All soft plastics outing- what are you rigging up

[TOXIC]

Depends on where I am fishing but it’s really easy for me to only fish plastics and there’s a lot of days I do.  There’s so many rigging options for plastics, you can mimic most any hard bait.  My 5 would be:

 

1. Senko 

2. Dropshot

3. Ned

4. swimbait

5. fluke

 

[TnRiver46]

23 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

  I'm not talking about just throwing a texas rigged worm all day

Dang it, there goes my answer 

[Chris Catignani]

Senko

Beaver

Ned

Slider

[gim]

2 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Dang it, there goes my answer 

 

I think you should do the opposite of the OP.  Toss nothing but a fast, moving lure like a spinnerbait for an entire outing.  Don't even bring anything else with.

[TnRiver46]

Just now, gimruis said:

 

I think you should do the opposite of the OP.  Toss nothing but a fast, moving lure like a spinnerbait for an entire outing.  Don't even bring anything else with.

I do that all the time! Fruitless 

[Bird]

I believe if you only ever fished soft plastics, you'd always be catching fish.

 

Senko

Keitech easy shiner 

Ned

Speed craw

DS Roboworm 

[Chris Catignani]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I do that all the time! Fruitless 

I bet if you went (drifted) down the bank with a small white buzz bait...it would be on!

[DougHall_NY]

5" Senko

Rage Tail Space Monkey

Fat Ika

Keitech Swing Impact Fat

Rage Tail Craw

 

6'6" MHF Spinning

7' MHF Baitcasting

[QUAKEnSHAKE]

6 hours ago, BrianMDTX said:

I’ve done it before. By removing the thought process of which bait types to try, it’s kinda peaceful lol. 
 

Unless you bring 15 types of soft plastics! 

I think I do have at least 15 different ned rig baits. I made a purchase on TW getting one package of each ned bait listed, that interested me.

[RDB]

For me, a lot would depend on the water clarity.  I just rigged up some rods for a trip tomorrow to a lake that is pretty stained with some rock & shell beds.  For bottom contact I rigged:

   Carolina rig w/fluke

   Magnum shakey head w/10” power worm

   Tokyo rig w/creature bait

Only taking 2 spinning reels with a wacky and Neko rig.  

[Cbump]

1. Weightless t-rigged senko. Kind of a go to for me if there’s little wind. 
2. Weightless fluke

3. Wacky zoom finesse or trick worm with nail weight (for suspended fish around docks and such)

4. T-rigged 1/2 oz tungsten Zoom ol monster or UV speedworm

5. T-rigged 1/2-3/4 oz tungsten creature bait (take your pick)

6. Drop shot with roboworm 

 

 

I could catch fish here year round with that lineup. 

[casts_by_fly]

Just got home. It was a good night, learned a lot, got frustrated a lot, but overall good.  The lake had just been sprayed with weed killer in the past week and the fish were a bit ‘off’ from the people I talked to. That’s consistent with what happened at another nearby lake a couple weeks ago. This lake gets tons of milfoil on top of pondweed and tapegrass(eelgrass).  Last year the milfoil was matted or very close in anything less than 8’. There were good defined weed edges along the dropoffs.  That was the plan to fish, but almost all of the milfoil was gone leaving sparse bits of dying pondweed and some green flowing eelgrass. 

 

I actually fished all of the baits I had preplanned to fish plus one. The plan was to start with a toad and move to steadily slower baits until I figured them out. Well they were hitting the toad. With the weeds dying, the bass tucked up tight to shore in the remaining slop behind the bluegill beds. They were within the first foot of shore, so cast it onto shore and hop it out. That was the good bit. The frustrating bit was that it took a half dozen blowups before I stuck one good enough to get it back to the boat and even that one popped lose boatside. It took another half dozen before I put the toad down and fished something they would eat better. I went to a Texas rigged turbo fattyz (basically a magnum speed worm) in houdini and fished it in the eelgrass outside of the bluegill beds. A couple casts in a hit a 14” fish. As I was releasing him, I saw two muskies cruising about 50 yards away so I spent a half hour casting the big keitech (SIF 6.8).  One followed it back to the boat on the first cast but then no more. Both were 40”+ fish.  After casting for them for a while, the bass and everything else just seemed to disappear. Before that there were fish splashing in the shallows chasing fry and bluegills, there were bluegills eating bugs, and baitfish flopping out deep. After?  Dead zone. I went backwards over the same areas I fished once with the toad and pitched the fattyz, a fluke, a beaver to the clumps and some brush, and I even threw a big Texas rig straight worm.  Areas that had fish the first pass had nothing moving or eating. I went back to the toad to see if I could even find a few and lost a good one. It ate it, I gave it a two count to take up slack, and railed back on it. I had her for a couple seconds, enough to feel the weight and a hard head shake.  Then nothing but grass. Definitely a better fish, probably 3 lb or so. At that point I decided to test the ‘all plastic’ rule and put on a yappa frog. It’s still plastic so technically within the rules even if not in the spirit of the rules. I only had it because it’s in the same box as the toads. I had to know if it was the fish, my equipment, the toad, or me. It only took two casts to find out with a double nose hooked fish. I left shortly after.

 

so what I learned tonight. 
 

• if I am going to continue to fish toads, I need to work on a few things. I fished it on both my mh and heavy rods, the heavy with braid.  The mh wasn’t enough rod with mono on it.  It casts and fishes great but there wasn’t enough to drive the hook home I don’t think.  The heavy is a great rod (falcon expert amistad) but doesn’t cast an unweighted zoom horny toad well enough. It bombs fine, but for short, accurate casts it isn’t there. A lightly weighted hook might do it.  I used a 3/8 oz weighted hook a bit since that’s what the keitech was on, but that’s too much for a toad. Bait monkey says I should think about a new rod, but my brain says fish a frog instead.
   
• A Texas rig fishes well as a search rig.  I would never use a Texas rig in that scenario. I would use a chatterbait or a swim jig. In this case, the fattyz fished through the grass pretty well. Some fine tuning and I could see fishing through a patch with the jig and come back through with a Texas rig fished just a little slower. I need to play more with pegged vs not pegged weight in different places. I have always pegged in the past but the fattyz was unpegged and since the water was clear I could watch it in the shallows and see how the bait reacted. 
   
• i need to fish a fluke more. I didn’t catch anything on it tonight but I didn’t fish it hard. I tried it fishing back through where fish were chasing earlier and it just looks so good in the water. 
   
• sunline supernatural is pretty awesome mono. I picked up some 12 lb for fishing topwaters and finesse jigs. The 12# is really thin, similar to red label 10 lb Fluoro.  It was super limp though and cast incredible. I’m going to pick up some a little thicker and try it. 
   

Will I do an all plastics day again?  Probably not. It was a good experiment and I learned some things. When I’m fishing through some stuff I’ll think more about different things. A Texas rig for more than spot flipping for instance. I’ve still got work to focus on Ned, wacky, and shaky head setups. I had the spinning rod with a Ned tonight and made a couple casts, but I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe if it was a baitcaster.

[TOXIC]

So what would you have thrown instead of the plastics?

[BayouSlide]

Interesting exercise I guess, but when I go out I take every type of bait I think will work on that water. Plastics will always be a portion of that mix, but I would never rely totally on them.

 

I like the challenge of trying new techniques as much as the next guy, but find bass fishing difficult enough even with a full quiver of arrows. ?

[casts_by_fly]

1 hour ago, TOXIC said:

So what would you have thrown instead of the plastics?

i would have thrown a frog instead of toad to start and had a buzzbait on a side rod for the edges of the slop and where there wasn’t slop.  I’d have had a chatterbait instead of the Texas rig. Bass were chasing fry and bluegills in the shallows so Im sure they were on the deeper edges of the bluegill beds. Given how thin the grass was in places, I might have thrown a squarebill where I’d have thrown the chatterbait. 

[casts_by_fly]

Well, I know I said I wasn’t going to do this again, but I’m going to do it again. Probably even the same lake. I fished this lake a good few times last year after the plastics outing and have a pretty good read on the lake. It’s about a half hour away and only 50 acres so it’s a great evening spot. It also has a bunch of fish in it. The fish that are there are pretty healthy and thick for their length.  I’ve landed bass to almost 4# there and seen a few that were bigger. There are also a bunch of 2-3# fish.

the plan last time was solid, but with a couple learnings from the night and some more from other trips to the lake and I have a new plan.
 

Since I love topwaters in the evening, I’m still going to have a toad of some type on. The failing last time was hooksets. This time around I have a different rod plus I will probably throw a billy goatz which has a lot less body to push a hook through.

 

Swim jigs were the ticket last year on this lake. I’m definitely going to have a skirted punch weight in front of a chunk of plastic.

 

I fished a soft jerk bait last year but didn’t put enough time into it. They are super fun to fish and can cover a lot of water.  The grass should be grown up but not too thick yet so if fish are chasing it could be a good option. 
 

im going to commit a rod to an unweighted senko. I never fish one even though I know they work. A Texas rigged senko comes through grass easily. So it’s going to get some time. 
 

I also have a spinning rod to go with me.  I have weedless Ned options in the box.  And, I’m sure there are fishing in the low height eelgrass out deep that I may be able to pick up on live imaging. 
 

if all goes well, I might be able to make this trip tomorrow, so let’s see how it goes. 
 

thanks

rick

[Jar11591]

Wacky Senko or Dinger 

T-rigged Rage Bug

Keel weighted Rage Swimmer

Drop shot w/ Z Man Finesse Shadz

T-Rigged Culprit 10” ribbon tail 

[casts_by_fly]

5 hours ago, Jar11591 said:

Wacky Senko or Dinger 

T-rigged Rage Bug

Keel weighted Rage Swimmer

Drop shot w/ Z Man Finesse Shadz

T-Rigged Culprit 10” ribbon tail 

 

I'm 60% of the way there on this one.  I have a dinger (texas rigged), the rage bug as decribed, and a paddle tail on a 'swim jig' using a punch weight with a skirt.  And the soft jerkbait is keel weighted to fish it fast (I can swap it for a paddle tail sans skirt easily enough).  A dropshot might play, but this lake has so much grass and next to no rock/gravel that I'm not sure on that one.  

[Pat Brown]

Net Bait C Mac in redbug with a 3/8 oz pegged tungsten sinker and a 3/0 worm hook.

 

Missile Baits D Bomb in GP3 with a 3/8 oz pegged tungsten sinker and a 3/0 EWG.

 

Weightless senko either whacky or tex style.

 

Keel weighted 3/0 Berkley fusion hook with a shad colored 4-5 inch swimbait trailer.  I like the Gambler EZ and the X Zone Swammer a lot.

 

Zoom Horny Toad in a green pumpkin/chartreuse laminate on a screw lock not weighted Berkely fusion hook.

 

I reckon I could catch some fish.

[Siebert Outdoors]

My go to right now.

My Tungsten Flipping weight 3/8 with an Owner CPS Flipping hook and a Dbomb in a green pumpkin.

Second is a Dredge Shaky head in 1/4oz with a green pumpkin purple gold Rage Menace.

[galyonj]

I fish like this a lot lately. You can tell I'm getting frantic for a bite if I start tying on plugs.

 

- ned rig

- shaky head (which, really, is just a big ned rig)

- neko rigged worms (see above, just a big ned rig)

- unweighted t-rigged or wacky-rigged stick worms

- unweighted t-rigged finesse worms or trick worms

[ScottW]

Weightless fluke in baby bass

Frog

Roboworm (nose hooked, weedless)

Wacky rigged Yum Dinger

Coon tail worm on a jig (Big Bite Baits)

—

The above is what works best plastic-wise on our pond.

[JediAmoeba]

1. 6" Senko wacky rigged

2. Magnum Rage Bug t-rigged

3. 10-12" worm on a c-rig

4. Gajo Spirit Shad dropshot

5. Trash Fish on a 1/2 oz 8/0 beast hook 

[KP Duty]

On 6/16/2022 at 12:56 PM, Chris Catignani said:

Senko

Beaver

Ned

Slider

Slider FTW...it is a post spawn dynamo.

[Susky River Rat]

I can cut you down to one. Ned rig with a tickler or worm.