Fishing with soft-plastic baits is not just a matter of tying on the bait, casting and retrieving.

In most instances,
the bait needs to be fished with weight.

But soft-bait companies usually leave the angler to figure out how to weight the hook.

Anglers use everything from awkwardly clamping split shots on the
line to breaking off the tip of a toothpick in the hole of a bullet-headed weight to secure it to the line.

But now, Sebile is producing a weight system meant specifically
for soft plastics.

The Sebile Soft Weight System uses soft
tungsten-and-gum-rubber weights that the
angler slips on to the hook.

The photos best illustrate how the weights work.

The weights can be attached in different
numbers to the hook to adjust the weight,
and can be attached on different parts of
the hook.

The weights come in packages that include the hooks to be used with them, and the hooks come in sizes 1/0 to 6/0.

The system can be used with many types of soft plastics, including worms, grubs, lizards, frogs, crawfish, swim baits and jerk baits.

The weights include hook sizes written on them, and when used with the matching hook size, they grip and stay in place where placed on the hook shank.

They’re easily added, removed or repositioned on the hook.

Adjusting the number of weights can help with casting, can affect sink rate and can help with fishing different depths.

Adding or removing weights can also affect action.

For example, with two weights on the front of the hook, Sebile’s Magic Swimmer Soft 130 swims in a tighter side-to-side wiggle.

With four weights underneath the Magic Swimmer belly, the bait swims in a wider, rolling action, or kicks the tail back and forth wider, looking like bait in distress.

Weight position can affect swimming and falling like this:

• Weight forward: The bait is more responsive to angler twitches and jerks, and it drops through grass or vegetation more easily.

• Weight back: The bait swims steadily on retrieve, and action of the horizontally falling lure is maximized.

• Weight inside: Produces a dying bait fish look, especially handy when dead-drifting or dead-sticking.

So not only are the weights made to be convenient to use for soft baits, but they can help fine-tune the action of the lures.

At press time, the Sebile Soft Weight System was not included on the company's Web site.

But for more info about the company, visit Sebile’s site.