Fishing with Plastics

Plastic lures first become popular in the US in 1957, and today they have evolved into a huge variety and forms for all types of fishing – sly, spinning and bait-casting in both fresh and salt water.

We now have a huge variety of different fish attractors made from flexible viny! Plastic that resemble foods that fish eat – worms, maggots, grubs, grasshoppers, cricket, scrimps, prawns and a wide range of fish shapes.

These plastics are highly effective on a host of different species, though. I have found that soft rubber baits can be very seasonal with some fish.

Barra, for instance will bite any soft bait, no matter what colour or shape, that comes within range during the run-off season, but hardly touch them when it is cool or during the hotter months of the year – September to December. It's one reason that my tackle box has both soft rubber and hard-body lures – and even bait hooks for live baiting when nothing else works.

Soft lures are excellent for all tropical fresh and saltwater species, and are great performers in stocked impoundments, especially in deep water. A trick I discovered back in the early 80's, when I first used rubbers, was that a weight worm is highly effective for Saratoga. When rigged properly with the hooks turned up, it is cast over lily pads and dragged snake-like over them. Such a rig is hard to resist for surface-feeding fish – including barra. I first twigged to worms when a bloke got a 15kg barra from Cahill's Crossing on the East Alligator Saratoga and small barra, will chase the lure, stirring up the sand on every attempt to grab it. The upper or lower ends of the pools are usually devoid of snags and weed because of the wet season floods, and these are the worthwhile spots to work softies over the bottom.

This method is to cast the lure, lit it sink when with the line almost taut – but always under control – and then retrieve it with the rod tip moving from near horizontal position to vertical before dropping the rod tip top slack and repeating the sequence. It's important that any slack in the line is wound in.

Colour Lure

Colour is often the factor that gets a strike, though there are no universal rules. Colour selection of lures is often guided by what local tackle shop stock.

As a rule, there are colour basics that are supposed to work best for fish. According to the experts, a sliver, flashy blue mullet colour is best for saltwater fishing. Another school reckons that dark, natural-looking colours are best in clear water, while bright colour are best suited to turbid water and dim light conditions. Suffice to say rules are made to be broken, and needless to mention, there are many exceptions when the rule fails. The important thing is to select colours that function properly and work in a way during retrieve that resemble a fish or whatever it is supposed to represent.