Remember the Sassy Shad? well....

[Senkosam]

There is this small swimbait called the Runcl. It has the usual vertical swimbait paddle tail, but the body is slim allowing a tight shimmy.
It catches EVERYTHING!

The Sassy Shad has caught many fish in the past, but like most lures they get replaced by the newest & greatest hyped in the media. Recently I was looking for certain lures to modify but came across the SS. I stared at it and thought,
wait a minute, why not cut off the belly so that the action is the same as the Runcl?
The shimmy is unique being that the lure is flat sided and not round like the Runcl, but both do well when rigged on a 1/32 oz jig with #6 hook.

It worked and man did it catch fish off all types and sizes!!!! All of these fish were caught yesterday on the modified SS. The largest bass were 2lb along with some smaller bass.

Even the little guys attacked it!

Length can be shortened to less than 2.5", but the full length does well.

 

[plumbertom]

I've personally caught more largemouth bass on Sassy Shad than any other lure in my arsenal.

 

[Senkosam]

I haven't used the Sassy Shad in over 30 years. Now I have a reason to. The modified lure caught a doz. fish before the 20 mph wind blew me off the lake.

 

[Senkosam]

The nice thing about modifying lures - hard or soft - are the variety of new stuff that can catch fish. Why buy new & improved when you can improve a older lure? A candle flame and scissors or razor blade are my favorite tools to modify soft plastics. You just take the body of one and melt it onto the tail of another and WHAM! a new lure.
Fish, as stated, are sensitive to many things about lures: action being #1! The retrieve(s) that capitalize on an action. For finesse lures, slow is always best. For surface lures, it depends on the surface lure. example: A Floating Rapala does best on the surface with a twitch & pause retrieve because it stay in a fish's trigger zone longer. The same goes for many soft plastics that must use the same retrieve no matter how deep worked.
The modified grub on the left had a thin tail added which has the slightest flutter when moved a bit at a time. The curl tail would have to be retrieved much faster for the tail to move. same for a Sassy Shad tail, which is great covering more water faster. But when the situation (fish location) calls for slow, I give 'em SLOW.