Softbait Presentations Nit picky as it may seem, situations occur when panfish will ignore plastics yet devour softbaits. For the panfish in our aquarium, it's practically a constant. Of course, fish being held in a tank are stressed, pressured, and wary. They've been caught before, and obviously are not in the wild--where competitive feeding frenzies are more common. Our tank fish will take plastics occasionally, but it generally requires patience and a perfect presentation with light line and the right plastic. (Or you can starve them for about a week before experimenting, which isn't something we tend to do.) By contrast, our tank fish will swim up to and eat Gulp! without hesitation most of the time. Obviously, whenever faced with spooky, pressured, wary panfish, livebait or softbait is the right choice.
On a windy day, bobbers and floats lend life and that "final triggering action" to softbaits. Most softbaits are best under a float. Softbaits can be easy for panfish to rip free of the hook, so a sensitive strike indicator puts the odds back in your favor of both hooking the panfish and retrieving the bait. The constant up-down movement of a float imparts fabulous, lifelike action to a softbait on a tiny jig (I prefer jigs in the 1/64- to 1/100-ounce range with softbaits). The best float option is a casting bubble, which requires no additional weight. Letting a Gulp! Earthworm drift slowly down to the level of the fish on a light jig, or just on an Aberdeen hook, is simply deadly.
Gulp! Grubs with action tails are deadly for open-water crappies on 1/32-ounce jigs with 7- to 8-foot ultralight rods and 4-pound-test line. Cast, let it drop to the level of the fish, and slowly retrieve. The scent trail with Gulp! is, theoretically, 400 times greater than with scent-impregnated plastics, drawing more follows. My next favorite option is to use softbaits as dropbaits with ultralight equipment, drawing in fish from a larger area. Casting a light jig-worm or jig-maggot combo to weedlines, rocky breaks, or suspended fish is a blast, and softbaits are prolific catching machines when used as dropbaits. Cast it out, let it fall vertically, count it down, and watch the line.
Biodegradable?
"Biodegradable means it takes bacteria to consume and digest it before it breaks down," says John Prachnow, Berkley product development manager. "It does not mean water soluble. Biodegradable means it has to break down into carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and other basic elements. Legally, a product like Gulp! has to completely break down within a year to be called biodegradable. But, in the jar, we guarantee 3 years of shelf life with the lid on tight. Sunlight and heat won't break it down any quicker--but the container can't be left open, because the water will evaporate. Dried up Gulp! can be rendered back to a usable form by letting it soak in water.
"The chemical constituents we use in Gulp! are the same as those found in worms, minnows and crawfish, but we didn't extract them from naturals. We isolated chemical constituents of natural prey and injected them into the recipe in ratios that mimic the type of chemical compounds found in natural prey, omitting negative and accentuating positive cues. So we synthesized these components. We didn't set out to do that, but our research found the same basic chemical compounds present in a variety of prey species--and those are the ones we used."
These are open-water or confined-open-water techniques. Scent-impregnated plastics still get the call over softbaits in heavy weeds, wood, pads, reeds or any other tough cover. Water-based, biodegradables are not tough, will not protect hook points from embedding in cover, and will slide down the hook on the retrieve. But a small piece of a Gulp! Earthworm, just enough to cover the shank of the hook on a marabou or hair jig, is a great addition in cover. It exudes more scent than a natural, while hair or feathers work the attraction angle.
In heavy cover, many of the new scent-impregnated plastics still rule. In heavy cover, I prefer thin, straight plastics like the Innovative Sports Group (ISG) Leechette. It's tiny, it's tough, it's slick, and it's straight--all of which help it slide through cover better than livebait or softbait. ISG impregnates this and other members of their Plankton Series panfish plastics with a heavy-duty garlic scent.
Berkley Power Baits and Mister Twister Exude products include two-inch grubs that are fairly tough and stand up to weedline fishing better when panfish are tucked in tight. Mister Twister Sales Manager, Todd Plath, explained that Exude is a proprietary blend of protein, minerals, and amino acids--"fish food"--combined with a special polymer that constantly releases a cloud of built-in scent and taste.
When panfish hold deeper, along the edge of breaks, gravel flats, and the base of deep weedlines, salt-impregnated plastics rule. Salt makes the plastic more dense, so the lure sinks quicker, especially when salt is impregnated throughout the lure, as with Yamamoto plastics. Laboratory tests show that fish will pick up and hold cotton balls effused with salt or garlic, so it appears that fish find both tastes agreeable. Salt has the added benefit of a quick sink rate. The Yamamoto 2-inch grub is one of the finest for probing deep weedlines, sunken humps, and rockpiles in the 12- to 18-foot range because it allows for lighter jigs in the 1/32- to 1/16-ounce range on 4-pound line.
Scent- and taste-impregnated plastics for panfish exist in a far smaller capacity than for bass. So far. Bet on seeing more, soon.
