In clear, shallow water, watch carefully when a fish starts tracking your lure. If the fish does not commit right away, make a change in the speed of your retrieve. Sometimes I stop and let the bait settle to the bottom, looking to a fish like prey trying to hide. Some fish take a bait sitting dead still on the bottom. Other times, they move in closer but continue to monitor it. If nothing happens after a few seconds, often all that is needed is the subtlest of twitches to cause a pickup. If the stop-and-drop technique doesn’t work, try speeding up your retrieve without all the twitching as if the bait is trying to escape. It might be now or never and this might induce the strike you have been trying to get.
This schoolie snook likely mistook this white jerkbait for a finger mullet.
If I am fishing deeper, my retrieve is s-l-o-w. With the added weight to get the lure down, I want to hop the bait off the bottom and swim it toward me a few inches at a time. Little twitches only, so that the lure doesn’t leap off the bottom and go three feet in the air. A couple of inches up and forward will do, letting it rest on the bottom after each hop. I vary the intervals so that hops occur every two or three seconds. The strikes are often not as explosive as they are in skinny water, but it is time to set the hook when you feel the tap.
When not sight fishing, I sometimes make an exception to the slow retrieval rule. I want to cover as much water as quickly as possible and identify where fish are holding. In this situation, I rig my soft-plastic lure with a bead in front of it as an added attractor and make the longest cast I can. I bring the bait back with a fast, steady retrieve. No twitches or working the lure. This technique will take only the most aggressively feeding fish, but remember you are searching for fish over the widest possible area. Once you get a strike, you can slow down and proceed to catch several of the more reluctant feeders.
There is a lot more to fishing soft plastics than you might assume by simply looking at one in its package. But when you master the techniques, the rewards are great. You can have the right type and size of bait with you at all times. If you or someone you know is having trouble with soft-plastic baits, try these rigging and retrieval techniques to make your soft-plastic lures come alive and complete the illusion. SWA
Above all, you want to ensure that the bait runs straight without corkscrewing through the water. The key here is reinserting your hookpoint into the bait correctly (top bait). It’s also important that the hook enters and exits the bait’s body on the axis it will be retrieved. For example, if you look at your lure from above while it’s in the water, imagine a spinal cord running through your soft-plastic bait. The hook must be inserted and brought out along the line where the spinal cord would be. If you get the hook off-center (bottom bait), the lure spins—putting twist in the line and possibly deterring strikes.
