Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Pro-Lure-Fishing-Tips » Plastic Fantastic - A Beginner Guide
Plastic Fantastic - A Beginner Guide
By Jeff Wilton
Soft plastics have been around for a long time now and they come in all kinds of shapes, colours and sizes. This can get a little confusing for plenty of anglers out there and can often lead to simply having a go and then giving up. We have all been there at some stage in our fishing careers, walking into the tackle shop and being greeted with an entire wall of soft plastics and jigheads. This overwhelming feeling starts to creep in as you sort of get lost in the ridiculous number of options that you have at your disposal. Hopefully there is someone in store that knows what they're talking about and can assist you, however sadly this is not always the case. What I hope to achieve with this article is to provide a few tips for selecting suitable soft plastics and jigheads, that can be used anywhere that you may be reading this article. Let's get into the finer details.
Know Your Species
Okay, so before we start delving into actually choosing the gear that you will be using, it is very important to know everything that you can about the fish species that you want to target. With this knowledge you can then start planning how you will be fishing certain plastics and what jigheads to rig them on. There is a wealth of information at our fingertips, including the internet (explore the Tackle Tactics site!), YouTube and even some social media sites. Use them to your advantage.
For Example:
The humble flathead - caught anywhere here in Australia. Typically a species that hides in wait on the bottom and does not normally need heavier structure. Known as an opportunity feeder, which in most cases will try and eat most things that come close to its hiding area. Flathead are found in various water depths, from super shallow through to deep. They have a rather large mouth, eyes on top of their head and their food generally consists of small fish and prawns.
Pretty simple, however from this information we can make some informed decisions in terms of soft plastic and jighead choices. They are a bottom ambush feeder - so jigheads need to be heavy enough to make sure that the soft plastic is touching bottom regularly. As they frequent areas such as sandbanks, that have little snaggy structures to worry about, a traditional hook is perfect (TT Lures HeadlockZ). A large mouth means that they are capable of eating larger profiles (keeping in mind the size of fish that you think may be encountered). Choose a baitfish or prawn profile plastic, to match their main food source, such as a ZMan 3" Minnowz, 4" DieZel MinnowZ or 3.5" EZ ShrimpZ.
The above is an easy little example that should be applied to every species that you want to target, before selecting gear. Then, with this knowledge on board, you can head into your local tackle store with a sense of direction and the massive plastics wall will shrink as you have narrowed down to the basic 'what will work' stuff.
Soft Plastics
There is a ridiculous range of soft plastics on the market these days, made by various brands and most of which will work fine. The ZMan range of soft plastics boasts an impressive assortment of sizes and styles, designed to suite any species that you want to catch. What puts ZMan in a class of their own though is their durability... stated 10X Tough and believe me when I say they really are!
Choosing a soft plastic is easy, if you have researched your target species, as soft plastics are made to look like things that predatory fish eat. Profiles can be basic, like baitfish or prawns, through to more complex, such as frogs. What it comes down to is, if there are predatory fish that love to eat certain things, then there will likely be a plastic on the market to replicate that.
Matching the hatch is a common term used in fishing and this applies heavily to fishing with soft plastics. If you're on the water and you notice plenty of a certain size or colour baitfish around, then it is a great idea to try and match it as best you can. This is why carrying a selection of colours and sizes is important and why, when you start this style of fishing, your tackle supply will grow (for this I apologise 😊). On this note I would suggest that, if you can afford it, you purchase at least two colours of your chosen soft plastic style. This could be a bright and a dark, or a natural and unnatural colour scheme. There are no set rules in terms of soft plastic colour and it really comes down to what works on the day and what the fish are honed into feeding on. Some days a certain colour will seem to out fish everything else and the next day it will not get a bite... that's fishing. A simple rule to begin with is bright sunny day = bright lure, dark cloudy day = dark lure.
Jigheads
So, you have chosen your soft plastics. You're halfway there, now matching it to the correct jighead is essential. You can make the perfect soft plastic choice, however if you have not rigged it correctly, you may not be in the zone and could be missing out on the action. Like soft plastics, there are almost endless options in terms of jigheads and most of them work. There is no doubt though that the range from TT lures is the pick for most. TT Lures make a wide selection of jigheads, built on sharp hooks, that you can trust and they match perfectly to ZMan soft plastics. To make things a little easier, let's just break them down into two categories; traditional hooks and weedless.
Traditional hooks (J hooks) are the most commonly used and offer a simple way to rig that offers plenty of hook exposure and allows the plastic to swim with a lot of action. They are commonly used when casting over areas with minimal structure, such as flats, sandy rivers or beaches. Weedless or snag-proof jigheads offer a rigging style that helps to reduce the chance of getting snagged or fouling up on structure. Reading the water that you're fishing, no matter from a boat or land based, is critical. If you're unsure of the water that you'll be fishing then you may not even rig up until you get there. If it is nice and open, with very few structures, then select a standard jighead (J hook). On the other hand if there is lots of snags and structure, then look at rigging weedless.
Using the correct size of hook is often overlooked and yet it is a critical part of your presentation, for two main reasons. The hook size needs to be big enough that there is good hook exposure. If the hook is too small, then there is less chance of a solid hook-up when you get a bite. On the other hand, if the hook is too large then the plastic will not have maximum action / movement or swim how it was designed to. It may also look out of proportion and scare fish away from actually trying to eat your plastic. There are some very handy rigging guides available from Tackle Tactics that are basically a blueprint for perfect rigging every time. You can check these out at:
https://tackletactics.com.au/Rigging-Guides
Last, but definitely not least, is choosing the correct jighead weight. I can tell you now that you can choose the perfect soft plastic and get your hook size spot on... however, if you don't fish the correct weighted jighead, you may not get to where the fish are. Once again, knowing about the fish species that you are targeting is really important. Simply knowing how and where they like to hunt and feed is an advantage when it comes to jighead selection. Species like flathead are bottom feeders, so you need enough weight to be getting down there and STAY down there on your retrieve.
Another example is barramundi, a species that feeds upward and very rarely will ever swim down to eat. In this case you need to have enough weight to be fishing the zone, just above where they are sitting in the water column. Water depth, current or tidal flow will also be massive influencers on how much weight may be needed. So, if you are finding that it is taking too long for your plastic to get to the bottom, then you may need to go heavier by a few sizes. The weight required will often vary, due to your fishing conditions altering, so with this in mind building a collection of various jighead weights is very important.
As with pretty much all styles of fishing, the more you practice the better you will become and the quicker you will learn to adapt to the changing conditions around you. Soft plastics are a deadly option, due to the fact that they can be rigged in so many different ways. Being able to rig up weedless and sink a correctly weighted soft plastic straight down into a snag, without the fear of getting snagged repeatedly, is so enjoyable and effective. The same can be said about hopping a plastic over a sand bar or skipping a frog underneath an overhang. That's all from me... I'm going fishing!
Cheers,
Jeff