How To Help Prevent Your Soft Plastic Lures From Tearing
- By: Tony Acevedo
- on
How can you prevent your soft plastic lures from tearing when out fishing?
Does it have anything to do with how you rig soft plastics on hooks?
After watching this video, you might rethink how you rig your soft plastic lures next time!
Take a look!!
How To Help Prevent Your Soft Plastic Lures From Tearing [VIDEO]
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Changing out lures because they get torn up out on the water is precious time wasted that you can be fishing as well as more money in soft plastic lures.
It comes down to how you are rigging your lures and what you are rigging them on.
Owner Weighted Twistlock Hooks help keep your lure secure at the nose and present a natural-looking bait.
The spring attached to the hook keeps your hook straight and secured on the hook.
It is without a doubt very important to make sure the spring twists right into the center of the lure.
If it is off to one side too much, the lure will not hold very well and it will often rip out of the side of the lure.
Make sure that when you twist the spring into the lure, the spring is not exposed and is fully embedded in the lure.
When you go to insert the hook through the soft plastic, you do not want that hook completely buried in the plastic.
If you do bury the hook within the lure when a fish strikes that lure it will rip the hook through the soft plastic.
Make sure the hook point comes out of the top of the body of the lure.
If you do not have to skin hook the point, let the hook lay flat along the back of the lure.
In order to keep the lure swimming straight, you want it to come out correctly.
You do not want the hook too far or too short in the lure.
If you do not have the hook straight, the lure will stretch or fall down the hook.
If needed, you can barely skin hook the plastic to make it fully weedless.
This will prevent any plastic from tearing if a fish strikes while keeping it weedless.
Jigheads VS. Weedless Hooks
Another reason to choose Owner Weighted Twistlock Hooks is that they do not have barbs like jigheads.
Jighead barbs take chunks out of soft plastics especially if the lure is constantly sliding over the barbs.
After getting strikes you have to repeatedly reset your soft plastic lure over the barbs.
This tears up the nose of the lure rendering it useless.
If you are using a jighead, there is a way to extend the life of your soft plastic lures.
You can cut off the very nose of the lure each time it tears away.
If you cut off the torn-away pieces of the lure, you still have the rest of the body to use on a hook.
Do you have any further questions about extending the life of your soft plastic lures?
Let me know down in the comments!
And if you know someone who wants to learn more about protecting your soft plastic lures, please TAG or SHARE this with them!
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Good stuff Tony! I love the ZMan Slam shady those things are indestructible but a pain in the rear end to rig on jig heads. OTL can be a challenge as well but once you get it you’re ready to rock. Thank you sir.
Thank you for the great feedback Stan! Yep Zman can be a bit of a pain to rig. If you use a lighter to slightly heat up the hook and barbs (holding the jighead with pliers) it helps the plastic go on easier. When it cools down it locks in place.
Good info Tony. I love those OTL. For some reason I still struggle rigging up the trout eye jigs. Usually takes me two tries to get it right and end up tearing up the plastic in the process.
Thank you for the great feedback Mario!
Yeah those jigs have some pretty big barbs on them. I typically use the Saltwater Assassin Pro Elite jig heads. The barbs are a little smaller and easier to work with.
Just curious if anybody is saving all of their old slam shadies, bombers and leprechauns and remelting and pouring new baits out of them? I have no interest in that but I would save my old worn out baits for someone who is into that.
Love the tips. Keep them coming.
That is definitely a great idea if you have the tools to do so!
BTW, an old bassin’ trick is to use a dab of superglue on those jig barbs right before you impale the plastic. Hold the connection for a few seconds, and your soft plastic will never slide off. It will literally get slashed to bits before you ever need to re-rig it. That’s how every soft plastic wants to die…
this^^^
I use the tiniest drop of loctite gel under the barbs on the jig head when I’m threading on the tail. It keeps the tail from slipping down over the barbs and significantly increases the life of the plastic. And when it’s time to replace the tail, it is also often a good time to trim back wear and tear on the leader and re-tie. When fishing I keep several pre-rigged/glued tails in my favorite colors within easy reach, and deal with careful threading of the tail and the gluing at the house.
Great tip John!
While I agree that most tears are a result of improper rigging I have experienced quite a few from the spieces that hit it with doctor juice..not a plug it just works. Today I had a tail ripped off, so I slowed my retrieve and got slammed. Unfortunately it missed my trout head jigs hook. All that was left was the nub up to the jig head. Love slim shady and will continue to use it for blues, trout and hopefully I can catch my first ever red.
Yep unfortunately theres no way to get away from those toothy critters such as bluefish, mackerel, etc. Thats when hard baits and spoons would be a good switch!