Soft plastics from our tackle box: a fluke, a floating worm and a flip-and-drop swimbait

Soft plastics are the bait most beginners buy first and learn last, because the same bag can be fished a dozen ways. These three come from our own tackle box and show three different jobs: a slim jerkbait that you twitch, a long worm that floats, and a wide, flat-sided sunfish that you drop into cover. What follows is how each is usually rigged and worked.

A soft jerkbait

A soft jerkbait: a slim, minnow-shaped body with a split tail.

A soft jerkbait is a thin, tapered body, here with a split tail, built to look like a small baitfish when it is twitched. The pack of this one reads "Better Than Salt" and "Bass love em" and carries a made-in-the-USA mark.

Rigging: most anglers push an offset hook through the nose, bring it out about a quarter inch back, and slide the bait up the hook. Bring the point back into the body to make it weedless. Check that it hangs straight, because a bait rigged off-center will spin or dart to one side.
Working it: cast, let it sink a moment, then twitch the rod tip two or three times and pause. Keep the line slightly slack on the twitch so the bait can dart. Most bites come on the pause or as the bait falls, so watch the line for a jump or a sideways drift.
Weight: fished with no weight, it sinks slowly and stays near the top. A light bullet weight or a small weighted hook gets it down and casts farther into wind.

A floating worm

A long, ringed floating worm with a smooth band near the middle.

The package calls this a "floating worm" and carries a "Heavy Salt" label. It is long and thin, with rings along its body and a smooth section in the middle. The material is lighter than water, so the worm stays up when you fish it without a weight, and it wiggles with every twitch.

Rigging: an offset worm hook, with the point buried back in the worm so it slides through cover. Our hook guide covers the offset and extra-wide-gap hooks that suit this.
A guide quoted by Mississippi Sportsman (2018) fished weightless worms on a medium-heavy rod with braid on the reel and a 3 to 6 foot, 20 lb fluorocarbon leader tied with a uni-to-uni knot, using a 4/0 extra-wide-gap hook. He added a small split shot to the leader when he wanted the bait to sink faster.
Working it: he casts next to cover, lets the worm sink a few seconds, then twitches it twice and pauses a long time, with bites often coming on the fall. A bite can feel spongy, so he lifts the rod gently to check for weight before the next twitch. His examples were summer bass in clear water around sparse vegetation, so use that as a starting point and not a Texas schedule.

A flat-sided sunfish swimbait

A sunfish-colored swimbait, three to a pack. The header reads "Flip. Drop. Shake."

This one is a wide, flat-sided body with a molded tail and painted bars on its side, built to look like a small sunfish. The pack calls it the Panorama 5.0 in the Live Sunfish color, three to a pack, and its header reads "Flip. Drop. Shake."

Flip: a short underhand lob that places the bait softly into cover from close range. Keep the line short, the rod low and the bait on a controlled swing.
Drop: let it fall on a controlled line. A flat body drops slower than a round one and tends to glide, and most bites come as it falls, so watch the line for a twitch or a stop.
Shake: hold it in place and tremble the rod tip, so the tail and fins shiver without the bait moving forward. It is a way to keep it in front of a fish that has seen it.
Rigging, from the maker: 6th Sense says the Panorama comes in sizes from 2 inches to 9 inches, and that each size has its own use. For the 5 inch size, its guide names five ways to rig it. Fish it Texas-style around grass, docks, brush and shallow cover on a light worm weight for a slow glide, or on a heavier weight in deeper cover, or on a keel-weighted hook to swim it flat. Add it as the trailer on a bladed jig or a buzzbait, rigged perfectly straight so the lure tracks, with a small drop of super glue where the bait meets the head. Put it on a swimbait jig head to swim it toward a fish you can see on forward-facing sonar. Or, in the larger sizes, rig it weightless on a big keel-weighted hook and fish it like a flutter spoon.
On a jig head the maker says one of the best retrieves is to let it hit bottom and sit, and that dead-sticking it can win over fish that follow without biting. This is the maker's advice, and it covers bass fishing in general, not Texas lakes in particular.

More shapes from our tackle box

Soft plastics come in a few basic body shapes, and the shape tells you how the bait is meant to move. A tail that curls waves as the bait is pulled or falls. A paddle tail kicks side to side when you reel it. Claws and legs flare out and flutter as the bait sinks, so it is a common choice for fishing near the bottom around cover, and a V-shaped split tail on a trailer adds movement to a jig. Each of these needs only a hook, and sometimes a weight, to fish.

Rigged on a hook

Texas-rigged curly-tail worm: The hook goes in through the nose and the point is turned back into the body, so no point shows and the worm slides through cover.
Paddle-tail shad: A shad-shaped body with a flat tail that kicks when you reel it, with the hook mounted on its back.

Craws and trailers

Creature bait: A bait with two long claws and a ribbed body. The claws flare as it sinks.
Craw and ribbed bait: A craw with raised claws and legs, and a smaller ribbed body beside it.
Jig trailer: A trailer with a V-shaped split tail, sold to go on the back of a jig for extra movement. The pack in our box says Zoom Super Chunk.

Jig heads for small soft plastics

A jig head is a hook with a lead head molded on it, and a small one turns a thin soft plastic into a simple rig. You push the bait onto the shank until the head of the bait meets the lead. The two here have a round head with a painted eye, a short collar with a barb, called a bait keeper, that holds the plastic on the shank, and a line tie at the top of the head. Small, light jig heads are the usual choice for finesse rigs such as the Ned rig. Our tackle page has the Ned rig and the sizes that go with it.

Small jig head: A lead head with a hook. The line ties to the eye on top of the head.
The bait keeper: The small barbed collar just behind the head grips the plastic so it does not slide down the hook.

Storing and disposing of soft plastics

Keep each style and color in its own bag. Soft plastics can stick to or soften other plastics, including some tackle trays, so they can melt together in a hot box.
The swimbait pack carries a California Proposition 65 warning and says to wash your hands after handling and keep the product out of the reach of children. Follow it, and wash before you eat.
The same pack asks anglers to "leave our fisheries cleaner than you found them." A used or torn soft plastic does not belong in the water, so keep a small bag for the pieces and take them with you.

Keep reading

This is general information. We read two outside pages for this guide (named below), and the rest is standard technique and what the packages say. Rules for lures and hooks vary by water, so check TPWD's Outdoor Annual.

Related guides

For more reading, we suggest these articles

Mississippi Sportsman: how to use weightless worms to catch more bass (Andy Crawford, September 15, 2018) (checked 2026-10-21)
6th Sense Fishing: The Panorama, the ultimate rigging guide (the maker, May 8, 2026) (checked 2026-10-21)

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