I am going to refer you back to a blog post from the other day when I caught my first few bass on creature baits in the dark - check it out here. It’s always niggled me since then that my mate who was mostly fishing about thirty yards away from me that very calm and quiet night went and blanked. Like me he has really got into the whole creature bait/closer quarters style estuary fishing this year, and he’s bloody good at it. But why did he blank that particular night?

When my mate Del was staying for a few days last week, the three of us were having a conversion about guess what? Obviously fishing, and specifically about the rather lovely bass that was Del’s first bass on a creature bait - check this blog post here. I was remarking on the fact that the first thing Del did when he picked a creature bait out of my lure box was to insert a glass rattle into it with that handy Z-Man Rattle-Snaker tool. Exactly as he would do for his outrageously good wrasse fishing he gets back home in the Isle of Scilly.

Del went and caught the one (fine) bass that particular session, and I blanked. So we were yapping away about fishing stuff, and my mate who happened to blank that particular calm and quiet night then came out with the fact that he had rather sneakily gone and superglued three glass rattles together and fixed them inside his MegaBass Sleeper Craw (on that particular calm and quiet night). He had been convinced that some extra “come and get me” clacking/rattling sound emanating from his creature bait would bring more bass in - but he blanked. He didn’t blank because I am a better angler I might add, far from it, but something had to be going on for me to catch a few and for him to catch nothing. I didn’t know that he had been fishing with three rattles in a creature bait that night - sneaky git! - but it all came out in the wash and we had a bloody good giggle about it.

You know how a few specific fishing sessions really stick in your head with the details of how you approached it and what transpired while you were fishing? I remember starting off with one of those brilliant Nikko Craw 3.2inch creature baits that night, indeed I caught my few bass that night on this specific lure - but I started off with one into which I had inserted a little glass rattle. I also distinctly remember fishing with it for a while and then changing it for one with no rattle in it because nothing was happening and it was almost eerily calm and quiet. I then pretty quickly went on to hook my first bass on a creature bait in the dark, so I naturally stuck with the same lure which had no rattle in it. And caught a few more.

So we’ve got one night where it seems that rattles in a creature bait didn’t seem to do it for the bass at all. Then we had that daytime session the other day in low light and fairly murky water when a rattle in a creature bait produced the one bass - and I was fishing a creature bait which I had not inserted a glass rattle into. And blanked. Then I had this session here back in the summer when I nailed a bass around the 6lb mark which I had spotted “tailing” in amongst the bladderwrack. Again it’s a session which really sticks in my head for various reasons, with one of them being that in very quiet and calm (daytime) conditions I didn’t realise that I had picked a Z-Man Turbo CrawZ 4'' creature bait out of my lure box which had a rattle in it. It was only after I released the fish that I found out I had previously inserted a rattle into the successful lure.

So we’ve got a few examples of when a rattle in or not in a soft plastic bumped along the bottom seems to make a bit of a difference. I can’t prove anything of course, but like Del I am convinced that a rattle in a soft plastic when you’re wrasse fishing can make a good bit of difference. I will routinely insert a rattle into one of the two slots on the Savage Gear Gravity Sticks when fishing in murkier water for bass, but I have caught plenty of bass in slightly murkier water on soft plastics with and without a rattle inside them - so I don’t know what I really think about that.

“Logic” - if indeed there can be such a thing in fishing when we are trying to catch something which I believe behaves purely on instinct - says to me that I don’t need the supposed benefits of a bit of extra “come and get me” sound when it’s calm and clear (daytime or night time though?). I think back to when a couple of friends started hammering a lot of good bass on white senkos at night on the south coast of Ireland, and one lad in particular remains absolutely convinced that the addition of a rattle in the tail of his senko produced more bass for him. What did I do when this lad kindly got me into night lure fishing for bass like this? I inserted a glass rattle into my white senko and hammered a bunch of bass.

A rattle in a soft plastic that you’re working along the bottom makes a lot of sense to me for murkier water and/or when letting them trundle around in current. Whenever I have been fishing these deadly Savage Gear NED Dragontail Slug lures more recently in current, I have made sure to check that the pre-installed rattle is making a sound before I cast it out, or else I replace the rattle if it breaks. I believe it helps but again I can’t prove it. The pre-installed rattles in the lures do break quite easily, and I guess that is either because they are not the finest quality, or else it’s because the rattle is near the head of the lure - the lure naturally sits head down and I have been mostly bumping them over broken ground in current. I also think back to fishing very fast estuary current over in Ireland with the MegaBass XLayers, and I remember a few occasions when the bass would suddenly stop hitting your lure but your mates were still catching. So you check the lure and find the rattle has broken. Clip a fresh lure on with an intact rattle and you start catching again. Does the rattle inside the Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless make a difference when I am bumping them over shallowish reefs on the open coast? And so on.

Go figure? I have no definitive answers as you can tell, and I would seriously welcome your feedback here in the comments section. If you are an England rugby supporter then like me you had a great weekend - what a game against the All Blacks, wow!! Dare I dream again? Well done Ireland, Wales gets a reprieve for a week before the All Blacks this weekend, and as for Scotland? Let’s not go there…………

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Can or does a rattle in a soft plastic produce more bass? Previous sneaky behaviour stuff comes to light!

© Henry Gilbey 2023