Jan 29, 2025

Fuzzy Dice: Weirdest Ever Bass Lures

Fuzzy Dice are the latest craze in finesse bass fishing. Though the lures look like no natural food, both smallmouth and largemouth bass readily take them.

While many bass lure manufacturers spend thousands of making their lures look as much like natural shad, frogs, worms or other living critters, there’s a booming market in lures that look like they just arrived from the planet Zeno.

Or maybe from Japan, which is where many of them actually did come from.

In any case, the latest imports bring memories of the fuzzy dice we had hanging on the mirror of our  1960 Chevy Impala for some of us.

They fish fuzzy dice for bass with this? How stupid can you get?

As they say in the military, if it’s stupid but it works—it’s not stupid.

Fuzzy dice are now a thing, and they are catching the heck out of bass. Last year, a Magnum Fuzzy Dice helped Japanese angler Taku Ito win a Bassmaster Elite event at Smith Lake.

If it’s stupid but wins you a hundred grand, it’s not stupid.

The lure is literally a rubber cube the size of crap-game dice with a bunch of silicone strips run through it.

The Coike from SPRO looks like some sort of deep sea anemone or a creature from a nightmare, yet it too is catching lots of bass.

Why a bass would eat one of these things boggles the imagination, but they are eating them about as fast as U.S. anglers are forking over their cash for the relatively pricey ($20 for four) lures. 

They are reportedly particularly effective for sight fishing when bass are on the beds—the season for which will be here in a few weeks in Florida, and in a couple months across much of the South. The lures are cast into the beds and allowed to sink in front of the waiting fish.

Because bass in hard-fished lakes see lots of lures dropped on their heads in this period, they are naturally a bit suspicious of conventional soft plastics. But the dice are apparently so different from anything they’ve seen that most can’t resist.

The wiggling tentacles keep on moving even after the bait hits bottom, and that’s when most fish take. If not, lightly shaking the rod often activates the lure enough to draw a bite.

Part of the success of the odd lures is also linked to the rapid spread of live scanning sonar, which is revealing lots of bass anglers never knew were there before and allowing them to watch the reaction of fish to lures in real time.

The lures have to be fished very slowly, so fishing them blind—that is just fan casting or working down a shoreline—is not a highly productive tactic in most cases. But fished where the angler knows there are bass, they are killers.

Users say the baits are best fished on a size 1 or 1/0 light wire drop shot hook pushed through the middle of the body. In the shallows, patient anglers can fish them unweighted. At depths over 5 feet, a half-ounce weight goes two or three feet below the bait on 8-pound-test mono or lighter , and the rig is usually fished on light spinning tackle with 8 to 10 pound test braid.

The Core Tackle Wacky Shot jighead is ideal for rigging the dice lure, giving just enough weight to make it sink slowly.

A good alternative rigging is to screw the bait on to a Core Tackle Wacky Shot Jighead in 1/28 ounce—this keeps the lure in place better than just hooking it on, and also is just enough weight to get it down before hell freezes over. Bass Pro Shops and other outlets stock  this jig.

Tackle Warehouse and other major suppliers now have the lures available—buy several packs, you’re going to need them because they don’t stay on the hook very well when the bass are biting.

— Frank Sargeant
Frankmako1@gmail.com