How to Pick the Right Soft Plastic Bait for Every Situation!

My goodness, there's an awful lot of soft plastic baits out there, and it can be difficult to figure out which ones to use when and where. So let's break it down to you.

First of all, flipping and pitching baits. The thing about flipping and pitching is you're throwing into flooded bushes or into sunken bushes and brush piles, trees and flooded vegetation, emergent vegetation, these type of things. If you're using a soft plastic bait that's got a lot of appendages on it, especially long appendages, what tends to happen is they wrap up around these things, get stuck, and when you pull them out, you rip them off. So compact baits that don't have a lot of appendages work really well. So those are like your rage bugs, you know, the beaver-style bait, rage craws. They have big, big craw flappers on them, not the thin, wispy kind, but these are thick beefy craws on them. Those work really well. They don't get hung up in that type of cover.

And then the other style is tubes. Yeah, tubes. A lot of people don't flip tubes. I don't know why. Denny Brauer won a Classic fishing tubes. But flipping and pitching tubes and these other baits is very, very effective. Here you have to use heavy up with your gear. So we're using 7'4", 7', heavy power rod with a fast action tip to it, using 50-pound braided line. I'm using at least a 3/8-ounce weight, if not larger. I have it pegged on a flipping hook. And these flipping hooks are...all they really are is just a stouter hook. They're thicker gauge wire that can handle all that power that you're using. And yeah, just flip it into all this different type of cover, and those work excellent for flipping and pitching.

The next type of fishing is finesse fishing. And for baits like those, you want the smaller versions of the larger baits, or even some baits are made specifically for finesse fishing. I'm talking roboworms, small 4-inch, 5-inch roboworms, tube baits, minnow-style baits work really well. These things work excellent when you pull it behind a split shot rig or a drop shot or even a shaky head. These smaller-sized baits are the ones that catch a lot of fish when the bite is off and they're not willing to really chase a bait. And if you notice the characteristics in all these baits, they don't have a lot of action in them. And that's the thing.

When the bite is slowed down, typically, the whole ecosystem is slowed down, and so you're not going to have minnows darting around and crawdads moving around and making a lot of commotion. You're going to have really small and slow movement. And that's what these baits mimic. So put them on a split shot, a drop shot, or a small shaky head. An eighth-ounce is what you want to start off with. Heavy up a little bit if you have some wind or current, but typically, an eighth-ounce is plenty heavy enough to work these baits slowly, methodically through deeper cover.

Now, when you're fishing offshore, particularly in the warmer months, your baits change a bit. First of all, you're not fishing through a lot of weeds, although you can Texas rig them, and that's not a bad idea because you don't know what else is down there, for example, woody cover that can get hung up. But also, especially in the warmer months, the bass like larger baits. So for that reason, I'm fishing full-size brush hogs, rage hogs, and large worms, like the 8- to 12-inch size worm. In the warmer months, the bass just key right in on them. And I'm usually fishing either just flat out Texas rig or I'll put them behind a Carolina rig. And fishing those, you know, the humps, drop-offs, long tapering points that go into creek channel, creek channel edges and ledges, anything around brush piles. It works very, very effectively. Just crawl it along the bottom or you hop it. You'll lift and drop, lift and drop. Larger-sized plastics with a lot of action and appendages on them reign supreme in this deeper water.

Now, if you have a lot of grass, that could be coontail, could be milfoil, Hydrilla, or a bunch of others that are out there, and the bass are actively chasing baits, then that vertical presentation of flipping and pitching is not as effective. You need something that'll come through the water, come through those weeds without getting hung up, that's moving at a horizontal-type presentation rather than vertical. And that's where the swimming worm comes in. You put it, like, an eighth-ounce weight. You don't go very heavy with these. And a swim worm will work effectively with this. You Texas rig it and again peg the sinker to the worm, throw it out there, and with a steady retrieve, that's all you're doing, is slowly retrieving it through these weeds, snaking it through, and you'll pull the bass out of that cover, and they'll come up and whop it. And I mean, they hit it hard. They will take it. So if they're actively feeding and actively pursuing baits, and maybe they're chasing spinner baits, for example, or they're chasing some top water, but they're not committing, break out that swim worm, and you'll have yourself a ball.

Now, jig trailers, oh, my goodness. There's so many different types of jig trailers out there. I could do an entire video just on jig trailers, but let me narrow it down to you. There's really two basic types that you want, and that's the ones with a lot of action on them and the ones with no action on them. And the ones with action, those are like the rage craw, use those in the warmer months or when the bass are actively feeding and they're chasing down bait. They want that movement. A rage craw has large craws on the end of it, they got flanges on them, and they just wiggle like this as they fall through the water. And when they land, they also undulate and move as well. So there's a lot of action and movement. Conversely, like a V&M trailer, it's just straight. It's a straight thin craw, and it has no movement really. And that works better when the bite is off. They've had a cold front come through and the bite is turned off, or in colder water temperatures where there's not a whole lot of action going on, you want to mimic that slow behavior of the prey fish that are around or the crawdads. So they don't have a lot of action when it's in those conditions. So it works great under those conditions.

Now, one thing I might change a little bit is during the summer months when the bass are really feeding that big time, they're looking for good juicy meals, and I might bulk up a little bit, and instead of using just a rage craw on the end of my jig, I'll put a space monkey on it, you know, a Rage Tail space monkey. That has still appendages on the rear that kind of resemble a crawdad, but it's a bulkier, thicker bait, and it has some appendages on the side. This really presents a meaty profile, and it's easier for the bass to target, especially in dingy water, but they are looking for a big, easy meal right now, and that works especially well during the summer months.

Now, with all these baits, color choice becomes sometimes daunting, but again, I can keep it very simple for you. Number one, green pumpkin, green pumpkin, green pumpkin. I mean, that's the first thing of any plastic that I get. That's the first color I get. Green pumpkin is universal. It works everywhere, dingy, muddy water, doesn't matter. Green pumpkin works all the time.

Now, aside from that, you want to vary it a little bit. If you got really clear water, say, for example, visibility 10 feet or deeper, that's when I start to go with translucent colors, like your watermelon, watermelon seed, or even a clear or smoke that's got salt and pepper in it. Those work better in clear water conditions. Conversely, when you've got muddy water and it's dingy, then you go with a darker color, like a June bug, or even a black, something that's really opaque. Those actually stand out better in that dark water. It's just a dark silhouette that makes it easier for the bass to find. So those are basically it. You don't have to go too crazy with a bunch of different colors.

Armed with this knowledge, you're going to be able to pick out your baits a lot better and hopefully use them in the right circumstances, and you're going to catch a ton of fish with them. Have a lot of fun. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.