Bass fishing with swimming worms is an excellent way to catch big bass. Throughout the spring season as the bass make their shallow-water push, other bulkier presentations can spook the bass as they prepare for their annual spawn. Whether you’re targeting shoreline vegetation, pad stems or even wood cover, these kinds of worms are excellent at eliciting reaction strikes from otherwise lethargic bass.
Not many folks talk about it but swimming worms are also an excellent option for shaky head fishing throughout the summer months.
I have fished with a few Culprit soft plastics in the past but I never really hopped on the proverbial train. They didn’t market a whole lot back then so throughout my college fishing days, I normally stuck with the larger brands due to familiarity. From what I can tell, however, Culprit is doing things a lot differently lately and they are releasing some really impressive soft plastics. They’re pumping out some baits that are going to catch countless bass for anglers throughout the country and they should certainly be taken seriously.
With the recent warm weather, I’ve had an opportunity to do a good bit of fishing with the Culprit Fast Vibe Worm. It has been a big-time producer and I wanted to share the good news with this review. Stick with me and I’ll explain what makes this such an effective option for bass fishing.
A reeling worm
If I had to categorize the Culprit Fast Vibe Worm, I would consider it a reeling-style worm although you can certainly fish it a dozen different ways. I haven’t tried it yet but it would probably be pretty cool bait to use on a Neko rig for example. It’s just a good-sized, durable little worm so it’s really versatile regardless of how you like to fish. But the most distinguishing characteristic about it, the tail, is what kind of qualifies it for this particular application.
This tail design makes the Fast Vibe a great worm for reeling. Whether right along the surface as a finesse topwater presentation, subsurface for shallow, suspended fish or even right along the bottom on a Texas rig or shaky head. No matter where in the water column you fish it, this tail design creates a great little swimming action that is extremely effective at getting bit.
A good size
There are some worms like this which are a good bit bigger that work really well on big-fish factories like Lake Okeechobee, for example. But once you get off of a very select few lakes, those baits just end up sitting in the rod locker the rest of the year. At 6 inches, the size of this bait makes it one you could use anywhere whether it’s Lake Okeechobee or Lake Lanier. It’s not an intimidating bait; at this size, it’s also able to mimic lots of different baitfish throughout the country.
It’s still big enough to cast well, however. I’m sure it would cast really well rigged weightless on spinning gear because I was able to cast it 50 feet or so on a baitcaster rigged weightless with 17-pound test fluorocarbon. I did use a 4/0 Gamakatsu SuperLine EWG hook for this though, which is a little bulkier than most hooks, so the added weight of that hook probably helped some. But I was still able to keep the bait on or near the surface so it was a happy medium.
Favorite presentations
I really liked fishing this bait on both a lightweight Texas rig and weightless. I fished it primarily around the spawn, so I was either dragging it through and around beds or buzzing it around fry guarders. Like most baits used in these two situations, fish often waked on it before taking the bait, so you have to be paying attention and sometimes drop your rod to let the fish take it if you’re reeling it.
It also worked well rigged weightless on the 4/0 EWG but I went back to more of a standard offset worm hook for the Texas rig; that’s just a personal preference of mine. I think the narrower gap hook hangs up on trash a little less when dragging a worm on the bottom like that. But with both setups, the density of the worm did really well. The material was durable enough not to tear during the presentation and then tore when it needed to on the hookset. In my opinion, that’s all you can ask for there.
In conclusion
I’m glad I gave the Fast Vibe Worm a solid chance for the last several fishing trips. It’s a durable worm that’ll hold its own against multiple fish catches, being fished through vegetation and those pesky bluegill bites. If the bass are shallow, I’m fairly certain you can expect to get bit on this awesome little worm. It produces plenty of bites; that’s for sure.
The Fast Vibe is a well designed, durable bait that catches fish. Its size and action lends it to several different applications and make it a very versatile bait that can catch big ones and small ones alike, in clean water or dirty, on aggressive bites and high-pressure days. It’s just a good middle-ground bait that lands well between finesse and power. I certainly recommend giving it a try.
