A reader e-mailed recently, confused by some of the terms that regularly appear in the weekly fishing report. The reader wrote that he was 71 and categorized himself as a casual angler.

He's correct that fishing has a specialized language, much like baseball. The only difference is that baseball lingo hasn't changed much in 100 years. An RBI is still a run batted in, and ERA still stands for a pitcher's earned run average.

Fishing terms are constantly evolving with technologies and techniques. Avid anglers can keep pace with new terminology, but fish-speak is confusing to casual anglers and novices. There are enough good fishing Web sites that you can usually find accurate info regarding confusing terms by doing an Internet search.

To clear the smoke, here's an angler to English dictionary of terms you've seen in the fishing report:

Soft plastics: Plastic worms were the original soft plastic lures, but the beauty of plastic is that it can be molded into virtually any shape. The plain Jane plastic worm that closely resembled an earthworm has morphed into worms with curly tails, worms with appendages, plastic lizards, frogs, crawfish, grubs, tubes, centipedes, bugs, baitfish and any number of critters that never existed in nature.

Texas rig: The Texas-rigged plastic worm is a technique invented in East Texas' brushy lakes. It's rigged by running a hook point through the head of the worm, then bringing the hook point out. The worm is pushed up on the shank of the hook so the hook eye is imbedded in the worm's head. Then, the hook point is twisted around and buried in the body of the worm. This rigging makes the lure largely weedless. It originated with plastic worms but can be used on most soft plastics.

Carolina rig: Another way to rig soft plastics, the Carolina rig works best in deeper water where there's a reasonably clean bottom. The Carolina rig uses a heavy, egg-shaped sinker on the standing line, which is then tied to a two-way swivel. The swivel acts as a stop for the sinker and also reduces line twist. Beneath the sinker, tie on a monofilament leader that's 18-inches long or so and attach a hook to the end of the leader. Then rig a soft plastic bait Texas-style to make it weedless. The lure on a Carolina rig floats up off the bottom.

Slabs: These are heavy lead spoons that are usually oval-shaped. They're painted in various colors. Slabs are popular for jigging in deep water for striped bass, hybrid stripers or sand bass. They're inexpensive, effective and sink quickly.

Jigging spoon: Any spoon-type lure used for vertical jigging to draw strikes from fish directly under the boat. Slabs are jigging spoons, but the more streamlined Hopkins stainless steel spoon defines the category.

Creature bait: Any soft plastic that has no natural counterpart. Creature baits often have tentacles and other weird appendages to create more bulk and action in the water.

Senko: A chunky, retro-style, straight-bodied plastic worm. The original Senko is made of very soft plastic by Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits.

Chatterbait: The chatterbait is an odd combination of a jig and a spinnerbait. Instead of a blade that turns to create flash and turbulence, the chatterbait blade wobbles violently from side to side as it's pulled through the water.

Circle hook: The circle hook was developed by commercial fishermen. Sport fishermen like it because it almost always hooks fish in the corner of the mouth where they can be easily released with little harm to the fish. Unlike J-shaped hooks, the secret with the circle hook is to let the fish hook itself.