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by Steve Quinn
"Ahhh, the smell of PowerBait
in the morning," crooned In-Fisherman Director Al Lindner as he tore
open a pack of his favorite plastics. He hooked the bait and fired a
cast that splashed down and dropped into a small weedy point on an
underwater bar. Two taps later, the morning was off to a fine start.
Al throws a variety of soft plastics, but he always has a sackful of Berkley's latest baits in his boat anytime bass are in the vicinity. Berkley, of course, is a longtime sponsor of In-Fisherman Television, and the need to film a hot bite may arise at an hour's notice.
But from an unbiased viewpoint, Al credits the Spirit Lake company with revitalizing the plastics industry. "The initial release of PowerBait in 1988 put the squeeze on all soft plastics producers. They began working on flavor and scent products that could be cooked into the plastisol, like the PowerBait formula. And PowerBait raised the stakes in producing plastics for profit.
"When Power worms first appeared, they cost about twice as much as many other popular brands of plastics. Yet anglers lined up to buy them, after word of their initial success. This willingness to pay more for top merchandise mirrored what was happening with premium hooks. In 1985, few folks in the tackle industry could envision weekend anglers paying 25 cents for a worm and 50 cents for a hook.
"This inflation of price points allowed other manufacturers to produce novel shapes and colors, as well as flavors, knowing that avid bassers would buy them if they'd put more bass in the boat." In 1997, then, more than 40 years after the first soft worms hit the market, we see a renaissance of soft plastics, with several major trends every bass angler should be aware of.
Donnie Paul, president of Zetabait, notes that the soft plastic market has been a bit soft, due to the lack of an overriding hot lure style like the soft stickbait, grub, or lizard. "We're selling a little bit of everything with no dominant styles or colors," Paul says. "I see fluctuations, as mud puppy baits have dipped in popularity, while craws are on the rise again. Our Flappin' Dad, which was on the endangered species list, has shown strong sales lately, and we're adding a new Craw Raker."
"I see the plastics market returning to basics," says Bill Vaughn of V & M Baits. "We're selling more straight-tail worms than ever, a design that mirrors the earliest plastics. In the early days, though, the simple design was easiest to produce, and folks couldn't have conceived of today's variety. But now, anglers seek the natural appearance and subtle action of the plain worms, after bass seem to have become conditioned to the fancy stuff.
"The plastics industry has diversified in producing lots of sizes, styles, and colors because overall, bass anglers have become more versatile. They choose baits according to season, cover type, water color, and fishing pressure, so they must be well stocked. Anglers are familiar with a huge array of lures, and One-Method Petes have faded, both in the tournament scene and among weekend anglers.
"I've noticed, though, a rise in the popularity of banging the bank, particularly boat docks and other shoreline cover. This tends to be a big-fish pattern. Flipping, pitching, and skipping are in, and fewer anglers are working structure with Carolina rigs, jig worms, and other deep-water techniques.
"The popularity of deep or shallow-water fishing has shifted back and forth over the decades. And I expect that as more anglers target shallow bass, the fish will become more skittish, opening the door for anglers who stick to deep patterns. Maybe bass even shift their favorite types of habitat or depth preferences, according to fishing pressure."
FLAVORED BAITS
As Al Lindner noted, Berkley opened the flavored-bait market with the PowerBait formula that pumped the demand for flavored plastics. Of course, Nick Creme added anise to his straight-tail worms in the 1960s, and Tom Mann cooked his Jelly Worms in every flavor of berry and fruit under the sun. So anglers have long viewed flavors as important in catching bass. But Berkley thrust the industry into the scientific realm of the 1990s, with its amino acids and neurophysiological tests of bass response.
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FLAVORS
Any similarity to creatures living or dead is not coincidental," has become the credo of many plastics manufacturers seeking to create lures that fool bass into thinking they've mouthed the real thing. Some flavors have been changed to offend the innocent. |
Not to rest on their laurels, behavioral researcher Dr. Keith Jones and Berkley chemical engineer John Prochnow developed a new flavor formula. The classic PowerBait formula wouldn't mix with the clear types of plastisol used in many popular translucent colors of soft plastic baits embedded with colored flakes. Hence the NEONZ series of 11 colors available in 4-, 7-, and 10-inch worms, as well as grubs, lizards, craws, and tubes. The smell of a fresh pack contrasts with the old scent, and Al hasn't passed judgment yet. But the bass in Berkley's test tank reportedly gobble it up.
Other companies have developed attractive mixtures of amino acids and other substances not in the usual diet of bass. Mann's Bait Company concocted FS-454 several years ago and continues to fine-tune the formula, based on experiments by Duke University researchers on captive largemouths. The new Hank's Lizard and Hank's Worm contain FS-PROtein, a flavor reported to cause all bass tested to mouth it for at least 30 seconds.
Classic Manufacturing, makers of the Culprit line, have enlisted Dr.William Carr, renowned researcher in the field of chemoreception in fish, to devise flavors attractive to bass. Carr's tank tests at the University of Florida's Whitney Lab have shown that the motion of objects falling through the water triggers bass to bite, whether or not the object contains scents or flavor. And his tests demonstrate that flavors milking from natural food lying motionless on the bottom don't cause bass to bite.
The combination of enticing action and an attractive flavor cause bass to bite and hold, then swallow objects. The result is Classic's Burst Worm and Burst Lizard, with a hollow cavity that holds a feeding-stimulant gel. A 3/4-ounce tube of gel is packaged with the baits. When a bass strikes the lure, the substance squeezes out, causing the fish to savor the lure.
The idea behind flavoring plastics, of course, is to cause a fish to hold the lure longer, allowing more time for an angler to detect the bite, remove slack line, and set the hook. Underwater films show bass striking and ejecting a lure before the most watchful angler can set the hook. A demo tape from MegaBait depicts the ultimate in attraction, a bass boated on a plastic worm without benefit of a hook. In this demonstration, the angler takes four minutes to gingerly play the small fish to the surface, then pulls it into the boat where it coughs up the worm tied to the line.
Hibdon Outdoor Productions, makers of MegaBait. have enlisted the assistance of fish researcher Dr. Loren Hill in developing freeze-dried essences of natural prey to incorporate into their line of worms. The longer the bait soaks, the more dehydrated substance is released.
Based on the lasting popularity of pork rind, V & M Lures cooks pork fat into their popular line of plastics, including the V-Chunk, a new plastic "pork" trailer, shaped like the standard pork rind. Meanwhile, Bass Assassin has laced their baits with hog lard and added a "P Enzyme" for good measure.
Plastics maker Luck "E" Strike has added a new attraction formula to their Enforcer Series of lizards, tubes, French Frys, and Guido Bugs that includes flavors, scents, and salt. PRADCO also seeks to double-team bass by combining Gotta Bite artificial attractant and Real Craw, the only crawfish essence produced from crawfish. Researchers at Louisiana State and Florida State universities aided in the development of both products. The Gotta Bite formula was derived from a substance used by aquaculturists to enhance the feeding activity of catfish. The addition of Gotta Bite to standard feeds caused catfish to eat more and reach harvestable size faster. Pro anglers like Larry Nixon, George Cochran, and Mark Davis suggest it can affect bass similarly.
Meanwhile, manufacturers continue to inject salt into plastic baits and to apply it to still-soft hand-poured baits. When bass bite a salty bait, they may mouth it longer than an ordinary plastic, as the brine recalls the salty taste of preyfish or crayfish blood. For several years, Gene Larew has been solely licensed to inject salt but has allowed other companies to do so for a fee.
Late last year, however, Bob Carnes of Arkie Lures filed suit in federal court to free all makers from what he saw as an onerous burden. He won the case, but it has been appealed to a higher court. Judgment should be rendered soon.
Ironically, other manufacturers note a decline in consumer interest in salt. "Demand for salted baits has fallen off, in favor of flavored lures," says Bill Vaughn of V & M Lures. "Consider that lures from Berkley, the largest producer of plastics, have no salt."
SWIMMING BAITS
Soft plastics originally roamed the bottom terrain of lakes and reservoirs. A few, like topwater frogs and the Helicopter Lure, have functioned on top. And over the years, manufacturers like Burke and Mister Twister have invaded the mid-depths with minnow-body baits fished on jigheads, a style of lure that now has become popular from coast to coast.
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SWIM BAITS 
For schooling or suspended bass, try swim baits, a style of soft-plastic bait that's catching fish as never before. Most are rigged onto a leadhead, though Castaic Soft Lure Company's Sun Fish uses a crankbait-style lip and ballast to achieve lifelike action, and D.O.A. baits are centrally weighted to maintain an upright posture. |
When the first A.C. Plugs appeared, I asked about the origin of the big soft plastic tails that gave the big plugs their final wiggle. They came from California where Fish Traps and other massive plastic baits (full-size models measuring 9 or 10 inches) were fished for large marine species.
The big boot-tail baits can be fished fast to make the tail vibrate, then dropped back if a fish swipes and misses. And like other soft plastics, once a fish mouths the lure, it won't quickly reject it as it often does a plastic or metal bait. The transition to freshwater came as anglers targeted landlocked stripers in California reservoirs and began catching huge largemouths. This pattern, of course, mirrored the transition of the A. C. Plug and similar jointed wooden lures from striper baits to bass lures.
And as A. C. Plugs have scored giant bass in Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, and other reaches of the lunker zone, big plastic swimming baits also have done well when bass school on shad or when they strike and miss giant hard baits. In areas with more moderate-size largemouths, and where smallmouths thrive, medium-size and mini swim baits have scored as well. Match triangular heads weighing 1/8 to 3/8 ounce with smaller baits and heads to 1 ounce for slab-sided lures.
The hottest swim bait is Castaic Soft Bait Company's Sun Fish with a molded head and realistic plastic body. After success in southern California, it swept into Texas with rave reviews. Designer Ken Huddleston has just completed a 9-inch rainbow trout, and a 7-inch gizzard shad is in the works.
Like the Banjo Minnow, this lure type uses the lifelike texture of soft plastic to imitate the sinuous motion of baitfish. Randy Vance at Bass Pro Shops also reports fast sales of the Herman Shad, a bream-shape bait that rides on a ballhead jig.
Also included in the full article appearing in the March 1997 issue of In-Fisherman is the discussion of hand pours, big baits, mini baits, spider jigs, paddle-tail grubs, and plastic pork.
- Action Plastics, 205/856-9991
- Advanced Angling Technology (AA Worms), 909/676-6384
- Angler's Choice Custom Baits, 702/564-8811
- Arkie Lures, 501/751-7891
- Banjo Lures, 207/663-4466
- Bass Assassin Lures, 904/294-1049
- Bass Pro Shops, 800/BASSPRO
- Berkley, 800/BERKLEY
- Big Boy Baits, 801/635-2746
- Bobby Garland's Better Fishing Ways, 501/481-5363
- Charlie Brewer's Slider Co., 615/762-4700
- Canyon Plastics, 520/718-4824
- Carolina Fish & Fur, 800/527-0918
- Castaic Lure Co., 800/656-5873
- Charlie's Custom Lures, 509/884-4660
- Classic Fishing Products (Culprit Lures), 800/CULPRIT
- Burke Fishing Lures / Creme Lure Co., 903/561-0522
- D.O.A. Fishing Lures, 407/287-5001
- Eidolon Bait Co., 800/EIDOLON
- Fish Trap Lures, 619/273-6970
- Flying Lure, 941/255-0061
- Helicopter Lure, 800/844-5873
- Don Iovino's Custom Products, 818/848-6180
- Jawtec Worms, 214/552-9344
- Kalin Company, 619/344-2550
- Gene Larew's Tackle, 800/YES-SALT
- Luck "E" Strike USA, 417/847-3158
- Lunker City Fishing Specialties, 203/237-3474
- M & N Tackle, 507/367-4584
- Mann's Bait Co., 334/687-5716
- MegaBait, 888/MEGABAIT
- Mister Twister, 318/377-8818
- Mr. Wiffle Lures, 800/743-3764
- PRADCO (Riverside), 501/782-8971
- Preferred Plastics, 818/963-8296
- ReAction Lure Co., 318/256-9885
- Robo Worms, 805/498-2332
- Southern Lure Co., 601/327-4548
- Table Rock Bait & Tackle Co., 800/455-0142
- Tight Line Products, 800/820-FISH
- Touchdown Mfg., 812/591-2226
- V & M Bait Co., 800/762-8397
- Wisconsin Pharmacal, 800/558-6614
- Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, 800/792-2248
- Zetabait, 334/943-1902
- Zoom Bait Co., 706/548-1008
- Zorro Baits, 615/761-2295
