Ten top producing plastic worms, creature baits and swimbaits.




The pro staff ofFishhound.com and Dan Johnson compiled the following list of 10 top-producing plastic worms, creature baits and swimbaits. Berkley Havoc Devil Spear The 4-inch Devil Spear sports a ridged, spear-shaped tail that flaps and vibrates wildly on the fall. It also features a streamlined body, with no appendages to catch the cover. Beefy enough to handle a 4/0 or 5/0 hook, it's great Texas-rigged, flat, with a bullet weight pinned to the nose. You can also rig it sideways as a swimbait, on a 1/8- to 1/4-ounce, belly-weighted hook. Berkley Powerbait Power Worm Berkley's foot-long behemoth trails a long, sickle-shaped tail, which produces plenty of commotion. Coupled with the extended profile, it makes the bait a hit for attracting bass in muddy or stained waters. Bruiser Baits Intruder The Bruiser's 4¼-inch Intruder is noteworthy for its wispy, supple arms and flexible pinchers, which tremble and flutter with the slightest twitch of the rod tip. In side-by-side tests against similar baits, the Intruder's action put it on the A-list of craw-style baits. Jackall Clone Gill At 2 ½ inches, Jackall's Clone Gill mimics a deep-bodied baitfish. Eight color options include four realistic renditions of juvenile sunfish in various color phases, along with baby bass, black crappie, and two shad patterns. The detailed paint jobs make it ideal for clear water, particularly when pressured bass have time to scrutinize the bait. Recommended riggings include nose-hooking--either on a drop-shot rig with a light-wire hook, or pinned on a small jighead. Trigger X Hodad This tube-creature hybrid has gotten its share of press for flipping, pitching and Carolina-rigging. It's also great for drop-shotting for post-spawn bass on a VMC SpinShot hook. If you keep it moving, even ever-so-slowly, the Hodad stretches horizontally, with its long, gangly appendages flickering in its wake. Yamamoto Senko Thanks to the bait's ingenious design and density, it falls slowly, yielding subtle shimmies and flutters on the drop that bass find hard to resist. Not the best bait for straining water in search of fish, the Senko is deadly for surgical strikes around cover and other ambush points. While the Senko excels when fished weightless, you can also add screw-in weights of up to ¼-ounce for fishing brushy cover or depths to 20 feet. YUM F2 Dinger The Dinger was recently improved with the infusion of YUM's new F2 attractant. Fish attractants aside, one of the key secrets to the Dinger's success is its unique action on the fall. Wacky rigged, you get a subtle, dampened action on the tips--a bit more subdued than that of higher-action stickworms--that triggers strikes from even gun-shy bass. YUM Money Minnow For 2013, it's available in 2½-, 3½-, 5- and 6½-inch sizes and 14 color patterns, for matching most any bass forage and fishing conditions. Always a threat in clear water, the Money Minnow is amazingly versatile--able to be rigged and fished in ways limited only by your imagination. Z-Man ElaZtech Toobz These 4-inch tubes float, horizontally, so you can fish them as topwaters--crawling them over weedmats and pausing in open pockets without fear of fouling. But perhaps most important, is when you slide one on a jig or rig it Texas-style, you get a head-down, tail-up orientation that mimics an agitated crayfish. C-rigging is another option, also aided by the bait's determination to rise above bottom. Zoom Baby Brush Hog A craw-lizard-worm creature that defies pigeonholing into one category or presentation, it's dynamite for a number of bass tactics. It excels when rigged Carolina-style, weightless on a small weedless hook, and as a jig trailer. Especially impressive is the way the curly tail appendages corkscrew through the water, even at slow speeds. At 4 inches, it offers all the action of the original 6-inch Brush Hog, with a bit smaller profile, perfect for tough bites and skittish bass. Dan did a great job, but we all have other soft plastics in our tackle bag that are just as good, or better. The list of soft tackle baits is growing all the time. Put together your own top 10 list of your favorite soft plastics.




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Fishing Report from TPWD (Apr. 23)

GOOD. Water slightly stained; 74 degrees; 0.22 feet above pool. Crappie are fair to good on brush piles in 12-15 feet of water around docks. Bass are fair around shallow cover. Catfish are excellent on retaining walls and shallow cover where shad are spawning.

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