A Complete Guide To Soft Plastic Trailers For Bass Fishing

Crawfish soft baits are some of the primary trailers used on skirted jigs and typically include a set of active claws or appendages that mimic the scurrying action of crawfish moving along the bottom.

Soft-plastic craw trailers provide versatility for a wide range of applications, including flipping and punching jigs, elevating swim jigs to ride over shallow cover, or adding profile and bulk to a football jig around deep water structure.

As crawfish are one of the primary and favorite food sources for bass, every angler’s arsenal should be well stocked with a variety of craw trailers.

When it comes to choosing craw size, utilize a trailer that best fits your jig’s hook to create a cohesive and naturalized presentation. To find the right color, start with proven hues like green pumpkin or black/blue. You can branch out from there based on water clarity, local forage, and time of year.

Soft-plastic baits with numerous appendages like legs, antennae, claws, or tails are classified as creature baits and are designed to mimic forage like crawfish, baitfish, insects, lizards, and other prey.

Creature baits make great trailers for jigheads and excel in flipping or Texas-rigging applications, but they can be limiting on moving baits like spinnerbaits, bladed jigs, and buzzbaits.

The increased action and water displacement from multiple appendages can work against the vibration or rotation of the blades on a lure, and a jig with a heavy skirt may dampen the action of a creature bait by preventing the arms from moving freely.

The original “chunk” was made using a durable pork material that was the standard for bass jig trailers before the boom of soft-plastic baits in the ‘90s. Lacking the aggressive flapping action of typical jig trailers, a chunk offers subtle vibration, a slower rate of fall, and natural gliding movement that appeals to pressured or lethargic fish.

Notorious for unlocking difficult bites in cold water, pork-chunk trailers have endured the test of time. Modern soft-plastic chunk imitations remain a staple in the arsenal of seasoned bass anglers as specialized jig trailers for deep, cold-water bass.

Chunk jig trailers can be threaded down the shank for a compact profile and faster descent, or they can be nose hooked to lengthen the overall profile and slow the rate of fall through the water column.

The defining feature of a twin-tail grub is its slender body and two curly, fluttering tails that readily kick on slow retrieves to effectively mimic crawfish, bluegill, or small baitfish with natural pulsating action.

Twin-tail grubs can be used as spinnerbait trailers, but they are most commonly used on any type of skirted jigs, as the tails add bulk and bite-inducing action for various bottom-bouncing or swimming presentations.

Featuring a compact body and a curly tail that vibrates and swims to mimic fleeing baitfish, single-tail grubs remain a staple due to their effectiveness and adaptability, triggering bites with enticing tail action.

Popular and effective when paired with spinnerbaits, bladed jigs, or buzzbaits, single-tail grubs are effective year-round but have a reputation for being particularly productive when rigged on a ball head and slow-rolled through cold water when bass are sluggish.

Paddle-tail swimbaits are slender, soft-plastic lures with distinct boot-shaped tails that thump and kick during the retrieve to imitate swimming bluegill, shad, and baitfish.

A highly versatile soft plastic for any angler’s arsenal, paddle-tail swimbaits are perfect for pairing with swimbait heads, swim jigs, and underspins, and are popular trailers on spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, bladed jigs, umbrella rigs, football jigs, ball heads, and more.

Imitating a wide range of baitfish, one of the primary food sources for bass, paddle-tail swimbaits are a natural and effective trailer to use throughout the country during any season.

Soft-plastic jerkbaits are traditionally Texas-rigged weightless and twitched around shallow cover to mimic injured or fleeing baitfish with erratic darting action. Commonly referred to as a “Fluke,” from the iconic Zoom Super Fluke, soft jerkbaits are also effectively utilized as trailers on bladed jigs, spinnerbaits, underspins, and ball heads.

Perfect for pairing with ball-head jigs, swimbait heads, and hover-strolling jigs, minnow trailers are shaped to flutter in the strike zone and create lifelike side-to-side rolling action when you impart a subtle rod tip shake or slow retrieve.

Forward-facing sonar has vastly expanded the minnow and baitfish soft-bait category, and with a wide variety of designs that accurately imitate baitfish, minnow baits are ideal trailers for strolling techniques and presenting a slow-moving meal to suspended targets, or vibrating jig trailers.

Common spinnerbait trailers include split-tails, single- and twin-tail grubs, paddle-tail swimbaits, and soft-plastic jerkbaits. When fishing quickly, bulky spinnerbait trailers with tons of appendages create too much drag and can cause the bait to roll, so consider using a streamlined trailer or fishing without one when you want to cover water.

Adding a trailer increases the profile of your spinnerbait and adds action, which helps attract fish in low light or dirty water, and when bass are moving shallow in search of a bigger meal.