Bob Smith
bob@bassinbobs.com
Pensacola Blue
Angels
Bass Page
hook.
com
"BOBS LOCAL RIVER REPORTS"
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HOW DO YOU FISH A PLASTIC WORM
Everyone does things differently. Even when you and your partner are fishing the same bait, same line, same everything, you fish differently. More times than not this is the primary reason why one fisherman will outfish the other from the same boat.
How do you fish a plastic worm? What follows are simply my opinions and the way I fish soft plastic worms.
After reading this you may pay a little more attention to exactly you are fishing the worm. You may even try it this way.
After casting to my selected target I let the worm fall to the bottom. Very important here is that I feed line while the bait is falling. I have to be a line watcher on the initial drop since the line is slack. By feeding line manually the bait falls as close to vertically as possible. If you tight line your bait down, so you can feel strikes, your bait will usually swing back towards you and out of the strike zone.
Once on bottom I’ll let the worm sit a momentarily. Then, slowly, I will lift the rod tip about a foot or so, and let the bait slide forward until it touches bottom again.
Next reel up the slack, pause a few seconds and repeat the lift and slide back to the boat, or until you are reasonably sure you have taken the bait from the strike zone.
I seem to catch more bass with my lift and slide than with the traditional hopping motion. When the bass are real aggressive I may still hope the worm, but if they are that aggressive I will probably be throwing something other than a worm at them. But, when the fish are sluggish or just plain uncooperative, the lift and slide usually does the trick. I'll fish any Texas rigged soft plastic bait this way: worms, craws,etc., even tubes.
Another point to mention is hooksets when using soft plastics. You may have heard someone say, or said yourself, that you were "waiting for him [thefish] to take it good".
What exactly does this mean? Does a bass have hands?
No, of course not. Well then the bait is in its mouth and the time
to set the hook is as soon as you feel the strike! You may miss a few fish,but I would be willing to bet that your hookup ratio increases.
While we are on the subject of setting the hook I'd like to pass along a little bit of a trick to help get better hooksets, especially when using thick bodied baits. It is real simple: After burying the point into the body, push it out the other side and then pull it back. Now, when you set the hook, it doesn't have to go through the plastic before it goes into the fish. Result: more bass hooked.
Lastly, again this is all still my observation and opinion, how hard do you set your hook? I snap back like every bite is a ten pounder! Sure I have sent a few small fish flying over the bow, but I have also avoided (I think) loosing some very good bass.
Next time you're on the water and fishing a worm, experiment a little between these methods and what you usually do.
See if applying any of my tricks will help you boat more bass.
I would be interested in knowing your results.
Let Me Know How You Do,
Bob
