Soft plastics

Moulded soft baits fished on the hook you choose — the largest, most situational lure class, classified below by shape and purpose.

Also known as: Soft Plastic · soft plastics · plastics · worms · creature baits · soft baits

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

Soft plastics are moulded PVC or elastomer baits fished on a hook you choose — offset, jighead, drop shot, wacky — which is why they are the largest and most situational class in the box: the same worm rides a Texas rig into cover and a drop shot into deep clear water. What a soft bait is for is decided by its shape: the tail sets the action (paddle thumps, fork darts, straight does nothing until you shake it), the body sets the profile and fall, and the size sets finesse against power.

Compared to a hardbait, a soft plastic covers water slowly and has no flash, but it goes through cover, holds still in front of a pressured fish, and costs little to lose. Compared to a jig, it is smaller, subtler and rigs a dozen ways.

The taxonomy below is the real content of this page: eight categories, each split into the types anglers actually buy, with what every type is designed for and how it is rigged and worked.