If you walk down the aisle of a tackle store, navigating the soft plastics section can be daunting to even the most experienced angler. It is a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, colors, and scents. How do you make sense of it all? Once you settle in on some packages of plastic lures, then you have to figure out how you’re going to rig them as you stroll down the hook aisle. You ask for help and you wonder whether or not the salesman really knows what they’re talking about.

It’s enough to make you abandon your shopping cart and run screaming out of the store. This article from Wired2Fish breaks down the mystery of fishing with soft plastics.

soft-plastic-baits-for-bass-fishingThe best way to develop your feel for bites is by bassfishing with soft plastics. It requires patience to fish with these lures generally speaking because you have to feel the fish pick up or bite the lure, often when it’s not moving. There won’t be a big splash like a topwater or a hard tug like a crankbait. And knowing which plastic to use for different situations for bass fishing will eliminate a lot of wasted time on the water.

This category could take ages to explain so we’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. Soft plastics are essentially combinations of salt, plastic, sand, glitter, and coloring shaped and formed into anything that can be perceived to be alive by a bass. There is an amazing array of colors, shapes and sizes when it comes to soft plastics and there are hundreds of different types plastics available.

Photos: Wired2Fish