When I first got into fishing for bass, pike, and walleyes back in the ’60s, you either used some sort of bait, or plastic or wooden lures that imitated live bait but then in 1949, an Ohio lure maker began molding soft plastic worms, and that revolutionized the entire lure making industry and the way we fish for almost every species of fish.
I remember well in my high school days; someone gave me some of those new plastic worm imitations — I thought it was a joke. Why, I asked, would anybody fish with a plastic imitation when you could hook on a good old nightcrawler? I ran out of live crawlers one day on my favorite lake, and out of desperation, I rigged up one of those red, plastic six-inch worms that I had tucked away in my little tackle box. Almost immediately, I hooked into a nice largemouth, and from that point on, I was a convert. Don’t misunderstand; I didn’t give up on the other types of lures, but I added a new weapon that proved indispensable.
When we look at fishing with artificial lures these days, we have several large groups to choose from-some kind of plastic plug imitation, spinner-type lures, an assortment of jig-type lures, and of course, the soft plastic imitations. Over the years, my lure assortment has grown considerably with my hard plastic-type lures and spinner-types in one large tackle box, but my soft plastics are housed in a separate container or “worm bag.” Much to the envy of my buddies at the morning coffee gathering, my wife got me a new worm bag for Christmas that now carries a good variety of soft plastics. Most of the time, the soft plastics come in some type of resealable clear plastic bag. I put each type of lure in a separate zipper pouch, label it and then place it in the worm bag for quick and easy accessibility. This process made me ponder what’s available now in the soft plastic realm.
These days we can roughly categorize soft plastics into about a half-dozen different identities, although slight differences can make drawing the line more difficult. It all started, of course, with the plastic worm; these worms come in a huge variety of colors, lengths, and styles, and they can be fished on a Carolina Rig, Drop-shot rig, Texas Rig, and Wacky Rig. Another group is often referred to as lizards, no doubt, because they look like lizards. They, too, come in a wide variety of lengths and colors and can be fished using several different rigs. Both the worms and lizards rigged weedless can be an excellent choice for those summertime weeds.
A third category that apparently deserves its own separate identity is the creature baits. It’s probably a good name for this group since I don’t really know what they imitate; some actually look like a combination of worm and lizard or lizard and crawfish, and additional appendages may show up here and there. These plastics can often be fished using some of the same techniques used with worms and lizards.
Another pair of soft plastics that are sometimes put in the same category are the grubs and tubes. Tubes will have short wormlike bodies with numerous skirt-like appendages at the rear, while a grub will often have a flat, curling tail; both are usually fished attached to some type of lead head jig. A relatively new variation of the grub is the Ned-Rig which utilizes a jig with a flat head at the front; the jig often stands straight up when fished on the bottom. Another category that tends to separate itself a bit from the others is the swimbaits; they look like a minnow with a flat, horizontal tail. These lures are often fished on a unique type of jig design to look like escaping baitfish.
Well, that’s a brief summary of what this soft plastic stuff is all about. One thing is for sure, the soft plastics are very effective at catching fish. Now go get yourself a “worm bag” and start filling it up.
