When fishing with plastic worms and plastic crawfish (crawdads)?

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I do not remember how to freshwater fish anymore, seeing that I am used to saltwater. How do you use plastic worms and such? Do you let them sit or keep reeling them back in? If keep reeling back in, is there some special method to doing so?

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  • With plastic worms, you do not generally just let them sit, except in one exception called “Dead Sticking”, which is generally used to tick-off of bass into biting by just letting the bait sit on their bed until they try and move it. Generally though, keep the bait moving. With curly or twisty tail worms, you should rig them with a bullet weight. Use a light weight to swim a thick-twister tailed worm for a good vibration and snaking/swimming action. This can often be a good substitute for a spinnerbait due to it’s subtlety, but still with plenty of vibration. You can use a heavier bullet weight and hop these worms along the bottom as well. My favorite worm fishing, however, is with straight tail worms, like a Zoom Trick Worm. By rigging them weightless, they have a tantalizing slow fall with a wobble. Let it sink to the bottom, and just twitch it back in, moving it about 2′ at a time. When you twitch, the worm rises off the bottom and darts to the side, and then wobbles as it sinks back down. This is definitely my “confidence bait”. Soft plastic crawfish are easier; I generally slip a jighead into the hollow cavity and hop them along the bottom (in the case of the Yum Soft Craws). Other crawfish imitations are meant to be texas-rigged with a bullet weight, but the retrieve is the same; just hopped along the bottom. If you want you can carolina-rig the latter-style crawfish baits, but I generally try and avoid the Carolina any time I have to actually work and retrieve a bait, as it is hard to feel what is happening under water.
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  • There are several ways to fish either baits. You could use “Wacky Rigs”, Jigging, Texas Rig, and many other styles. You should be able to remember once you get back out there. It really depends on the waters and the structure you’re fishing, conditions, clarity, etc.

  • Rudy gave a hell of an explanation (thumb up for that)… but he forgot to mention another popular way of rigging plastics; the drop shot rig.

    The drop shot is a finesse rig that is used for light line and small plastics. When I’m using it with a casting rod, I use no more than 8 pound line and a round 1/4 ounce drop shot sinker. With spinning gear, I use no more than 6 pound line and a round 1/8 ounce drop shot sinker. On either type of rod, I’ll use anything from a 1 1/2 inch drop shot bait all the way to a 6 inch Roboworm with the sinker a foot to 18 inches below the hook. Depending on the size of the plastic, I’ll use a size 6 drop shot/octopus style hook to a 2/0 offset shank worm hook.

    I cast it out and let it sink then jiggle the rod tip, giving the worm as much or as little action as possible.

    Source(s):
    -B

  • how the heck does one “forget” how to fish?

  • yes…….lol.

    the answer is both. you usually drag and twitch it along the bottom, stopping occasionally. sometimes i let them sit for 45 seconds before giving them a little twitch. sometimes im fishing a very narrow piece of cover and i only give it a twitch or two before reeling it in a trying another spot. in any case, the idea is to make it look like a critter crawling and working his way over obstacles. i get lots of bites when i pull them over tree branches.

    there are lots of soft plastic designs and some are meant to be fish quickly. but worms and crawdads as you have described them are meant to be fished slowly on the bottom.

  • For crawdad lures bump them along a rocky bottom

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