Keith Jones, director of research for Pure Fishing, has advice on how to catch more bass: Take a plastic crayfish and tear off the head, legs, antennae and claws and put what?s left on the end of a fishing line.
That?s right ? bass love to chomp on the blob of plastic many fishermen would typically throw away. Jones, who does research for many major companies in the fishing industry, can prove his theory, too.
He has a oval shaped swimming pool which features a center area with “rooms” containing live bass. He installed a track circling above the pool?s perimeter, allowing him to steer a miniature, motorized vehicle with a lure that dangles in the water. Jones releases the bass individually to see if they will bite the lure, which he documents on video camera. All experiments are done with bass under two pounds that had never seen a live crayfish. It forces them to react instinctively.
The bass responded well during Jones? plastic crayfish experiment, as he found nearly three times more bass bit the imitation crayfish than a live one.
“All they (bass) are looking for is a straight, simple target to attack,” Jones said.
However, largemouth bass don?t like the crayfish tail removed, according to Jones? research. That?s not surprising, considering the tail is often times the meaty part we eat.
Test results indicate why the best soft plastic lures for bass are tear-drop or tadpole shapes with a fat body and long, wiggling curly tail. These “grub” style baits are attractive to bass because they have optimum shape, as a fish doesn?t need to worry about possibly having to bite a crayfish?s leg before getting to the body. These lures also wiggle in the water, making bass think the bait is alive, when actually its a human-made form of “Meals on Wheels.”
Jones removed different parts of the crayfish throughout the experiment and concluded bass would rather feast on partial imitation crayfish than dealing with a crayfish?s extremities.
“That might be why bass seem to like French fries (a straight soft plastic “worm”), do-nothing worms or simple stick-type worms,” Jones commenting on his research. “They don?t like all the bells and whistles.”
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected].
