any of you guys had luck with soft plastics. Is the technique really super important? half the time I end up with weed stuck on the hook.... I've looked at some utube vids of techniques but these guys always seem to go from boats. maybe the plastics are better suited boating situations..
have been targetting bream, salmon and whiting mainly.
any comments or tips appreciated.

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Do you know what really makes me smile? Facial muscles.

plastics can be used anywhere i have caught heaps of fish both from land and boat......... just need to try and match the food source that the fish are feeding on or what you think will work just keep trying

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Like A Duck On A Hotplate

By far the best luck I have had with plastics is on flathead although I can't think of many fish that are yet to be landed on a plastic (worth catching anyway). As with all lures, you need to work them, despite various manufacturer claims plastics are not like bait (in my experience anyway). Technique is important, but more important is 'where' you are fishing them. Unlike bait, fish aren't going to 'search' for a lure as many would for a bait that they can smell, thus if you don't put it right in front of them, they will never find it. The type and size of lure you use is also important.

When targeting flathead, you want violent jerks with long rests in between (5 seconds or so). My standard retrieve is to wind in the slack, until you feel the lure move, then give it two violent jerks to lift it high off the bottom, then just wind up the slack and let it sit for 5 seconds. Most times I find the flathead hit it either as it is sitting or just as you start to move it. Colour wise I like 'natural' colours, but also on occasion bright pinks, oranges and red is dynamite.

Salmon are dead easy on plastics and awesome fun on light gear. Choose a lure with a bit of a tail to it, then just wind it in. If the fish are on the surface, start winding fairly quickly straight away, try and get a bit of splash on the surface. If they are deeper, give the lure a couple of seconds to sink, then retrieve, give the rod a few flicks as you are retrieving.

Whiting are fairly rare captures on lures, though by no means unheard of. Using plastics for bream is also popular, but I have very little experience. From what I understand you want very light jig heads, slow retrieves but lots of twitches and small but violent movements. Also you generally need to fish very close (within 1m or so) to structure, boats, pylons, bridges, etc.

Best of luck, Dave

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That's where I saw the leprechaun. He tells me to burn things...

if you want to make it so easy its not fair on the fish,
use berkely gulps 3in perl minnow.

no fish will turn it down.
i have caught tonnes of fish on them from flathead to snook, salmon yellow eye mullet even trumps!!!

hardley anything will turn down the white ones, i dont know why

my 2 cents

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Forever falling through the water column

thanks for the responses guys. I'll keep at it. Look forward to reporting back with some good news.....
oh and what kind of jig heads for which type lure? have used a squidgy jighead on the gulp 6" sandworm nereis and just have the tail chomped off to leave the jighead. Is there a different jighead to use for this type of lure?
thanks

leigh

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Do you know what really makes me smile? Facial muscles.

use a stinger rig also known as trailer hook:)

always works for me.

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Forever falling through the water column

Jig head should suit your style of fishing more so than lure. For example if you are fishing deep water, a big jig head, shallow you want a smaller one. 6" is pretty big for the majority of fish in Vic (unless you are specifically targeting big snapper, kingies or the likes), probably what is happening is smaller flatties are just chomping the tail. Stick to a 4" or smaller and you should get a better hook up rate on the majority of fish.

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That's where I saw the leprechaun. He tells me to burn things...

while on the subject , i was wondernig what weight jig heads you normally use. I am mostly fishing from jetties that have alot of weed and grass on the bottom. At the moment I've just been using 2gm and 1.5gm which i'm starting to think might be a bit light on. having trouble getting distance with the cast but don't want to be dragging the lure through the gras either.

thanks again for the tips

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Do you know what really makes me smile? Facial muscles.

Personally I don't like plastics for fishing over weed. The are sold as the 'wonder lure' that can do everything, but they have their limitations. I prefer diving minnows over weed, use one of appropriate diving depth and you shouldn't have any problems. You will need to do a little trial and error as in the cold water flatties wont move far to chase a lure, you have to drag it right past their nose.

If you really want to use plastics, I think you can get ones with weed guards (mono loop over the hook that just gets pushed out of the way when a fish bites), I am not sure of the name so you might need to drop into a tackle store and ask.

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That's where I saw the leprechaun. He tells me to burn things...

I've had a huge respect for plastic fishing after doing very well on the Barra west of Darwin, perhaps the craziest on tap fishing I've done to date. Down here it seems a little more fidgity and precise to immitate prey (maybe not so much for snapper and flattys)..... but only a week or so ago, my brother pulled this lot out of fresh water on nothing but plastics .... trout weighed in at 7.2 pound.

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"the breath hold bank is open for business"

well had another crack on the weekend with the plastics in geelong. I still have not landed a fish yet but have got one on and lost it and felt numerus bites. My mate went and bloody hooked this nice pinky on plastic, took the lure on its way down! I got given the snotty trevally, as a pitty fish by another bloke fishing the same plastics as us. I can feel my first plastic caught fish coming very soon! its gonna be hard to top the pinky though!

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Do you know what really makes me smile? Facial muscles.

I finally did it!! went out with chameleon at the same place he bagged that pinky but today it was my turn! I wouldn't say they were impressive fish but I am stoked just to finally have it pay off. Got two small flatties the same size. they were delicious!! lure was the gulp turtleback pumpkin seed.

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Do you know what really makes me smile? Facial muscles.

Well done blinky, very satisfying to land em on plastics. Surface lures and unweighted platics are another step again ... even more exciting I find sometimes because of the visual you can get prior to the take or if you simply sight fishing.

Little story for ya ... I go on at least 2 NT trips per year and fish till I need to fly back to melbs and recover. I was on the hottest Barra action last year, it was just insane. I pulled out 30+ barra in 2hrs all over 70cm one got to 92cm (my best is 97). Mates were doing ok but pissed at me because any thing I chucked in the water was not retrieved without a fight. I was being a smart ass at one point saying "yeah, my shout for a beer ... i'll just catch this Barra first" (as I cast into the water) and sure enough ... BANG!

Here is a photo of a plastic that came off my slick-rig so I duck taped it and chucked it back out ... yep... BANG!

Moral of the story is if you like plastic fishing, Barra are fantastic fun.

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"the breath hold bank is open for business"

great story, pitty there's not "ontap" fishing like that down here

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Do you know what really makes me smile? Facial muscles.

This was taken this may at newport.using 6lbs braid and 4 lbs leeder Pumkin seed turtle back with a 1/4 jig head. great eating too. now all i need to do is shoot one! oz