has anyone else experienced this? Do you have an explanation? Some days the old worn, torn worms outfish the new ones. It seems like they outproduce new plastic baits for me

Yup ~

No clue why.

But the 'fuzzier', the better.

A-Jay 

Wounded prey is easier to catch. LOL

I'm a master at pinning worms back together with a hook!

3 minutes ago, Catt said:

I'm a master at pinning worms back together with a hook!

I thought that's one of the reasons for having superglue in the tackle-bag?

54 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

I thought that's one of the reasons for having superglue in the tackle-bag?

 

When the bite is on I don't waste time with glue ?

There’s no doubt they work better. What I do now is stretch them out and tie a bunch of them to the back of the truck and drag them to the spot. Their perfect when I get there. 

I bite it down once or twice before changing out .  I dont trust using a worm that risk not staying in place .

     I have a tendency to "bite" down my worms an inch or two when threading on a new worm. Berkley power worms in particular. The 7" becomes a 5.5-6" and the 10" becomes a 8-9".  I use a straight shank round bend gammy worm hook for them.

     Another thought is I find when I'm using a tex-posed hook it's detrimental to my hook up & hang up percentage when the hook point spot becomes torn up and I try to bury in deeper to keep it "tex-posed". I find myself telling myself don't cheap the plastics in a tournament. 

FM

When Berkley introduced Power scent worms the "in the know" anglers lightly sanded the worms to rough up the surface to release more scent. Bass teeth are like sand paper  and may have the same result.

Tom

I've got a 5 gallon bucket of KIA baits in my garage if you want to try to get a fish or two out of them ?

The bottom of my boat is littered with bit off worm tips.  I'll bite em down until they just won't stay on the hook anymore or are simply gone.  I'm not cheap, per se, but they keep catching fish, so why not?

yep ?