TPE and traditional plastisol soft-plastic fishing baits can look similar in your tackle box, but they behave very differently when you stretch them, store them and—most importantly—try to rig them on a jighead.
Quick Answer
| Material | How it behaves on a jighead |
|---|---|
| Traditional plastisol | Generally easy to puncture and push over common bait keepers. |
| Highly elastic TPE-style | Can be dramatically more durable and stretchy, but that elasticity can make many traditional lead, wire and screw-lock keeper systems difficult to rig. |
And the opposite problem exists too.
A keeper designed specifically around an extremely elastic bait may not be ideal for a soft traditional plastisol bait.
That’s the problem we wanted to address when developing The Upgrade family from Ebb N Flow Outdoors.
We wanted a bait-retention system capable of working across the increasingly wide range of plastics anglers actually carry—not just one material.
Is it perfect for every soft plastic ever made?
No. Nothing is.
But for the wide variety of traditional and highly elastic plastics we fish in freshwater and saltwater, we believe we’ve found a pretty damn good middle ground.
What Is Plastisol?
Plastisol has been one of the dominant materials used to manufacture soft-plastic fishing lures for decades.
Worms, craws, swimbaits, grubs, tubes, creature baits, jerkbaits and countless other lure designs have traditionally been made from variations of plastisol.
Manufacturers can alter their formulas to change characteristics such as softness, flexibility, durability, buoyancy, color, transparency, salt content, scent and action.
That’s important because not every plastisol bait behaves the same way.
One manufacturer’s ultra-soft finesse bait may tear much more easily than another company’s firmer paddletail.
Generally, though, conventional plastisol is relatively easy to penetrate.
That’s why traditional lead collars, barbs, wire keepers and screw-lock systems have worked successfully with soft plastics for decades.
The plastic can puncture, deform and conform around the keeper.
Then highly elastic materials entered the picture. And they changed the equation.
What Is TPE?
TPE stands for thermoplastic elastomer.
It’s a broad category of materials, not one single fishing-lure formula.
Different manufacturers use different formulations, so anglers shouldn’t assume every stretchy bait behaves exactly the same.
But many modern TPE-style fishing baits share one immediately obvious characteristic: they stretch. A lot.
Pull on one and it may extend several times its original length before returning to shape.
That elasticity can create tremendous durability.
Where a conventional soft plastic might be damaged after a fish or two, a highly elastic bait can sometimes survive fish after fish.
That’s a major advantage.
But there’s a tradeoff.
The same characteristics that make these baits so durable can also make them frustrating to put on terminal tackle that was originally designed around traditional plastisol.
Why Does TPE Rig Differently?
Imagine pushing a traditional plastisol paddletail over a molded lead barb.
The keeper penetrates the plastic. The material deforms around it. The bait slides into position.
Now try the same thing with an extremely elastic bait.
Instead of simply puncturing, the material can stretch.
You push. It stretches more. The nose starts bunching. You push harder. The material stretches around the keeper instead of sliding over it.
Eventually you get the bait seated—or you start wondering why rigging a soft plastic has turned into a wrestling match.
That’s the fundamental difference.
Plastisol often allows a keeper to penetrate it. Highly elastic materials may try to stretch around it.
And that’s why keeper design matters.
Why Most Bait Keepers Favor One Material or the Other
There are plenty of good bait-keeper designs on the market.
The problem isn’t that they don’t work.
The problem is that many work exceptionally well with one type of soft plastic and considerably less effectively with another.
Screw-Lock and Spring Keepers
Screw-lock systems can provide outstanding retention with many traditional plastisol baits.
The spring physically threads into the nose of the bait, creating a strong mechanical connection without requiring a massive molded lead collar.
With highly elastic TPE-style baits, however, that same design can become frustrating.
Instead of allowing the spring to thread naturally into the material, the bait may want to stretch, twist and fight the screw.
Can you sometimes make it work? Absolutely.
Would a screw-lock keeper be our first choice if we knew we were primarily fishing extremely elastic plastics? No.
Wire Keepers
Wire keepers can also be extremely effective with traditional soft plastics.
A relatively small piece of wire can penetrate plastisol and provide excellent retention without adding much bulk.
But extremely elastic materials don’t always react the same way.
Instead of allowing the wire to penetrate and lock into position cleanly, the material may stretch around it, resist seating or become difficult to position correctly.
Again, that doesn’t make wire keepers bad. They can be fantastic.
It means they’re better suited to some materials than others.
Traditional Molded Lead Keepers
The molded lead collar or barb has probably caught more fish than any of us could count.
It’s simple. It’s inexpensive. And with many conventional plastisol baits, it works.
The plastic pushes over the keeper, conforms around it and stays in position.
But a large molded lead keeper can become a completely different experience with a highly elastic bait.
Instead of puncturing and conforming, the bait stretches.
The larger the obstruction, the more material you’re trying to force over it.
That’s one of the frustrations we wanted to solve.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
There’s a natural reaction when a bait slides down the hook: make the keeper bigger.
Sometimes that’s exactly the right answer. But not always.
With highly elastic materials, a massive keeper can actually make rigging more difficult.
The objective shouldn’t be to put the largest possible obstruction inside the bait.
The objective is to create enough mechanical retention to hold the bait securely without unnecessarily distorting it.
Keeper size matters. Keeper shape matters. Keeper position matters. And the material you’re pushing over that keeper matters.
That’s where we started thinking differently about The Upgrade.
Why The Upgrade Uses a Tapered Bait Keeper
Instead of relying on a massive lead collar, aggressive wire or screw-lock spring, The Upgrade uses a tapered bait keeper positioned farther down the hook shank toward the belly of the bait.
That decision was intentional.
We wanted a keeper capable of grabbing the bait farther into its body rather than relying exclusively on the first fraction of an inch directly behind the jighead.
That accomplishes two things.
First, it avoids forcing highly elastic material over a giant obstruction immediately behind the head.
Second, it moves the retention point farther into the bait, giving the keeper more material to work with.
For TPE and other stretchy plastics, that can make rigging substantially easier.
But we also wanted that same system to work with traditional plastisol.
And that’s where we’re going to be completely transparent. There’s a tradeoff.
Will The Upgrade Keeper Tear Some Plastisol Baits?
Yes. It can.
Very soft, thin or delicate plastisol baits can occasionally tear or “blow out” around a more aggressive keeper.
We’re not going to pretend otherwise.
Fishing-tackle design is full of compromises.
If we made the keeper small and gentle enough that it could virtually never damage the softest plastisol bait on the market, we’d sacrifice some of the retention we want.
If we went in the opposite direction and built an enormous, extremely aggressive retention system, we’d create the same compatibility problems with elastic plastics that we were trying to solve.
So we chose the middle. The widest useful middle ground we could find.
Across the paddletails, minnows, shrimp, jerkbaits and other soft plastics we actually fish—traditional and highly elastic—we believe the tapered keeper provides an extremely strong combination of bait retention, TPE compatibility, plastisol compatibility, easy rigging, straight bait alignment, durability and versatility.
Will there be an extremely soft plastisol bait that doesn’t love our keeper? Yep.
Will there be one particular bait that works better on somebody else’s specialized keeper? Absolutely.
We’re okay saying that.
Because we’re not trying to build the perfect jighead for one bait.
We’re trying to build terminal tackle for anglers carrying twenty different baits made from multiple materials.
That’s a very different design problem.
There Is No Universal Bait Keeper
Every keeper design has a tradeoff.
| Keeper type | The tradeoff |
|---|---|
| Screw-lock | Excellent retention with many traditional plastics, but often frustrating with extremely elastic materials. |
| Wire | Low-profile and highly effective with many plastisol baits, but not always ideal for TPE-style materials. |
| Large molded lead keeper | Simple, proven and effective with conventional plastics, but can make highly elastic baits difficult to install. |
| Small keeper | Easy to rig and gentle on softer plastics, but may sacrifice retention. |
| Extremely aggressive keeper | Strong retention, but potentially harder on delicate baits. |
| The Upgrade tapered keeper | Designed to bridge traditional and highly elastic soft plastics, with the tradeoff that particularly soft plastisol can sometimes tear around the keeper. |
That’s fishing-tackle design.
Every decision solves one problem while potentially creating another.
The goal isn’t pretending you’ve somehow eliminated every compromise.
The goal is deciding which compromises make the most sense for the way anglers actually fish.
For us, that meant building around both traditional and increasingly popular elastic soft-plastic materials.
TPE vs. Plastisol: Which Is Better?
Neither. We fish both.
And there are situations where we prefer each.
TPE-style baits can offer tremendous elasticity and durability.
Traditional plastisol can provide exceptional softness, action and an enormous variety of formulations, scents, shapes and presentations.
There are plastisol baits we wouldn’t want to replace.
There are highly elastic baits that have earned permanent spots in our tackle boxes.
There’s no reason to turn this into some ridiculous material war.
The fish don’t care what polymer acronym is printed on the package.
The better question is: does the bait do what you want it to do—and does your terminal tackle allow it to do it?
Can One Jighead Work With Both TPE and Plastisol?
Absolutely.
And that’s a major part of what we wanted from The Upgrade Multi-Purpose Jighead.
Most anglers don’t organize their tackle boxes according to polymer chemistry. Neither do we.
You might have a traditional plastisol paddletail sitting beside an extremely stretchy minnow. Then a shrimp. Then a jerkbait. Then a Ned bait.
We didn’t want anglers to need one entire terminal-tackle system for traditional soft plastics and another system for elastic plastics.
We wanted the best of both worlds.
But there’s an important distinction: multi-purpose doesn’t mean universal.
The keeper can bridge materials.
That doesn’t mean one hook style and weight can perform every fishing technique.
That’s why The Upgrade eventually became a family of five products.
Why The Upgrade Became a Five-Product Family
The original idea behind The Upgrade was versatility.
But the more ways you fish, the more obvious something becomes: you can’t optimize one hook for every situation without compromising somewhere.
An exposed-hook paddletail jighead isn’t the ideal tool for dragging a bait through thick grass.
A weedless EWG isn’t necessarily the best tool for presenting a finesse minnow to suspended fish.
And a 3/0 or 4/0 hook doesn’t belong inside a tiny Ned bait.
So instead of pretending one jighead could do everything, The Upgrade grew into five purpose-driven products.
The Upgrade Multi-Purpose Jighead
Best for: exposed-hook swimming, jigging and general-purpose soft-plastic fishing.
This is the broadest-use member of The Upgrade family and a natural starting point for paddletails, minnows, shrimp and other traditional or highly elastic soft plastics.
If you want to swim a bait, hop bottom or simply need a strong exposed-hook jighead, start here.
Shop The Upgrade Multi-Purpose Jighead →
The Upgrade Hover Hook
Best for: horizontal, finesse and suspended presentations.
Available in 1/16, 3/32 and 1/8 ounce with a 3/0 2X hook, the Hover moves the weight away from the conventional nose-heavy jighead configuration.
The result is a different fall and bait orientation that can be particularly useful with finesse minnows, jerk-style baits, forward-facing sonar and suspended fish.
The Upgrade A.T.V. Weedless Swinghead
Best for: grass, wood, oyster, docks and other snag-prone cover.
The extra-wide-gap hook allows soft plastics to be rigged Texas-style.
Current configurations include:
| Weight | Hook size |
|---|---|
| 1/8 oz | 2/0 |
| 1/4 oz | 3/0 |
| 3/8 oz | 4/0 |
When cover becomes the biggest problem, going weedless can matter considerably more than what material the bait is made from.
Shop The Upgrade A.T.V. Weedless →
The Upgrade A.T.V. Weedless Hover Hook
Best for: light horizontal presentations around cover.
The A.T.V. Weedless Hover combines a light weighted presentation with an EWG-style hook so anglers can maintain a subtle presentation while protecting the hook point.
It’s currently offered in 3/32 ounce with 2/0 and 4/0 hook options.
Think Hover presentation with A.T.V. weedless capability.
Shop The Upgrade A.T.V. Hover Hook →
The Upgrade Ned Rig
Best for: compact, bottom-oriented finesse fishing.
The newest member of The Upgrade family uses a 1/4-ounce head with a 1/0 2X black nickel hook.
It’s designed to fill the smaller-hook role that the larger members of the family aren’t intended to handle.
The initial online release includes:
- Fluoro Yellow with Prism Eye
- Black with Prism Eye
- Watermelon Green with Red Flake and Red Eye
Sometimes you don’t need a paddletail jighead, weedless EWG or Hover Hook.
Sometimes you need a little bait sitting on the bottom in front of a fish that doesn’t want much.
That’s where the Ned belongs.
What About the Jigheads Already Hanging Next to the Baits?
There are going to be plenty of good, convenient options.
Major soft-plastic manufacturers offer their own jigheads. Companies such as Eye Strike produce a wide range of heads. And there are hundreds of other terminal-tackle manufacturers competing for space in tackle shops and online.
Walk into a good tackle shop and you’ll probably find several perfectly good jigheads hanging within a few feet of the soft plastics you’re buying.
Order online and the website may recommend one automatically.
Many of those options will absolutely catch fish.
But there’s an important distinction: convenient doesn’t automatically mean best for the way you fish.
A jighead sitting beside a pack of baits doesn’t necessarily mean it has the keeper design you prefer, the hook strength you need, the correct hook size, the weight placement you want, the weedless capability you need, the presentation you’re trying to create, or compatibility with the other plastics already in your tackle box.
That’s really why we built The Upgrade.
We weren’t trying to make another jighead because the fishing industry desperately needed another option.
There are already hundreds of options.
We wanted to solve the things that frustrated us about the terminal tackle we were already fishing.
If the convenient jighead hanging beside your favorite bait does everything you need it to do? Fish it. Seriously.
But convenient and optimized aren’t always the same thing.
TPE vs. Plastisol Around Heavy Cover
Material choice and terminal-tackle choice are two separate decisions.
You might love a highly elastic TPE bait because it survives repeated contact with vegetation and fish. Great.
But if you put that bait on an exposed hook and throw it into thick grass, your biggest problem probably isn’t the bait keeper.
It’s the exposed hook.
That’s when a weedless system such as The Upgrade A.T.V. becomes more appropriate.
Likewise, if you’re presenting a bait to suspended fish using forward-facing sonar, your biggest concern may not be durability.
It may be weight placement and bait orientation.
That’s where the Hover family enters the conversation.
The larger point is: soft-plastic material is only one variable in the system.
Does Hook Strength Matter With TPE?
Absolutely—but not because TPE requires a stronger hook.
Hook strength should be determined by target species, tackle, drag pressure, cover, hook size and fishing style.
The reason this matters in a conversation about durable plastics is simple.
Eventually something has to eat the bait.
And we’d rather think about that fish before the bite happens.
Several members of The Upgrade family use stronger hook configurations because we fish both freshwater and inshore saltwater.
A hook that only needs to handle a finesse bass in open water has a different job from one being pulled against a redfish near oyster or another strong fish around structure.
Choose the hook based on what’s going to eat the bait—not simply what fits inside it.
Does TPE Require a Different Jighead Weight?
No.
TPE doesn’t automatically require 1/8, 1/4 or 3/8 ounce.
Choose weight according to depth, current, wind, retrieve speed, desired fall rate, bait profile, bottom contact, target species and presentation.
A good starting principle in many situations is: use the lightest weight that still gives you the control and presentation you need.
But even that isn’t an absolute rule.
Sometimes you intentionally want a faster fall. Sometimes you’re fighting tidal current. Sometimes bottom contact is critical. Sometimes you want the bait nearly suspended.
Choose weight based on the job—not the material.
Can TPE and Plastisol Be Stored Together?
Be careful.
Different soft-plastic materials can interact with one another, and some highly elastic baits should not be stored in direct contact with traditional plastics.
The safest approach is simple: follow the bait manufacturer’s storage instructions and keep specialty soft plastics in their original packaging unless you’re certain the materials are compatible.
Don’t assume two baits can live together simply because they both feel soft.
How Can You Tell Whether a Bait Is TPE or Plastisol?
Check the manufacturer’s product information or packaging.
Extreme stretch can provide a clue, but don’t rely on appearance alone.
TPE is a broad category, and manufacturers use different formulations.
Likewise, branded materials such as Z-Man ElaZtech shouldn’t automatically be used as generic names for every stretchy fishing bait.
If you’re unsure what the bait is made from, check with the manufacturer.
How Do You Choose the Right Jighead for Any Soft Plastic?
Forget the marketing for a minute. Ask these seven questions.
1. Does the bait rig straight?
If not, fix that first. A great jighead with a crooked bait is still a bad rig.
2. Does the keeper hold it securely?
You shouldn’t have to push the bait back into position after every cast.
3. Is the hook the right size?
You need enough hook exposure for an effective hookup without unnecessarily restricting the bait’s action.
4. Is the hook strong enough?
Think about the fish, tackle and cover.
5. Is the weight correct?
Think depth, current, fall rate and presentation.
6. Do you need an exposed or weedless hook?
Let the cover answer that question.
7. Where do you want the weight?
Traditional nose-weighted jighead? Belly-weighted? Hover-style? Bottom-oriented Ned presentation?
That decision can completely change how the exact same soft plastic behaves.
Answer those seven questions and you’re much closer to choosing the right terminal tackle than simply grabbing whatever package happens to be hanging next to the bait.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are TPE soft plastics more durable than plastisol?
Many TPE-style fishing baits are extremely elastic and durable, but performance varies by formulation and manufacturer. Traditional plastisol also comes in many formulations ranging from extremely soft to relatively durable.
Can you use TPE baits on regular jigheads?
Yes. Many conventional jigheads work perfectly well with highly elastic soft plastics. The question is whether the keeper, hook and head design allow that particular bait to rig straight, remain secure and perform correctly.
Do screw-lock keepers work with TPE?
They can, but highly elastic materials can make screw-lock systems difficult to use because the bait may stretch and twist instead of allowing the spring to thread naturally into the material.
Do wire keepers work with TPE?
Some do. Results depend on the particular keeper and bait material. Highly elastic plastics can resist penetration or stretch around certain wire keeper designs.
Why is my TPE bait difficult to push over a lead keeper?
Highly elastic material may stretch around a large molded collar or barb instead of puncturing and conforming around it like many traditional plastisol baits.
Why does my soft plastic keep sliding down my jighead?
Possible causes include keeper design, keeper position, damaged plastic, improper rigging or a mismatch between the hook, keeper and bait.
Can an aggressive keeper tear traditional soft plastics?
Yes. Extremely soft or thin plastisol can tear around aggressive bait keepers. Greater retention can come with greater stress on delicate material.
Can one keeper work with both TPE and plastisol?
Yes, although every design involves tradeoffs. The Upgrade’s tapered keeper was specifically designed around creating useful retention across both highly elastic and conventional soft-plastic materials.
Do TPE baits need special hooks?
Not necessarily. Choose hook size and strength according to the bait, target species, tackle, cover and presentation rather than material alone.
Which Upgrade should I use?
For general exposed-hook fishing, start with the Multi-Purpose Jighead. For horizontal finesse presentations, consider the Hover Hook. For weedless fishing around cover, look at the A.T.V. Weedless Swinghead. For weedless horizontal finesse presentations, use the A.T.V. Weedless Hover. For compact Ned-style plastics, use the Upgrade Ned Rig.
The Bottom Line: The Best of Both Worlds
TPE and plastisol can both be outstanding fishing-lure materials.
They simply don’t behave the same way.
And many bait keepers were designed around the characteristics of one material more than the other.
Screw-locks can be fantastic with traditional plastics. Wire keepers can be fantastic. Molded lead collars have been catching fish forever. Specialized TPE retention systems have their place too.
But anglers aren’t carrying one type of soft plastic anymore.
Our tackle boxes have changed.
Traditional plastisol isn’t disappearing. Highly elastic plastics aren’t going away either.
We wanted terminal tackle capable of living comfortably in both worlds.
That’s what we’re trying to accomplish with The Upgrade from Ebb N Flow Outdoors.
Will our keeper occasionally blow out an extremely soft plastisol bait? Yes.
Will another specialized keeper sometimes outperform ours with one particular bait? Absolutely.
But that’s not the problem we’re trying to solve.
We’re not trying to build the perfect jighead for one soft plastic.
We’re trying to build better terminal tackle for anglers carrying an entire tackle box full of different plastics, fishing different species, different water and different presentations.
So when you’re choosing a jighead, don’t look at weight alone.
Don’t grab something simply because it’s conveniently hanging next to the bait.
Look at the complete system: bait material, bait size, keeper design, keeper position, hook size, hook strength, weight, cover and presentation.
Then choose the tool that allows the bait to fish the way you intended.
That’s the philosophy behind all five members of The Upgrade family.
- The Multi-Purpose Jighead — exposed-hook versatility.
- The Hover Hook — finesse and horizontal presentation.
- The A.T.V. Weedless Swinghead — weedless all-terrain fishing.
- The A.T.V. Weedless Hover — weedless horizontal finesse.
- The Ned Rig — compact bottom-oriented finesse.
Five different tools built around one basic idea:
Don’t make your bait adapt to your terminal tackle. Choose terminal tackle that lets your bait do its job.
One keeper system built for the whole tackle box — traditional and highly elastic alike. Shop The Upgrade family →