Lure Actions include:

• Mimicking Forage: A lure is generally considered to be mimicking forage in one of three states:
  • Natural:
    • Unaware: The lure mimics a forage unaware of a predator (the bass).
      • Moving: The forage is in movement – roaming. 
      • Feeding: The forage is actively feeding which could include suspended away from cover.
      • Resting: The forage is resting, potentially near cover for protection. 
    • Fleeing: The lure mimics a forage aware of the predator (the bass) moving erratically and fast to avoid the predator..
      • Hiding – Playing Dead: The forage is very still behind/near cover.
  • Injured or Dying: The forage is not behaving naturally, erratically, possibly sometimes sideways or descending in the water column. 
  • Dead: The forage is motionless either on the bottom (potentially drifting with the current) or floating in the water column, or floating on the surface or descending towards the bottom. 
• Specific Lure Actions by Presentations Types: (Including the “common term”  to describe the lure action)
  • Tight Line (no slack) Horizontal Presentation Lure Actions: Lure actions created during a steady straight retrieve without the introduction of a slack line (not including tight line pauses), including:
    • “Swimming”: A lure that swims mimicking a swimming bait fish. Example lures include many soft swimbaits., glide bait and a hard swimbait.
      • “Minnow-Like”: Minnow-like some use as a term for a lure mimicking a stationary minnow. Example lures include drop shot and a jighead minnow.
    • Swimming Variants and Augmentations:
      • “Rolling”: Also referred to as “rolling shimmy”, the lure rotates slightly during a straight retrieve which often creates subtle flashing.  Examples include: some spybaits, some hard swimbaits.
      • “Vibrating”: Albeit less of a natural action, this lure action produces low frequency vibrations that displaces water which results in bass using their lateral lines to identify the lure as forage. Vibrations are made by lure “wobble”, “wiggling”, by lure’s blades, by the soft plastics. Vibrations can result in the following terms often used interchangeably:
        • Whole Body “Wobbling”: Wider than a wiggle, the pivot of the treble hook lure is located in the middle of the lure body resulting in both the head and tail parts of the lure to sway freely at wide angles at a slower speed.
          • Tight Wobble: Considered a more subtle wobble, for example a flat sided lipped crankbait.
          • Wide Wobble: Considered a more erratic wobble, sometimes combined with a rattle, for example a round body lipped crankbait.
        • “Wiggling”: Tighter than a wobble, the pivot of the treble hook lure is located at the front of the lure resulting in small faster movement. 
    • “Waking“; A V shaped wake, common for surface contact lure, for example wake bait. Most surface contact lures can be made to make a wake often in combination with another lure action. 
    • “Bubbling”: Also called “splashing”, the front of the lure is designed to make bubbling lure action, often with a top water pop retrieve, and resulting noise typically with pauses in the retrieve – no slack line is required. Generally considered a high commotion retrieve, examples include: poppers, prop bait. 
    • “Plopping”: Generally, a surface contact lure‘s description of the noise typically from the lure’s tail or a blade. Examples include: Plopper, Buzzbait.
      • “Thumping”: If the lure is below the water the noise is often referred to as “thumping”; examples include: spinnerbait.
    • “Pulsing” or “Pulsating” or “Flaring”: A common description made by a skirt on a skirted lure created with slight variations in the retrieve speed. Examples include all skirted lures. 
    • “Deadstick” or “Do Nothing”: Deadstick or deadsticking is using the retrieve type to describe a “do nothing” lure action, where in fact the lure generally has subtle action created by the current or even the bass’ interaction with the lure. Examples include: a drop shot and in some cases a jighead minnow or wacky rig, shaky head lure.
  • Small/Quick Slack Line Introductions on a Horizontal Presentation: Quick introduction of slack line during a horizontal presentation including:
    • “Walking”: A slight side to side lure motion created with minimum introduced slack line. Examples include: walking bait, a frog, particularly a walking frog lure.
    • “Jerking”, “Darting”: A more erratic action typically with the sub-surface lure quickly moving to one side then a pause and then to the other side. The action occurs at an inconsistent cadence. Examples include hard jerkbait or soft jerkbait. Examples include:
    • S-Shape Action: Some call the slalom action, like a snake. Main example is a glide bait. 
  • Prominent Slack Line Lure Actions during more Vertical Presentations : Slack line for larger durations of time common in some during the lure’s descent or after the lure has been hopped or the larger hop in some cases referred to as being stroked.
    • “Fluttering”: A pronounced more erratic side to side lure action often providing flash which  mimics a dying baitfish. Common example is the flutter spoon. 
    • “Undulating Decent”: A subtle slight lure movement during a slack line descent.  A common example being the wacky rig.
    • “Shimmy”: A subtle action of a lure slightly rolling during a vertical descent. Common example being a spybait.
    • “Spiraling”: A lure the spiraling motion as it descends on a slack line. Examples include: tube lure, and a texas rig with some poop/scat soft plastics.
    • “Shaky” or “Worm-Like”: Some suggest to get a worm soft plastic to look like more natural subtle movement it should involve twitching the rod tip slightly on a slack line as tight line will result in a more dramatic unnatural movement of the worm.  Some suggest thinking of it as moving the tail not the head of the lure. Common example is a shaky head lure.