Who knew a carrot stick could catch fish?!!

Having done the bass tournament thing for years and used larger lures of all types to catch bass, I have no doubt I could still catch bass using them - but only bass. Of course, river smallies slammed Mr Twister curl tails in my local smallie river, but then again so did other lures.

I believed that soft plastics had to have action-tails whether a curl tail or a Sassy Shad paddle tail. Same thing for plastic worms. But then Gary Y blew it all away with the wacky rigged Senko. Round tips on both ends of a weighted soft-plastic stick caught bass galore the first year I cast it! Recently it got me think'n: stick vs action tail - hmmmm.... But then again, what is a Zara Spook or 3" floating Rapala other than a stick by another name?

Waddle, roll & dart come to mind as the action combo for all stick-type lures - and man has it caught fish! I've had aluminum molds that have Senko shapes and others that have thinner and smaller cavities,

Recently I experimented casting the smaller stick shapes using the same retrieve I used for hard lures having no lip nor action tail to speak of. I found that the action-part of the lure is the body. What sets different soft and hard stick lures sticks apart? Diameter and shape determine lure action.One stick shape that shocked me with the number of fish caught and how aggressive the hit by different species: the taper-tail or carrot stick.



What action?: waddle, roll & dart when using rod tip twitches and 1/4 turns of the reel handle. What blew me away was the aggressive strikes by sunfish and that they would not let go. Fish even attacked the lure after the 2nd missed hookset!
Six fish species shown - including bass - got caught (pickerel makes it seven):




A variation of the stick's shape is adding the body of a grub as tail:


...as well as adding a long tapered tail:

All three shapes have slightly different actions, but ALL catch fish when rigged on a 1/16 oz or 1/24 oz jighead.

There are other body-tail variations, but U get the picture.

Nice baits and post. Good job.

Thnx.

A similar design I found did fantastic is shaped like a hot dog. (Note the smaller same-shape lure in the post that caught the white perch.}


method:
I poured a plastic worm using soft plastic vs medium soft and used only the first 2.5". The tail end was rounded using a lighter. Rigged the lure on a 1/24 oz jighead and twitched it slowly over hard bottoms. The lure was slammed like no tomorrow!

I found most of the86 fish I caught in very shallow water - less than 3' from 8:30 am to 3 pm. I never expected to do well or stay out with a heat index of 93 degrees. Good thing for a steady breeze and intermittent clouds all day long.

The more lures you try, the more lures you'll find that work most of the time, some of the time or less than most others.
One modification you might consider that I bet no one has ever thought to try: a curl tail grub body minus the tail

This mod will catch fish like you won't believe, but as with any lure the type of retrieve matters as much as the lure chosen. This one has a slight darting/glide action when twitched using a combination of the rod tip and slight reel handle turns along with pauses. This retrieve is one I use for a majority of small soft plastics in that it isn't meant to cover territory like the original curl tail the above was used to make that shape.

note: the original grub was chartreuse but I used a Spike-it pen to dye on the orange and black, same for the lure shown below.

This hand poured hybrid borrowed its shape from the tailless grub and has the same type action except larger. Casting those shapes is like leading fish to the slaughter.

Another similar shape I came up with just for ha-ha's what a Sassy Shad with belly and boot tail cut off, blunted at both ends using a lighter. Again, the dye pen added the same colors - my favorite pattern.


(BTW, do fish think it is a yellow perch? Beat's me!)

So in conclusion, lures right from the package have potential with just a bit of imagination needed to come with different shapes and actions. All of the lures you mentioned in the original post can be used as is or transformed into pleasant surprises.
(see my blog for more ideas)