If 2025 was the year the dice-style soft plastic colonised every American tackle wall, 2026 is the year it stops being interesting on its own. According to bass-tackle writer and ICAST regular Tyler Brinks, the 12-month cycle ahead is going to lean heavier on Japanese imports, hinged minnows, foot-long Neko worms and a wave of finesse soft plastics designed for forward-facing sonar.
"The fuzzy baits are everywhere. That was the case a couple years ago with the OSP DoLive Stick rubber and then you started seeing the Quake and all these different brands coming in, and now it's just mainstream," Brinks said in his spring trends round-up. "Everyone has their own dice. Strike King, Z-Man, you name it."
His current pick of the bunch is Z-Man's Fuzzy Nuggets, partly because of the elastic ElaZtech material the company runs across its line. "These are a dice-style bait. They got the fuzzy TRD. There's three different versions of them," he said. "The thing about these that I like is they are elastic. So obviously that's going to be more durable. It's going to last when you catch a lot of fish. You also have that stretchy material, but they're also very buoyant."
The buoyancy is what separates the elastic dice from the rest of the field on a drop-shot rig — the bait floats up off bottom rather than collapsing into the rocks — but it forces a heavier weight than usual to keep the rig in the strike zone.
The next category Brinks is watching is the wave of Japanese-style hinge minnows hitting US shelves. He flagged the Yamamoto Hinge Minnow, the Six Sense Shindo and a long line of imitations of the Pris D-So Shad as evidence the trend is accelerating.
"This is actually the Six Sense Shindo minnow. We're going to see a lot more minnows imitating those Japanese-style minnows that are really popular," he said. "We're going to see more imitations of Japanese baits from American companies. It's just something that happens. Dyson minnows, those are the easy ones."
Big worms are the third trend, but with a Neko-rig twist. Brinks held up Megabass's 16-inch G-Crack G-Crazy and the 13-inch Deps Kingo Air Worm to make the point. "The big worm is not new. Think of the old Berkley Power Worms. But the thing that's different about these is most of the time people are fishing these on a Neko rig, which is crazy. It's a big giant bait and it's going to attract big fish. It's going to have a lot of action because it's such a big long worm."
The hard-bait category, he said, is benefiting from Spro's distribution arrangement with Norries — which has American buyers seeing more Japanese hard baits at every showcase. Brinks called out the Norries Tatamaki 1232 jerkbait, the Shot Over crankbait with tungsten internal weights, and the lipless TG Rattlin' Jeder.
"There's more and more Japanese hard baits coming, especially with Norries because they're part of Spro," Brinks said. "Spro is distributing them. So they're releasing them a lot more frequently or they're bringing them to us from Japan."
A separate, quieter trend is the rise of gill-style flat-sided soft baits. Deps Bull Flat, Megabass Bellows Gill and the Berkley Flux Gill all got airtime in the round-up, with Brinks noting that the bait is no longer just a Texas-rig or free-rig profile.
"You could put it on the back of a swim jig or a chatterbait. People are really having success with that," he said. "It's not just a Texas-rig or free-rig bait, but that gill-style bait is something that I think we're going to see more and more of."
Forward-facing sonar continues to drive the finesse end of the soft-plastic market. Brinks pointed at NetBait's three-inch Sonics Glide as a representative of the slow-kick, subtle-action category that anglers are reaching for when the fish are watching every cast.
"It just has a little bit different action," he said. "But that more subtle action is something we're seeing in a lot of baits, or at least I am."
The trend round-up closed with a nod to tackle-storage innovation, specifically Evolution Outdoors' Twitch Box and their Blade Runner system for buzz baits and spinnerbaits. "I think we're going to see more and more smart tackle solutions like this," Brinks said. "I'm always looking for things that make my life easier, making myself more organised."
ICAST 2026 — typically held in mid-July in Orlando — will be the next chance to test whether the trend list ages well. For now, Brinks's bet is on hinged minnows, fuzzy elastic dice and the long Neko-rig worms taking the bulk of the wall space at every regional bass shop come summer.