Soft jerkbait (fluke, fork tail)

A fork-tail minnow with no action of its own: it darts left and right when you twitch it and dies when you stop — the soft plastic for fish chasing shad and shiners.

Soft plastics are the biggest family in bass fishing: 36 shapes, each designed for a rig, a depth and a mood.

• Shape = design purpose: fish, worm, craw, creature, tube, frog
• Finesse tier vs power tier: the same shape at 3.5 in and 7 in is two different techniques
• Tail type decides the action; body decides the fall
• Rig it the way it was designed to be rigged

1. What it is — A slim, slightly flattened minnow body with a forked tail and a belly slot for an offset hook. It has zero built-in action; everything comes from the rod, which is…
2. Designed for — Bass feeding on baitfish in the top 1.5 m (5 ft): schooling fish, post-spawn cruisers over grass, fish that blow up on topwater and miss. Weightless and Tex-posed it…
3. Trade-offs — Hard to feel in wind, useless deep. The 3-3.5 in size on a light-wire 3/0 is a finesse bait for clear water and smallmouth; the 5-7 in on a 5/0-6/0 is a power bait for…