Soft plastic bait

Soft lures are available in a large range of colours, sizes and particularly shapes, and are typically impaled directly onto a fishing hook like an ordinary bait.

Designed to imitate bait fishes or other aquatic invertebrates (mostly worms) that are ubiquitous natural foods for carnivorous/omnivorous fishes, the realistic texture and versatility combined with simple and economical production, as well as the freedom from handling live baits and having to keep baits fresh in wet containers, has led soft lures to become a standard article of modern fishing tackle, frequently used in conjunction with a jighead or as part of a sophisticated rig design (e.g. the Texas and Carolina rigs).

Soft plastics found their origins in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with small worms and grubs being molded from hard rubber.

The stiff rubber used, as well as the basic shapes produced, did not allow the flexible action and effectiveness of modern soft plastics to be observed.

The Touchdown 6" Original was born with two hooks with naturally weedless weed guards and include a 12-inch leader with swivels and a sinker.

Methods vary according to the shape of the plastic used, however is it most often cast and retrieved with short, sharp jerky motions applied by the angler through flicking the fishing rod tip.

Soft plastics are also trolled and jigged in the same method as metal or hardbodied lures, and used as artificial baits in classic real-bait rigs.

Plastic worm
A typical "twister tail" worm, or " grub "
The Carolina rig , one of the various soft plastic fishing rigs and methods evolved through anglers targeting specific fish species.