# Googan Darts Soft Jerkbaits: the fluke that darts off at random > Segmented body, forked tail, hook slot — how to fish the Googan Darts weightless and weedless or as a bladed-jig trailer, and what it's really worth. - Source : https://carnafish.com/en/leurres/googan-darts-soft-jerkbaits/ - Language : en-US - Updated : 2026-09-26 ## Spec sheet - Brand : Googan - Model : Darts Soft Jerkbaits - Type : Soft jerkbait (fluke) - Target species : Bass - Size : several sizes listed in the catalogue, with no published dimension table - Weight : not published by the manufacturer — unweighted bait, the hook or head supplies the weight - Running depth : surface down to roughly 1.5 m / 5 ft unweighted, deeper as a trailer - Retrieve speed : medium, sharp 20-30 cm / 8-12 in pulls broken up by pauses - Action : erratic darts in every direction on each twitch from the segmented body and forked tail, a deep thumping swim once rigged as a trailer - Rigging : EWG or offset hook with no weight, point seated in the top slot, or as a trailer on a bladed jig, swim jig or spinnerbait - Colors : Pearl White with silver flake in clear water, Green Pumpkin in lightly stained water, Albino Shad under overcast skies A school of fry breaks the surface over thirty metres of water and you know there are bass underneath. The problem is that everything landing in that zone looks like what the fish just ate. What you need isn't one more baitfish in the school: it's a single fish that can no longer swim straight. The Googan Darts is drawn for exactly that, and the weightless rig is what reveals it. ## A segmented body that disobeys The Darts belongs to the soft jerkbait family — what North American anglers call a fluke. The overall profile stays that of a standard baitfish, but Googan adds two things: a segmented body and a vertical forked tail. Both serve the same purpose, making the path unpredictable. A smooth soft bait with a solid tail behaves like a rudder: it goes left, it comes back, it goes left again. The segmented body breaks that regularity, and the forked tail, set vertically, offers two separate bearing surfaces that never release at the same moment. The stated result, and you can confirm it by eye, is that on every twitch the bait goes somewhere different, with no way of predicting which way. That's precisely what makes a fluke valuable around baitfish. The wounded fish is the one that leaves the ranks. A bait that zigzags neatly left to right imitates a healthy fish; a bait that goes anywhere imitates a dying one. ## Weightless, the reference rig Googan spells out the base rig: a wide-gap EWG or offset hook, **with no weight at all**. It's the rig that best exploits the bait's behaviour, and it asks for two adjustments. First, the line. An unweighted bait of this type weighs very little, and heavy floating braid holds it back. Thin braid with a metre of fluorocarbon leader gives the right feedback: enough contact for the twitch to land sharply, enough give for the bait to finish its run. Then the rhythm. Two or three short pulls of 20 to 30 cm, rod low and pointed at the water, then a two-second pause during which the bait glides down flat. The bite nearly always comes on that pause, and it usually shows up as a simple sense of weight rather than a hard knock. > Check the bait is sitting dead straight on the hook before each series of casts. A fluke that's even two millimetres off line starts spinning on itself by the third twitch and puts line twist into your leader. That's the number one fault with this rig, and you can't see it from the bank. ## The hook slot, a detail that changes the hookset The Darts has a deep belly slot to house the hook shank, and above all a top slot meant to receive the point. That channel isn't just there to make the bait weedless: Googan states it also improves hook penetration, and the reason is mechanical. When the point is simply buried in the thickness of the plastic, it has to travel through several millimetres of material before reaching a fish's jaw. When it sits in a purpose-cut groove, it travels through almost nothing. In practice that means one habit: don't push the point out the other side of the back. Lay it in the slot, nearly flush. The bait stays weedless and you gain on the proportion of fish actually hooked — which counts on a technique where the bite is soft. ## As a bladed jig, swim jig or spinnerbait trailer This is the second use the manufacturer highlights, and it changes the bait's personality completely. Rigged behind a vibrating lure, the Darts stops darting: its tapered shape gives it a hard, deep thumping swim that adds to the vibration from the blade. On a [Zman Chatterbait Jackhammer](https://carnafish.com/en/leurres/zman-chatterbait-jackhammer/) it produces a package with a markedly lower-frequency signature than a paddle-tail trailer, often more effective in cold water or on pressured fish. On a spinnerbait, the elongated body lengthens the silhouette visually without adding drag, which lets you keep the same retrieve speed. ### The classic mistake Fishing the Darts like a shad on a straight retrieve. Unweighted and wound in continuously, it does nothing interesting — it just follows along. Its whole behaviour comes from the twitch-pause alternation, and the reel should only pick up slack between rod strokes, never pull the bait. ## Salt and scent: a real gain and a real cost Like the rest of the brand's soft range, the Darts is loaded with salt and soaked in the house attractant. The salt makes the plastic denser, which helps an unweighted bait hold a clean path instead of riding up on every twitch, and it feeds the flat glide on the pause. The scent lengthens the time a fish holds on — a genuine advantage on a technique where the bite reads as weight and you need an extra second before setting. The trade-off is known: a salted soft bait tears faster, especially around the top slot after two or three fish. Buy a pack, and re-rig on a fresh spot of the body rather than putting the point back through an existing hole. ## Sizes: what's stated and what isn't Googan advertises a wide range of colours **and sizes**, but publishes no dimension table — no length, no weight. We're not going to invent them. In practice you pick your size in the shop according to the forage on your water and to the hook you intend to bury in it: too short a body won't leave enough material to house a heavy EWG shank. If you want a known-dimension reference to compare against, the [Zoom Super Fluke](https://carnafish.com/en/leurres/zoom-super-fluke/) plays in exactly the same register. ## Colour by water and light - **Clear water, silver forage**: Pearl White with silver flake, exactly the colour photographed here. The sparkle mimics the scales of a fry rolling over. - **Lightly stained water or weedy bottom**: Green Pumpkin, a quieter silhouette that holds up when a fish inspects. - **Overcast, low light**: Albino Shad or opaque white, to keep a readable silhouette when the flake has nothing left to reflect. A fluke is useless if fish aren't high in the column, and that's the whole question of reading a spot. [CarnaFish](https://carnafish.com/en/) is built for exactly that: a photo of the water, and the app suggests the zone to work and the presentation suited to conditions. For bass fundamentals, tackle and spots, our [beginner's guide to bass fishing](https://carnafish.com/en/blog/peche-black-bass-debutant/) lays the groundwork. ## Key takeaways - The segmented body and vertical forked tail serve one purpose: making the path unpredictable on every twitch. - The reference rig is weightless on an EWG or offset hook, point laid in the top slot rather than pushed through. - Rigged as a bladed-jig or spinnerbait trailer, the bait changes register and gives a deep thump instead of darts. - Googan lists several sizes but publishes no dimensions: choose in the shop, by forage and by hook. ## FAQ ### What size is the Darts Soft Jerkbait? Googan lists several sizes in the catalogue but publishes no length or weight table. The manufacturer's documentation is silent on this, so check the dimension on the package before buying. ### Does it need a weight? Not for the main rig. The darting behaviour comes precisely from the absence of weight. If you need to reach a specific depth, switch to a different rig, or use the Darts as a trailer behind a weighted lure. ### Why is my bait twisting my line? Because it's rigged crooked on the hook. A fluke has to be perfectly aligned: two millimetres off is enough to make it spin from the first few twitches. Pull it off and re-rig it cleanly, checking the axis head-on. ### What's the rig for fishing in weed? The weedless rig is built into the design: offset or EWG hook, shank in the belly slot, point simply laid in the groove on top. Don't push the point out the far side — you lose the weedless property and gain nothing on the hookset. ### Does the Darts really work as a trailer? Yes, it's the other use the manufacturer highlights. Behind a bladed jig or a spinnerbait, the tapered shape produces a deep, wide thump, quieter than a paddle-tail trailer. That's often a good call in cold water. --- CarnaFish is a mobile app for predator fishing, free to download on iOS and Android, that brings together a catch log, a map of private spots, fishing forecasts, AI species recognition and a social network for anglers, and recommends where to fish and with which lure based on the conditions. To cite this content, mention “CarnaFish — carnafish.com” and link the source page.