If you want to stay in the know with bass fishing and learn the latest trends and techniques, one thing to pay attention to is what's happening in Japan. The Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) fishing scene is an innovative world of new products that eventually make their way to America, and one of the trends right now is flat bluegill-shaped soft plastics.
These unique flat-sided baits can be fished several different ways and offer you something new to show bass here in the United States. It's a good way to get the attention of bass that are used to seeing traditional soft plastic worms daily.
Here's a little more about these baits, how to fish them, and why you should give them a shot before they fully hit America's mainstream bass fishing world.
Breaking Down the Baits
There are a small handful of baits in this category, but two of the most popular and readily accessible in America are the Deps Bull Flat and Nories Flip Gill. Both come in several different sizes and give the look of a real bluegill. While they look similar at first glance, they differ in their performance under the surface.
The Nories Flip Gill comes in two sizes. The Flip Gill is 5 inches long, and the Flip Ko Gill is 3.6 inches long. Both are heavily scented and use a thicker plastic material to make them slightly firmer than traditional plastics. They also have unique curly tails that give the bait a unique action with any rod movement.
The Deps version is called the Bull Flat and comes in five sizes from a tiny 2-inch bait up to a jumbo and thick 5-inch bait. They have a crustacean scent poured into the plastic and a unique ribbed tail section that has a great look when it moves. These baits are also made with a buoyant soft plastic for more action.
No matter which version you decide to try, you can expect them to perform anytime bass feed on bluegill, which is always, as a bass will never pass up an easy meal in the form of a sunfish.
A Few Ways to Rig Them
Because of their shape, these style baits can be fished several different ways. A standard Texas-rig with a bullet weight will work, but you can get a unique action out of them by rigging them with a Neko Rig. When fished with a weight in the nose, the bait looks just like a bluegill eating something off the bottom, and this is a great way to attract a bluegill-eating bass.
To fish them with a Neko rig, you'll need a way to insert the hook, and a product called the Neko Hack from Geecrack allows you to insert the plastic device into the bait and then insert your hook into the small holes. The bottom side of the Neko Hack has a plastic tab to keep it from coming through the bait. It's an innovative product that allows for rigging these types of baits, but it will also work for any plastic you plan to fish with a Neko Rig.
Another excellent choice for rigging these flat-sided baits is on a swinging football head like the Strike King Jointed Structure Head, which allows the bait to swing from side to side as it's dragged along the bottom. While this doesn't exactly look like a bluegill when the bait is rigged this way, it works very well and looks much different than most baits fished along the bottom, which is often enough to trigger a bite from a bass.
These baits also shine when rigged on a "free rig" with a sliding weight like the Decoy DS-9 TX-DAN Sliding Sinker. This rig allows the weight to drop to the bottom first, and the bait will slowly fall afterwards, often in an unpredictable and spiraling way. These baits are great for fishing on this rig because of their flat design, which causes them to fall slowly. You can also get a similar effect when fishing this style of bait on a Carolina-Rig, and the natural gliding action of these baits is excellent when dragged along the bottom.
When and Where to Fish Them
Bass always eat bluegill, but this goes into overdrive in the spring and summer months. The two species share the shallows when bass are spawning, and these baits are great for imitating bluegill when bass are hyper-focused on feeding on bluegill. As the late spring and summer months begin, bluegill spawn and bass turn their attention to raiding their beds and eating bluegill, and these baits can be hard to beat for imitating any of the sunfish species.
There are many places where these baits will work, but generally, they will work anywhere you find bluegill and bass together. Some of the best options are when fishing around boat docks, overhanging trees, and around vegetation. These gill-style soft plastics work in all these areas and are a perfect way to catch bass feeding on bluegill.
If you are looking for a new style of soft plastic bait to try, flat-sided bluegill imitating baits are a great choice and show the bass something unique. They can be rigged several different ways, and no matter how you rig them, they perfectly imitate a favorite meal of bass, the bluegill.
