PLASTIC WORMS
And then, of course, there's the venerable plastic worm -- the bait that started off this story. For practically everybody from weekend warriors (like yours truly) to young guns looking to make their marks on the tournament trail and legendary pros who've become household names, a Texas-rigged plastic worm is tough to beat at just about any bass water in the South.

Take, for instance, Erik Burns, a young bass angler who spends his fall with the waterfowling clients of his Rugged Duck Outfitters guide service. Between duck seasons, he occupies his spare time during the spring and summer months by targeting big bass, often with a Texas-rigged plastic worm or Ring Fry tied on the end of his line. Unlike me with that 8-inch motor-oil-colored worm described at the top of this piece, Burns prefers at times to downsize his plastic worm offerings.

"I like to go to plastics and finesse-fish with the smaller stuff when the fish aren't as aggressive, when they're about to go shallow, or when they are still suspended and the bigger fish haven't gotten their metabolism up yet," he offered.

Burns will go bigger with the soft plastics under certain circumstances "Later on in the summer, when the fish are deeper, I enjoy flippin' Texas-rigged worms around lily pads and in the pockets and along the edge of hydrilla," he said. "That's when I like to fish bigger worms in the 6- to 8-inch range to go for the big boys."

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Big, small, or somewhere in between, it pays to have your tackle box stocked well this spring with a versatile arsenal of soft-plastic lures in an array of hues like grape, tequila sunrise, red shad, black with a neon-yellow or red-flaked tail, motor oil, and junebug (among others).

Why do you need them? Because when fished at the right time, in the right way, and at the right place, plastic lures could help you land the biggest bass of your angling career.

And when it comes to springtime bass fishing, that's the true power of plastics.