Spring 2025
page 64
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There is also the opportunity to make your own, and any chunk of soft plastic will do, including segments of your favorite soft stick bait. Insert a few strands of skirt material with the help of a sewing needle; the possibilities are endless for what you can make. This is a great chance to experiment with this style of lures without spending big money. Creating a pile of these baits can be done in minutes, likely with items in your tackle collection right now.
THREE WAYS TO FISH THEM
These unique baits can be fished in several ways, and they all work. One of the simplest ways is to replace them on a wacky-rig hook and fish them weightless as you would with any other soft plastic or insert a nail weight to get them to fall faster. You can do the same with a drop-shot rig, and replacing your standard worm with one of these baits will give you a completely different look. Your rig looks like a skirted rubber jig floating above the bottom at whatever length you choose between your hook and weight.
The other option is to fish them on a Jika Rig, a hook with an attached weight that allows you to fish along the bottom, either dragging it along like a jig or slowly hopping it. This gives it a jig profile, but the unique shape and action of the soft plastic make it stand out.
No matter how you decide to fish them, they work and show the bass something different than a standard soft plastic worm, which they are used to seeing daily. The added skirt materials give the bait a unique and flowing action that falls slowly and quivers with every rod movement.
WHEN AND WHERE TO USE THEM
There is no wrong place to fish these lures, but they excel in certain situations,
such as tough
fishing conditions or
pressured fisheries.
They do well because
they do not look
like other standard
baits, and although
these baits do not
imitate any common
bass forage, they are
different enough to
interest bass. The
uniqueness factor
can be seen when
casting to fish on
forward-facing sonar,
and the curiosity of
bass is on full display
as most fish will come to inspect the bait right away, and more times than not, they will bite when they get close enough.
Other prime situations for these baits are shallow fish right before or after spawning. This approach has been used in several professional bass tournaments for anglers targeting spooky post-spawn smallmouth bass in clear water. The early August 2024 Bass Pro Tour on New York’s St. Lawrence River featured many bass still in shallow water after the spawn, and several anglers utilized these baits to succeed around shallow grass. The tournament was won in deeper water, but Michael Neal’s homemade “fuzzy” baits on a drop-shot were the winning lure at the smallmouth mecca.
These baits are also great for sight fishing, whether casting to cruising bass or casting to spawning bass. The unique look and wavering action are tantalizing to bass that do not know what to think of the unusual lures, and while smallmouth are especially susceptible to these baits, they work great for largemouth, too.
Fishing “fuzzy dice” lures is a new way to catch bass and is part of a never-ending stream of new baits from Japan. They may look silly, but they are serious bass catchers and worth a shot if you want to show the bass something different. This may be a new trend, but as well as they work, it may be the start of something here to stay in the fishing industry. •