Softbaits - fishing from the shore Part 1

For some time now we have been bombarded with the news that soft-plastic fishing is the way to go in New Zealand's saltwater.

We have seen the photos of smiling boat fishers struggling to hold up snapper caught on what appears to be trout-spinning gear. It is a great time of learning and adapting. Tackle is improving all the time to suit the fishing techniques, and the range of lures available is staggering, to say the least.

The success of this fishing method has changed the thinking of many anglers. Some who never believed a snapper would take a lure are now exclusively using lures for snapper.

Well, if it's good enough for boat fishers, then why not for shore fishers? After all, apart from the fact that a boat will give you access to more fishing positions in a shorter space of time, there is little difference in the technique required to be successful when using soft-plastics from shore. It can actually be a lot of fun, too.

My first soft-plastic fishing was in the 1970s with Mr Twister lures I bought in from Australia. To be honest, the initial results were not startling, but the idea that here was a new type of lure requiring new fishing techniques was fascinating. It was a big step away from the norm, where the hex wobbler ruled the roost at that time.

These lures could be fished much slower, or even just held in a current, making them attractive to species that shunned the hex wobbler, such as john dory and trevally.

The john dory was a great example of using the right lure for the species. Prior to this time we caught our john dory on live baits. Now we could catch them in half the time on lures! I reckon you could have gone commercial on john dory off the Mangonui Wharf in those days, using just a spinning rod and a Sassy Shad lure. My best morning accounted for twenty-two johnnies!

You might ask why the soft-plastics didn't catch on then. I believe it was just a matter of timing. At that stage metal-jig fishing was also proving to be very successful on snapper and really took off, leaving soft-plastics in its wake. Funnily enough though, it was during the hard-jig revolution that many anglers learned for the first time that snapper would actually take a lure. That information actually made some of them try soft-plastics.

A few of us didn't forget the soft-plastics and continued to use them through the years, obtaining great results on many species such as kahawai, trevally, snapper, kingfish, john dory, barracouta, cod and others.

There was a big difference between soft-plastics then and now. Those early lures were not scented and had a strong plastic odour, so really were soft-plastic lures rather than the 'soft-baits' also available now. If you cast one out and left it on the bottom it was unlikely a fish would come along and take it. Sassy Shads and Curly Tails only came to life when retrieved or held in a current.

The new wave of soft-baits are just that: baits. So while very, very effective when retrieved in a lifelike manner, they can also be productive when left completely static. Once you understand the difference between soft-baits and soft-plastics/soft-lures, you are on the way to success.

There is a huge range of lure shapes available these days, and the shape determines how they are best fished. A crab-shaped soft-bait can be fished on the bottom without movement and will work for you. I have taken moki, trevally, kahawai, snapper and gurnard in this manner. Crabs can also be cast and retrieved slowly on the bottom or in mid-water for snapper.

Fish-shaped baits require more work to get the best from them. You should think about the species you are targeting and ensure the retrieval style and speed suits that fish. John dory like a slow retrieve in the current; snapper prefer a faster, twitching retrieve; trevally love taking baits as they sink; and kingfish cannot resist a fast-departing bait that looks as if it may get away from them.

Hey, crabs live near shore and fish feed on them, so why not fish from shore with soft-bait crabs?

I didn't need much convincing, but one fish really sold me on soft-baits from the shore. That was a 2.5kg moki I caught in the Wairarapa several years ago while filling in time as the sponsor's representative and waiting for a boat-fishing contest to finish. It was on a rough day when the water was really dirty. However, I managed to find a likely spot (I had never been there before) and cast out two Gulp! amber-glow crabs on a two-hook rig and propped the rod up against a rock. Within five minutes I was beaching the moki. He would never have seen the bait. And that wasn't all; I lost a similar fish a little later. I still had plenty to learn.

More recently, my success with soft-baits from shore in Hawkes Bay - where I do most of my fishing - has been mixed. My failing has been that I tended to use soft-baits only when the fishing was hard - generally when there were few or no fish around anyway. Bait fishing seldom proved any better at such times, so not much was proven.

A recent employment move to Pure Fishing New Zealand, agents for Gulp! baits, meant I really needed to know more. I started with a crash course on products and fishing techniques. I found all the boat-fishing advice I could ever need, but apart from some Australian shore fishing for species we don't have here, there was little available on fishing plastics in the surf and from the shore, my favoured fishing style.

Next month I will delve into the possibilities of soft-baiting from shore. What can we catch? What is the best approach? Where should we be fishing? Which are the best baits? What tackle??

	This article is reproduced with permission of New Zealand Fishing News July 2008 - written by Gary Kemsley RE-PUBLISHING ELSEWHERE IS PROHIBITED