Soft Plastics for Bass Lures

Soft plastics is the term used to describe plastics that are the foundation of rigged soft bait lures and soft plastic trailers used in most skirted lures. Soft plastics are liquid plastic, also known as plastisol which is a vinyl plastic, that are molded to create something shaped to mimic a forage. Albeit, there is no standard classifications, common breakdown for soft plastics are: Beaver Style, Chunk, Craw, Creature, Goby, Grub, Insects, Jerkbait soft plastics, leech, lizard, minnow, poop/scat, swimbait soft plastics, toad, tube and worm. Also, hollow body frog lures are pre-rigged/molded soft plastic lures.

Why is Soft Plastics Important?

Soft plastics are important for:

Rigging Soft Baits: All soft baits are rigged with a soft plastic.
Augmenting Skirted Lures: Most skirted lures are commonly rigged with soft plastic trailers to increase the lure’s profile, buoyancy and action.
Mimicking Forage: Bass eat forage so soft plastics must mimic some form of forage albeit in some cases bass don’t get a good look at the soft plastic due to lure speed or low lure visibility.
Increasing Buoyancy: Some soft plastics slow descent rate during a slack line initial action, during the descent during a hop retrieve or keep a lure higher in the water column during one of the horizontal presentations.
Increasing Skirted Lure’s Profile: Soft plastics can significantly add bulk to a skirted lure as a soft plastic trailer.
Increasing Lure Action: Soft plastic either creates or augments lure action.
Adding Scent/Taste/Mouth Feel: Soft plastics commonly have scent, flavor and for some lure provide the substance to the lure that make it mouth feel like forage (avoiding quick spit out).

Soft Plastic Options

Beaver Style

Beaver Style soft plastic also called a beaver baits or beavertails, have a body generally with no appendages and slender tail with “kickers” that provide action but are skinny and don’t look like pincers. Beaver style soft plastics are often categorized as creature baits.

Chunk

Chunk, sometimes called chunk trailers, are generally smaller soft plastics with the body designed to be used primarily as a soft plastic trailer for some skirted lures.

Craw

Craw, also called crawfish, is a soft plastic that can be used to mimic a crayfish.

Creature

Creature soft plastics are a wide category for some retailers covering many soft plastics for example some retailers call include insect, hawg-style, beaver-style, lizard and others as creature soft plastics.

Core creature soft plastics are slender soft plastics with multiple appendages which creates a lot of movement as they have a large profile.

Goby

Goby soft plastics mimics gobies, which are an invasive species introduced into the great lakes and other bodies of water. Some suggest they also mimic freshwater sculpins.

Grub

Grub soft plastics, also called curly tail grubs, are a smaller thinner rounded body soft plastic with a thin curly tail that wiggles during the retrieve. Some consider reapers a variation of a grub albeit reapers are not generally listed by retailers anymore.

Insect

Insect soft plastics, sometimes considered a creature soft plastic, are smaller soft plastic that resemble the adult and larvae stage of insects. A grub is the larva stage of several insects and often a soft plastic category on its own called a grub soft plastic.

Jerkbait Soft Plastic

Jerkbait soft plastics, also called flukes, are subtle minnow-style bait fish designed to provide erratic lure action. Jerkbait soft plastics are known as the soft plastic for soft jerkbait lure but also used with other soft bait lures and skirted lures as a soft plastic trailer.

Leach

Leech soft plastics mimic leech forage which is some retailers categorized under worm soft plastics.

Lizard

Lizard soft plastics tend to be larger soft plastics that mimics a salamander (there are no freshwater lizards in the USA) which some consider better for targeting larger bass.

Minnow

Minnow soft plastics, sometimes referred to as baitfish soft plastic, are small and mimic a minnow. Some retailers list them as under drop shot soft plastics category as drop shot lure is the main lure for minnow soft plastics. To help avoid confusion, the jighead minnow lure typically doesn’t use minnow soft plastics as jighead minnow lures typically use jerkbait soft plastics. This may change with the new popularity of the jighead minnow.

Poop/Scat

Poop/Scat soft plastic, also referred to as poop baits, or scat baits, or poop stick baits, or scat stick baits, or gravity baits, or heavy baits known as being heavier and denser than other soft plastics thus increasing fall rate.

Swimbait Soft Plastics

Swimbait soft plastics are soft plastics that mimic bait fish designed for soft swimbait lures.

Toad

Toad soft plastics are commonly known for toad lures featuring sinking solid plastic opposed to a typical frog lure that has a hollow body that floats. It also provides a unique lure action and can be used with a single or double hook.

Tube

Tube soft plastics are known for their somewhat unique tentacles.

Worm

Worm soft plastic is a soft plastic that mimics a worm. There are action worms for example the curly tail, ribbon tail, paddle tail, fork tail and there are subtle worm soft plastics for example soft stickbait, straight tail worm and the drop shot worm.

Additional Considerations

Common Sizes: Wide range of sizes from small insect soft plastic to very large worm soft plastics.
Distinguishing Features: Generally, but not always, the soft plastic mimics the name of the soft plastics, for example a worm soft plastic mimics a worm. When there isn’t an obvious category for the soft plastic based on features it is generally called a creature.
Enabled Lure Action: Soft plastics generally create or augment a soft bait lure or skirted lure action.
Lure Visibility: Generally more subtle soft plastics that more closely mimic forage for high lure visibility scenarios and larger profile with more appendages for low lure visibility scenarios.
Hook Size: Larger profile soft plastic lures used for soft baits require a larger size hook due to the thickness of the soft plastics impeding the hook set. Some have splits in the plastic that help reduce the interference of the soft plastic during the hook set.
Targeting Cover: Some soft plastics are better at targeting cover than others. Generally soft plastics without appendages.
Rigging: In general, there are the following ways to rig soft plastics, discussed in each lure type: texas-rigged, wacky rigged, carolina rigged, nose hooked, tex-posed or they will be rigged on some sort of jig head and fished open hook.
Drop-Shot Baits: Also called drop-shot soft plastics, is often a filter on a retailers site providing a sub-list of worms, minnow, leeches and in some cases jerkbait soft plastics commonly used for drop shot lures.