This past season I started fishing with jerkbaits and had a lot of success with both hard and soft versions. However, the soft jerkbait really impressed me. In my experience it seems to get more bites throughout more parts of the year. It also is more versatile because you are able to fish it like a soft plastic worm, swim it, or jerk it. I have similar feelings about soft plastic swimbaits/paddle-tails vs crank baits. I’m wondering if others feel the same way I do or if there are advantages to the hard jerkbait that I don’t recognize. As of right now I don’t see much of a reason to use my hard versions when the soft ones seem to out preform them for me.
Posted by Low_Density
11 Comments
Love soft ones because theres way to much….plant in the waters i fish.
You can suspend your lure at different depths with a hard jerkbait.
A soft jerkbait is constantly moving up as you work it. If i am fishing deeper water like bottom of a point, unless its super weedy, i would choose a hardbait everytime. It has way better hookup ratio. You can work a hard jerkbait much faster to cover water without it flopping around on top. Ones with rattles also cast better in the wind.
I fish both in different scenarios. A soft jerkbait may well be more versatile, but being able to stall and suspend a hard jerkbait is MONEY
soft and i like to add weights slowly as the seasons progress by using a texas rig, at the end of the Fall i have a heavy weight added which allows me to fish the bottom and the very fast fall rate of the lure creates reaction bites in the cold water when it is dropped close to bass…
Hard jerkbaits will outperform soft in choppy, deep, or open water 10/10 times.
They have more hooks so better hookup ratio, they include bearings for noise to attract in open water, they stay in the water column you choose (suspending, floating, sinking) and dive to the depth you want. The action they produce is also more erratic due to the bill
And angle.
Two similar lures that do not perform the same. Soft jerkbaits are the way to go in clear, calm, shallow, or around structure and cover.
I like the Corky Fat Boy
I like soft baits generally. If I end up not liking their action I can always put them on a jig, spinning or chatter bait. They also don’t take up space like hard baits do, at least the way I store each type.
Now hard baits do give me a lot of joy in the way they look or sound. A lot of hard baits will have rattles and can look damn near real or be bight metallic too.
Its easier to jerk it when its hard.
But for real I get more bites with hard ones and less with soft. I like the x raps in smaller sizes and shallow shad raps(not technically jerkbait)for finesse jerkbaits. Put 1 size larger hooks and a split ring on the nose to make it suspend a lil more. 6th Sense ProvokeDD or regular and work it on wind blown banks or over submerged brush piles and deep structure.
I’ve caught way more on a hard jerk boat then a soft
Soft for the dog days of summer, hard in fall,winter, spring.