Thread: Action tail or no action tail - THAT is the question !

The mods I've posted photos of all catch fish and all had action tails. But last summer I was catching fish on a curl tail Ribbontail grub attached to a Beetle Spin and BAM! a pickerel bit off the tail. I looked at the body of the lure doing crazy things in the water and figured - WHY NOT?!!


A bit of background:
When it comes to soft plastics, lure action is usually provided by the tail whether curl tail or boot tail (Sassy Shad). In the case of the Kut Tail Worm or Senko stick shape, body shape, rigging and imparted account for lure action. For example, the Kut Tail is the perfect jerk worm when rigged on a 1/24 oz jig head due to the body taper; the Senko wacky-rigged is legendary.

Note: The Crappie Magnet straight double-straight-tail is one of the oldest mini-stick shapes and most definitely catches fish like this 4 lb sucker:



Putting two & two together, I compared the action of the tailless grub to that of a Zara Spook that caught bass on the surface back in the day. The Spook's zig-zag action of splash/wake really p. o.'d those fish like no tomorrow when the surface strike was on. The design is simple: a cigar shape that does nothing unless twitched with the rod tip. The tailless grub body performs the same except subsurface. But here's the thing: the Senko and the Spook are stick baits, one fatter than the other.
The one I discovered is a small mini-stick shape no more than 1 3/4" in length.

First fish caught on the no-tail grub body:


After catching a bunch of fish on the little body, when I got home I figured that other no-tail mini stick shapes would do just as well - and they did big time!
Kind of reminds me of a light bulb:
[attachment id=1 msg=106451]
The body was taken from a Mo Magic mold grub with tail removed and attached to a grub body using a candle flame to melt the ends.

There are many more shapes I came up with but the action is the same for all: zig-zag wildly at slightly different depths unique to the mini-stick shape. No doubt it would catch fish under a float.

2 grub bodies melted together:

mini-stick right from the mold:

tail used from the same stick:



I added a cone-tail shape cut from a 4" stick:



Again, a light jig head 1/32 or 1/24 oz works best when it comes to letting the shape do its thing. Even i/16 oz is too heavy. The como casts a nice distance and drops fast. Rod tip twitches and slight turns of the reel handle make it work for all species.