soft plastic actions, some that are similar to hard lures

[senkosam]

The following opinion is based on decades of catching many fish on many lure types and designs. Correlations are my own.

Consider this: FISH ARE BULLIES - PERIOD! Plus they are moody as hell! They strike things with bellies full. For example: they attack small minnows and then spit them out. (Gotta feel sorry for that little guy so close to death.) So when it comes to lures, which ones have more chance of being attacked more often? Small & Annoying without a doubt.

Lure action is key to catching fish - any fish. It doesn't matter if it's a crankbait, spinnerbait or plastic worm. As you all know having caught many bass on many lure types, the unique actions plus your presentations that complemented those actions, got those fish to strike.

Recently another member on another forum used the term strike-trigger. I thought about the term and related it to all the lures I've ever caught fish on. Here are a few I'm sure you recognize:
Popper: forward plops of water with ripples; skirt (if rubber) sways back & forth and settles on the pause
Zara Spook: back & forth swish with water trail
bass jig: pulsating rubber or silicone skirt that opens on the bottom; trailer action depends on the trailer.
Senko wacky rigged: quivering tips as it sinks horizontally vs weighted Texas-rigged plastic worms that drop to bottom and are at an angle to it.

You get the picture. Lures simply trigger strikes because of how they act when retrieved. IMO, a fish's brain is simple, but it has evolved, along with its senses to detect, track and either to attack (for no special reason) or ignore a moving object - especially unnaturally moving objects such as lures.

This brings me to soft plastics - the lures I use 99% of the time. Why soft plastics? They have the largest selection of strike triggers of any lure category. Various hybrid or modified soft plastic actions are proof. Depending on the parts joined together, a plastic's action may be similar to that of a hard lure.

Take the Ned Rig short stick or any small soft stick. When twitched with the rod tip, the action is the same as the Zara Spook. It darts back & forth the same way except subsurface, creating silent pressure waves that pushes a strike-trigger button. The smallest 1" grub minus curl tail does exactly that and gets struck by fish large and small.


A more pronounced zig-zag motion guaranteed to get hit by all sorts of fish is the Kut Tail or Softie Worm rigged on a 1/32 oz jig (1/0 hook). Again Zara Spook in action except with a violent whipping motion that really pisses fish off!


Catching fish just to hook fish doesn't cut it for me. Discovering strike-triggers universal to all fish is the challenge that keeps me interested.