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Should you use mineral oil, or better yet “worm oil”, to keep your crappie baits and other soft plastics colorful and soft? Some anglers say yes, but are they right?
The use of mineral oil to keep plastics in like new condition seems to be a common tip that circulates the web. I honestly didn’t know if this was a good idea or not, so I set out to test this “hack” for myself.
Rather than blindly dumping mineral oil on $200 worth of soft plastic fishing baits, I wanted to know exactly what that would do to them. So, rather than just take someone’s word for it, I did a 30 day experiment.
The answer I came up with was that you definitely SHOULD NOT oil your soft plastics with mineral oil. Don’t do it! While there are some anglers out there recommending that you do so, quite frankly, they are wrong. While mineral oil may keep your crappie jigs and other soft plastics colorful and soft in the short term, it doesn’t seem to work well over time. Check out my results below and see why worm oil is a much better option.
Why Use Oil On Fishing Baits?
The reason there is even a desire to use some type of oil on your bait is to keep them soft, colorful, and pliable when they are stored outside of their original packaging.
So, why would you want to store plastic lures outside of the original packaging? Well, many anglers, me included, like to load up Plano-style bait boxes with various styles and colors of baits so they don’t have to dig through 50 packages looking for what they want. This may not be an issue for you if you only fish with a few different baits. In that case, I would recommend you keep them in the package and skip the need for oil. That’s typically always the very best option for storage.
For hardcore anglers that try different styles and colors throughout the day, it’s maddening to dig through a pile of sealed packages. Instead, it’s much more efficient to pop the lid open on a large Plano box and just grab what you’re looking for. The problem with storing baits in a plastic box for an extended time is that they tend to dry out and fade. This is where oiling your baits can help.
30 Day Test Of Mineral Oil On Soft Plastics
The following is what I did to test the mineral oil hack for keeping soft plastic fishing baits colorful and pliable. I chose 5 baits from 4 different companies with various colors, as can be seen below. Strike King, Slab Magnet, Southern Pro and Bobby Garland were all represented in my test. I placed 2 of each bait in plastic storage bags with mineral oil in one and worm oil in the other. Each bait, for a total of 10, were stored in their own individual bag. I labeled each baggie and placed them in a cabinet in my house for 30 days exactly. I removed them from the bags and laid them out as seen below. Wow, was I surprised with the result.
I fully expected there to be no adverse effects from either type of oil, but I was 100% wrong about that. Immediately I could tell things had gone awry with the mineral oiled baits. The Slab Magnet at the top seemed to be totally fine, but all other baits were messed up from the mineral oil. The worm oil seemed to have worked perfectly. Below is an individual breakdown of the results of oiling each bait.
Slab Magnet
As mentioned above, I could see no ill effects from either type of oil on the Slab Magnet. However, keep in mind this was just 30 days. Based on the results of the other baits below I’m not sure I would use mineral oil on any of my fishing baits. Who knows what it would do to them over 6 months.
Southern Pro
So, I’ll be honest here and admit I’m not 100% sure these crappie tubes are Southern Pro or some other brand I may have accumulated over the years. Regardless, they are your run of the mill crappie tube in bright red and chartreuse. I chose this out of my pack because I wanted to have a range of common crappie colors, red being one of them. I wanted to see if any of the different colors would fade in the presence of the oil. The result here was that I did not see any color change whatsoever with either oil, but the mineral oiled tube was noticeably stiffer and misshapen from sitting in mineral oil. The tentacles were shrunken and stiff. In contrast, the worm oiled tube looked as if it was new.
Strike King
Next up is the Mr. Crappie Joker. The Joker that I stored in worm oil looked like new. In contrast the one stored in mineral oil was ever so slightly shrunken, misshapen and perhaps slightly stiffer. The effects were noticeable but not as drastic as on some of the other baits. I suspect with a longer amount of time it would get much worse.
Bobby Garland Slab Slayer
The most noticeable negative reaction to the mineral oil was that of the Slab Slayer. While the color did not seem to fade or change in any way, the shape and texture certainly did. The bait definitely shrunk, as can be clearly seen above. Additionally, the tail and body became stiff. Again, the worm oiled bait was like new. Don’t let mineral oil anywhere near your Bobby Garland baits!
Bobby Garland Baby Shad
For my last test bait I chose perhaps the most popular crappie bait on Earth – the Bobby Garland Baby Shad in Monkey Milk. This bait also had a poor reaction to being stored in mineral oil for 30 days. The shrinkage was extremely noticeable and the tail was very stiff compared to the one stored in worm oil.
How To Apply Worm Oil To Soft Plastics
After seeing the results of my test, I feel pretty good about using worm oil on my soft plastic baits. As far a applying the oil, that is a pretty simple process. You can either put a few drops in each compartment or in the bag they came in. Vibration from your boat should slowly work the oil around and coat the plastics. That’s not good enough to satisfy me though. Instead, I squirt a few drops into each compartment of my tackle trays and manually distribute the worm oil with my fingers. It’s a messy process, but it’s thorough.
Worm Oil Vs. Mineral Oil On Soft Plastics
After seeing the results from my 30 day experiment, I would never apply mineral oil to my soft plastic fishing baits. In contrast I saw no ill effects from using worm oil. Worm oil did not fade any of the test lures and they remained very pliable and soft. The same could not be said for the mineral oiled baits.
The only bait where I didn’t notice ill effects was the Slab Magnet. All other baits were affected negatively by mineral oil in some way. From my experiment, I could not see a reason to not use worm oil. Therefore, going forward, that will be my preference no matter the cost difference.
I specifically used Golden Grub Worm Oil Lubrication
linked here. That’s what I choose to use, but I’m sure there are other options on the market. Worm oil is definitely going to be more expensive than some cheap mineral oil you get at Wal Mart. With that said, I buy premium Bobby Garland soft plastics, so a tiny bit of worm oil here or there isn’t much of a difference in expense for me. Your situation may vary a bit.
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Does Worm Oil Adversely Affect The Bite?
Like mineral oil, the worm oil linked above is unscented, so it should have very little impact on whether you get a bite or not. Now, there are many oils on the market that do add a scent to your bait, but that’s not the purpose of oil usage discussed here. Instead, I prefer to add scent at the time of use and not while baits are in storage.
What About Salt Covered Crappie Jigs?
Certainly, any soft plastic that has a salt covering will lose some of that salt if you add an oil to it while storing it. However, I don’t think the salt stays on the plastic for long once it hits the water anyway. Salt seems more like a sales gimmick than a real attractant to me.
Conclusion
Whenever possible, keep your soft plastics in the original pouches. I’m certain that’s what all the manufacturers recommend you do. But, if you’re like me, that’s really hard to do during fishing season. The temptation to organize all my baits into Plano-style tackle boxes is just too great.
For most of your soft plastics, I think you’re safe to use a quality worm oil formulated specifically for soft plastic fishing baits. With that said, stay away from mineral oil! If you do choose to oil your own baits, don’t take my word for it, do your own testing. I would surely hate for you to ruin a pile of expensive baits on my account. If anything, I hope this article can save you from making the big mistake of using mineral oil.
Honestly, I’ve kept baits in quality moisture free boxes with little degradation over a pretty long period of time. So, that’s also an option – just put them in the box and don’t worry about it. With that said, I’m still on the side of oiling your soft plastics with worm oil.
Happy Fishing
Augustus Clay
If you found this article interesting, you might like some of my other articles linked below.
How Long Can You Keep Crappie On Ice
Super Gluing Crappie Jigs
How To Store Crappie Jigs
