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Up or Downsize?
By Sean Bekkers
I've been an avid soft plastics fisho for in excess of 15 years now and throughout that time, especially in the early years, I had fallen victim to both fads and getting stuck in a rut. Do you ever get into that pattern of plugging away using only your favourites. It's happened to me more often than not. On the upside though I have collected a huge amount of awesome gear over the years.
Of late I have been focused on chasing particular species like jewfish (mulloway) and flathead in my local estuary and instead of running all over the place, hoping for the best, I have chosen to focus on three or four spots. Some days are super special, where everything comes together and you can't put a step wrong. Other days are harder, with hours spent throwing a plastic at a bank that's totally stacked with bait and you can't even win a trick. Sound familiar?
I have spent countless hours working a particular bank chasing jewfish and early on I was lucky with a couple of legal jewfish on plastics, before realizing that this particular spot relies on the tide ebbing and NO real boat traffic overnight, including people crabbing. This provides time for the bait fish to move in, along with the bigger fish and by-catches of cod and big flathead are common when everything comes together.
Once I clued into this, my catches became more frequent... but I was still missing a key element. This was due to my stubbornness to change lures. My go-to lure size for years has been a 3-4 inch plastic paddle tail in a green colour. Bearing in mind that the deepest this bank gets is about 4-5 metres and the constant bait fish is hardy heads... do I really need to up size my presentation?
Although a 3-4 inch plastic is a safe size to throw, meaning if you don't get a jewfish (mulloway) then you may get some by-catch like bream, flathead or trevally, it might not be enough to tempt a more apex predator to bite. This is where you reach into the deepest darkest corner of your tackle box and grab a packet of plastics that has been there for years and think 'should I, could it work... stuff it I'm going to have a crack'.
In my case I had a packet of ZMan 6" SwimmerZ in Golden Boy colour, that I rigged on an 8/0 TT Lures SnakelockZ weedless jig head (a big hook seems to nail the tail grabbers). I had these babies prepped for an offshore trip that never eventuated. This particular experiment paid off and I nailed an 82cm jewfish straight up and they seem to get a good quantity of flathead hitting them too. I'm sure they think it's a small whiting.
Since then I have changed my line up to include this bigger profile plastic. I have three rods set up with a range of plastics, including a 3, 4 and 6 inch plastic. Once I have covered a spot with one, I'll swap to the next and then the next, until I find a size and pattern that works for the day. A good indicator of what's going to work is usually the bait holding in the area. A stack of small Moses perch in the area means the bigger plastic is going to get tossed in first. Super-sizing in this case worked a treat and is now part of my arsenal.
One of my recent trips offshore was the complete opposite, with a small, unlikely plastic the key. Me and a good mate of mine Gav shot outside to catch... well let's be honest... whatever would bite. Drifting onto our first bit of ground, with the sun just hitting the horizon, saw me locked into a solid fish that I felt was a solid snapper. Big smiles were plentiful in the boat, 'yes, we are in for an epic day'. Fifteen minutes later and disaster struck, busted off. Repeated drifts didn't result in any fish either, not even a dirty grinner.
We set out a few more kilometres to our next spot and the day just got better and better. Blue skies, crystal clear water and no chop, the ocean was a like mirror. A gorgeous day and what I believe to be some of the hardest conditions to catch quality fish. I like a little bit of chop and clouds to be honest.
Countless drifts resulted in mackerel (or maybe sharks) sneaking baits off without us even noticing and all of the bottom bashing in the world couldn't raise anything more than a whiptail, even though the sounder was showing good signs of fish holding. During winter we raised a couple of quality snapper floating lightly weighted pillies and letting out enough line for it to drift along the bottom like a dead fish floating in the current. These snapper took the pilchards with the softest of takes (a whiting would hit harder than these guys).
With this in mind I decided to drag my ZMan 5 inch Scented Jerk ShadZ along the bottom and see what happened. Hmmm... absolutely nothing. So for a giggle I decided to drop down a ZMan 2.5 inch TRD CrawZ on a 3/8oz jig head, which looking back is kind of funny because I was sending this tiny plastic down 25 metres. I'm pretty sure Gav looked at me and shook his head.
My retrieve for this was quite simple, keeping in mind that we were drifting. I fed the line out until it hit the bottom and let the TRD CrawZ drag across the bottom, with an occasional hop. First drop and the drift resulted in an awesome take and a tense battle followed. This resulted in my biggest ever slatey bream at 76cm. I know not everyone is going to get excited by this fish but for me I was stoked and it put up a great fight. Just to confirm that it was the plastic, the next drift resulted in a 68cm version as well! So in this case sending down a small plastic put a bend in the rod before we had to head back in.
So, you're all welcome to go back to your better halves and tell them that Sean said you need to buy more ZMan plastics. LOL, okay seriously, having a few plastics that aren't in the standard line up might be the difference between nailing fish and watching them on your sounder. You just need to have a crack, the worst that can happen is it might not work for you... but it could be a bent rod, a new species and maybe even a new PB. Fish on!
Gear List
ZMan 6" SwimmerZ
TT Lures SnakelockZ jighead - 8/0
ZMan 2.5" TRD CrawZ
TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jighead