Combs is less concerned about the nature of the break than he is about finding brush or other cover on it. These break lines can be caused by channel bends, bluff walls or anything else that creates such structure. I throw it with a 7-foot 4-inch heavy-plus-action FX Custom Rods casting rod and an 8.3:1 Bruin Elias Legend Series casting reel. 'If I’m Texas rigging it through cover, I fish it on 23-pound-test Balsax White Peacock Fluorocarbon line with a half-ounce slip sinker and a 6/0 worm hook. 'I like a 12-inch Jelly Worm in Junebug for dingy water and Watermelon Red in clear water,' he says. If there’s also cover on such structure he knows it has potential, and he immediately reaches for the big bait. Like other pros who advocate big worms for summer bass, Elias finds most of his hot-weather lunkers offshore, on main lake humps and sharp drops in 10 to 25 feet of water.

Second, the single hook in a plastic worm gives me a much better chance of hooking and landing a big bass than the treble hooks on a crankbait.' First, I can fish a Texas-rigged worm through just about anything without getting hung up, so I can often catch bass in a spot where other lures would snag and disturb the area. 'And I’ll start with it for a couple of reasons. 'When the water temperature is in the 80s or higher, I always have a 12-inch Mann’s Jelly Worm rigged up,' he says. Whereas some top anglers throw the big worm in conjunction with other lures, most notably crankbaits, it is often Elias’ first choice. THROW IT FIRSTīass Pro Tour legend Paul Elias earned an enviable reputation with the big worm after winning a 2008 tournament on Falcon Lake with a four-day total (20 bass) of 132 pounds 8 ounces. And in the summer, when bass metabolisms are high, bigger is often better-especially when your target is giant bass.

All that matters to a bass is that the thing is slow enough to catch, small enough to eat and meaty enough to make a meal. The most accurate assessment might be that bass have little or no idea what these plastic creatures are, and they don’t care. But if that's true, we're mostly fishing baits that are too small to mimic such prey.

Aquatic worms that actually live in the water are rarely more than an inch in length, and none of these creatures come in 'green pumpkin.'ĭo bass think plastic worms are snakes or eels? That seems a lot more likely. Earthworms and night crawlers don't find their way into the water often enough to be a regular forage item for bass. We call them plastic worms, but what do they really represent to a bass? It's almost certainly not actual worms.

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