Softbait fishing from kayaks

Part of the soft-plastic appeal is the feeling of hunting your quarry by casting and working lures around structure, or by working bottom contours and worm beds. Then there’s the battle you get when playing big fish on light casting tackle rather than winching in dinner with a classic 10-15kg bait outfit.

Much of this fishing takes place in less than 20 metres, where the stealth and nimbleness of kayaks gives us a huge advantage over bigger and noisier boats. In addition, our ability to get right amongst the kelp and rock zones means we’re not only hooking fish where other craft can’t go, but also stand an excellent chance of actually landing them.

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This is just half the story though, with the kayak and softbait combination working just as well in deeper waters. Our key advantage here is our nimbleness, making it easier to stay in touch with the fish once they’ve been found, usually by hunting around with a sounder.

I find once I’m in 20 metres or more a drift chute needn’t be deployed, and there’s no need to cast ahead of my drift; I simply free-line the soft-bait from the side of the kayak while slowly paddling on station over top. Aside from allowing me to target my quarry, this means I stay completely in touch with the lure as it descends. This makes strikes easier to detect and, once hooked up, not having a drogue in the water leaves the kayak free to track a hard-running fish.

Ultimately this provides another benefit: with the kayak tracking the fish, I can use considerably lighter lines than many would think suitable for fishing out beyond 50 metres. Not only is the battle more challenging and fun, but snapper and other species are subject to slower depth changes, helping reduce the risk of barotrauma. I catch a lot of snapper over the magical 9.1kg [20lb] mark fishing this way, and it’s nice to return them to the water with a good chance of surviving.

Just to sidetrack for a moment: when releasing these fish, I always give them a close inspection down the throat and around the anal vent. I’m looking for any signs of broken blood vessels or damaged membranes that might indicate the fish has embolised on the way up and then ‘popped’ before I got a chance to see it. Any fish showing theses signs is immediately dispatched and kept, as there’s little point in releasing an injured fish that’s unlikely to survive.

First find your fish

When preparing for a specific deepwater soft-bait mission, I like to scan the horizon the afternoon before the trip looking for hints of where to go. Pick a prominent point giving a wide view of the area you want to fish – one that’s also identifiable from the kayak when out wide. Use a good quality pair of binoculars to scan for anything of interest: strong current lines, bird activity, even schools of fish on the surface.

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By noting the direction (I occasionally use a compass to make this easier in unfamiliar territory) and approximate distance, it’s possible to get a good idea of where to start fishing when the sun comes up the next day. Once on the water, a GPS plot or reverse compass bearing to your lookout point will put you in fishy waters much more quickly. While not 100% accurate, it’s surprising how often an otherwise vacant-appearing ocean suddenly lights up the sounder screen with snapper, trevally and kings hounding bait schools hidden below.

The other way I stumble across excellent deep water soft-bait fishing is while trolling for the likes of skipjack and albacore tuna. By keeping the sounder running and not falling asleep in the saddle (don’t laugh, it’s happened!), I often come across interesting sign worth investigating. I can then take a break from paddling and drop soft-baits to find out what’s down there. In fact, part of my passion for trolling for skippies and albies is the exciting locations I’ve ‘discovered’ that are too small to show on the sounders of faster-moving boats – another big tick for kayak fishing.

Elevator Rigs

With fish showing on the sounder, it’s time to send the soft-baits/ plastics on their way. While normal fixed jig heads work okay, I get far better performance from Elevator-type jig heads. Given that many of the strikes happen on the drop, I believe the split-ring between the head and the hook allows the system to articulate for a more natural swimming action. This allows curly-tail grubs and paddle tails to swim properly with lighter weights than would be required using standard jig heads.

Consequently, it’s possible to paddle on station and swim the lures to the fish sign, while watching the whole process on the sounder screen (remember, I’m paddling slowly to maintain position over the lure as it free-spools, keeping it and the fish in the sounder beam). My goal is to induce a strike on the drop, not wait until the lure is at depth before trying to do something with the retrieve. This is why I place so much importance on having the lure swim properly behind the Elevator head as it descends – and why I believe they are superior to standard fixed jig-heads at depth.

One critical aspect with this style of targeted fishing is that hooks must be SHARP. Because the aim is to induce hits on the drop and the lure isn’t actively being retrieved, it can take a fraction of a second to respond to a touch. This makes having ‘sticky-sharp’ hooks important, as they need to hang in the mouth long enough for the angler to respond and drive the point home. (Speaking to anglers frustrated by dropped fish on elevator rigs, I inevitably find their hooks are less than sharp – and often rusty as well.)

An interesting observation is that big snapper aren’t shy when hitting elevator heads and 6-inch grub tails – they wolf them down so hard and fast that the whole lure and head often end up somewhere deep in their mouths. This means exciting and emphatic strikes, but also sees them chewing directly on the light fluorocarbon trace, unless a clip is used. As a consequence, I now always rig for this style of fishing using a Mustad Fastach clip swivel. It doesn’t seem to put the fish off, removes any line twist (especially when using eggbeaters), and also gives something durable for the snapper to chew on, reducing the risk of a bite-off!

Carolina Rig

I first encountered this rig in the 1980s when I started fishing with Mr Twisters. In its simplest form it’s nothing more than a suitable worm hook with a 30-60cm light trace to a small swivel and a freerunning cone lead or ball sinker above. Varying the sinker’s weight changes the lure’s sink rate and swimming performance.

I’ve given my ‘old school’ rigs an upgrade by replacing the worm hook for the much more open-gape Trokar Flippin hooks and by threading on Z-Man soft-plastics. Unlike Gulps and many of the other plastics, these lures float, allowing a presentation that fish in high pressure areas haven’t seen before (especially where there’s lots of catch and release). This tends to make spooky fish less wary and I’ve had great success when no other soft-bait technique works.

As with the Elevator heads, I swim the lures to the bottom, but if there’s no hook-up I stop paddling on station and let the kayak drift. I then work the lure in a series of rod lifts with pauses in between, letting out line as necessary to stay in touch with the bottom. At each pause the 30-60cm trace from the sinker lets the Z-Man float up off the bottom, then – when the rod is lifted to move the sinker – the Z-Man dives to the bottom again. The float, speed-dive and float action seem to be the answer to fooling softbait wary fish.

Trokar Flippin Hooks

These have become a critical part of my success with elevator heads and Carolina rigs. Out of the packet, Trokar Flippin hooks are brilliantly sharp and have a gauge fine enough to make setting easy, without compromising their strength. The plastic barbs positioned just below the hook’s eye grab the soft-bait securely without tearing it and, even more importantly, are almost indestructible compared to the traditional lead keepers found on elevator hooks (which can be mauled to the point they’re sliding freely along the hook shank, rendering them useless).

I also like the more open gape of the Trokar Flippin hooks compared to the traditional worm hook used on Carolina rigs. This allows me to be aggressive with strikes to either pin a desirable fish or get the lure away from pesky leatherjackets. This means soft-baits like Gulps don’t get shredded and last a lot longer, and the hook-ups are rock-solid with few fish dropped on the way to the surface.

Ultimately the proof of success is the fish brought to the side of the kayak. Though elevator jig heads haven’t had much press recently, I find them extremely productive and couldn’t do without them. Resurrecting the Carolina rig is a bit like old clothing fashions coming back in style, but in this case it’s the new technology around lures, hooks and trace materials that’s lifted performance to a whole new level.

   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

February 2016 - By Stephen Tapp
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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