Best (And WORST) Lures For Skip Casting Under Trees & Docks

Skip casting lures under docks and trees is a great way to catch inshore fish like redfish, snook, and trout.

They’re waiting in ambush for a little shrimp or baitfish to swim by and when your lure drops right in front of their face…

Pa-POW! Fish on!

If you want to skip your lure far and accurately, you need to have skill, which takes practice.

But what you also need is to have the right lure rigged correctly.

If you try to skip the wrong lure under a dock, you could get snagged, or it might not skip very far (if at all).

Also, if you try to skip the right lure under some trees, but it’s rigged incorrectly, then you might run into the same issue.

So in this video, I’ll show you my favorite types of lures to skip and how to rig them to cast them deep under structure to the fish.

Check it out below.

Best & Worst Lures For Skip Casting [VIDEO]

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Worst Lures For Skip Casting

Here are the lures I don’t recommend for skip casting:

Hard baits & gold spoons.

Hard baits, like topwater lures, usually skip across the surface pretty well, but the problem is what happens once you get the lure under the structure.

These types of lures have exposed hooks and there’s a good chance you’ll get snagged.

I also don’t like skipping gold spoons because although they can skip well if they hit the water just right, they’re very inconsistent because of their shape.

More times than not, the surface of the water will catch the hook or the edge of the lure and it’ll end up just plopping right down in.

Also, gold spoons are effective because they wobble as you retrieve them, but if you try to retrieve a gold spoon out from under some mangroves, you’ll very quickly pull it right out of the strike zone, which defeats the purpose of getting it under there in the first place.

Best Lures For Skip Casting

Here are lures I do like for skipping:

Soft plastics.

Here are my favorites (in order of preference):

• Jerk shads
• Paddletails
• Shrimp

And choosing the right lures to skip is only half of the battle.

If you want to maximize your skipping ability, you need to also rig your lures correctly.

How To Rig Lures For Skip Casting

First, let’s talk about how not to rig lures for skip casting.

I recommend not using using jig heads.

You want to avoid jig heads because they put the weight toward the front of lure and if the weight gets caught on the surface, it won’t skip.

You also want to avoid jig heads that have a swivel head, like the Texas eye jig head.

Since the head is loose, it can easily get caught on the surface and stop your lure from skipping.

And here’s one last reason to avoid jig heads when rigging lures for skipping: jig heads are usually not weedless and if you’re skipping a lure under structure that has an exposed hook, you’re just asking to get snagged.

Here’s how I do like to rig lures for skip casting:

I like rigging lures for skipping on weighted wide gap hooks, like the Owner TwistLock hook.

I like to use as light as possible of a weight (or even a bare hook) to skip and I try to not go above 1/4 oz because heavier lures don’t skip as well.

Conclusion

If you’re skipping lures under structure, I recommend using a soft plastic on a weighted wide gap hook because it’s light and weedless, so it’ll skip well and not get snagged.

Have any questions about skipping lures?

Let me know down in the comments.

And if you know someone who wants to get better at skip casting, please TAG or SHARE this with them!

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Related articles:

• HOW TO RIG & RETRIEVE SOFT PLASTIC JERK SHADS FOR MORE STRIKES
• TOP 3 FISHING LURES THAT CATCH BASS AND REDFISH
• HOW TO SEE (AND CATCH!) MORE FISH WHEN SIGHT FISHING