I have read somewhere recently that this xmas there will be no rubbish barge at GT Barrier island or if there is you will to buy a tag. 

Everybody wants SBs that dont fall apart, but sadly thats the price you bay for degradable. 

Spot on, anything that is PLASTIC should say its biodegradibility and there should be a limit, say less than 5 years, which is heaps imo, but a lot of plastics can last 1mill so its a burning issue.

Im with you, I think as fisherman, if you want to use lures, use ones that arent pouring plastic into the ocean. 

Do we say enough is enough when 75% of marine life has plastic traces, or are we ok with carcinogens let alone what its doing to the fish, the birds, the whole eco system. Just so we can have a lure thats a little more durable??? 

Squid vicious work something awesome, how many years until they break down, and do those tentacles remain in the snaps guts? it should say on the packet. but the lure if amongst the baby snaps dont last long. Too bad, thats the price for using PLASTICs in the ocean.

If you want an alternative I heard bullet tuna or piper work pretty good?

The amount of mono left lying on rocks, cut off, or big kings with 100m of mono trailing in their mouths, thats all bad enough. 

Im not saying I have the answers or meaning this to be patronising , clearly this is not a fishing or lure only issue, but Im positive there must be a better way for us who directly put plastic in the ocean.

I think metal lures will be even harder to resolve. Magnesium lures? :-)

There is NO true bio degradable soft bait on the market, Gulp states it is , BUT takes many years to break down

70% of the rubbish in ocean are fishing nets, these things are killing machines which carry on killing forever. Ban all nets

Also the issue of what is meant by "degradable".  Does it just split into lots of microplastic particles?  You can't see them, but they are still there. They don't just dissolve into sugary or protein filled water

Dont give up your BBQ, just harden up and stop worrying about sharks and jump in the water and shoot your fish instead of putting plastic in them :-). Probably quadruple your catch and the size of your fish.  Bloody lost gen millennial's wanting it all for free ;-p. 

Zmans Im pretty sure are just plastic.

At least with metal lures they sink and at worst case get hooked in a fish mouth on way down, which should rust out if the fish is big enough to survive with it.

I have seen softbaits in dead bird gut cavities though.

RE Fishing line, not funny about biodegradable line, if you arent changing yours every so often you are going to lose fish and snapped line as mono does become brittle. 

Yes nets are a MASSIVE issue for fish and mammals alike.

But really I wanted to stick to talking about softbaits.

Degradable, I meant biodegradable. "capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms and thereby avoiding pollution."

I think all softbaits should be made of biodegradable material.

BUT, it states Gulp say 2 years in salt water vs certified biodegradable lures 8-12 weeks WHOAH, imagine if that was/is true.Mind you 2 years is better than some lures that could me 1 mil years for all we know. Let alone the toxins we are basically pouring in the ocean. 

https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/biodegradable-fishing-lures-mhg-plastics/" rel="nofollow - https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/biodegradable-fishing-lures-mhg-plastics/

I know they have made shopping type plastic bags from 100% biodegradable material (the most stupid invention ever the plastic shopping bag)

These are fresh water lures but made from plant matter. The diagram kind of shows how they make plastics from plants etc.

https://bassanglermag.com/mhgs-biodegradable-fishing-lure/" rel="nofollow - https://bassanglermag.com/mhgs-biodegradable-fishing-lure/

Its about taking ownership for what WE put in the sea as guardians of our small patch of it.

Its too easy to just say "oh its too hard".

The hope is all materials will one day be biodegradable and hopefully home products compostable.

https://www.ecpcompostables.co.nz/pages/info" rel="nofollow - https://www.ecpcompostables.co.nz/pages/info

I worked on a project recently which was a plastic product that was going to be used in the ocean, and effectively dumped there (it was non-recoverable after it had performed its task).  The customer was keen to find a plastic that would biodegrade and not end up polluting the ocean.  The first thing I looked at was the material that you describe, because I thought it would biodegrade in the ocean.  But it doesn't, and would end up floating around for years.  Turns out it will only "biodegrade" in very specific circumstances.  It has to be buried in basically a compost heap, and then it will degrade.  But the conditions it requires to degrade seemed quite unlikely to be met in most places plastic bags would end up in.  I did find a material that would break down in sea water over a relatively short time, but it was quite hard to find and not that widely used.  The project didn't go ahead so I never go to test the material.

So just because something is biodegradable, doesn't necessarily mean it will.

Are you saying ECP bags do not degrade in landfill or their other intended uses of their other bags? If so we can ask them for a statement on that.

What was the material you found that degraded? Why were they wanting to dump a plastic in the ocean if I can ask?

Ive seen biodegradable lures and they do break down in the ocean, but even more importantly they dont leak toxins when they do.

This is what Im not sure about Gulp for, fine, they degrade in saltwater but does that mean they are biodegradable, 2 different things. And if if they just degrade due to being water based, what are the other chemicals and are they toxins?

There is a big push for full biodegradable fishing lures but Im yet to see a scientific analysis on which ones work best or if at all. 

Bio baits is really what we are talking about (not to be confused with the company of the same name which produces a bio bait).

 Catch it yourself and Left overs make great sashimi.

x2 I use Zmans exclusively, and it's rare to lose one, or have the tail chopped off, which would happen several times a day using Gulps. 

What would be interesting is finding out how the different brands react to the digestive juices in a fishes stomach, as opposed to just lying on the seabed after a bustoff.

BUT when I do seldom use soft baits now, I usually like tentacles, so squid vicious it is, they are the most effective soft bait imo, but they fall to pieces and Gulp are not cheap.

To me it seems if they make plastic biodegradeable bags from plant matter, Im wondering if there is a kelp that would be conducive to making a resin to make lures. I know some bio baits are made using corn to make resin. But as noted by Kevin in the post about the project, are we certain corn resin biodegrades in oceanic conditions?

So once we have a source for making the lures, they need to have fish oil infused, no problem there.

Now here is the clincher, Gulps cost too much money as the fall apart, thats why some of us use actual plastic lures. So the end product would have to be more affordable. 

Lets say we could make a marine plant based biodegradeable softbait infused with tasty tuna oil etc. 

What cost would we be willing to pay for them if like Squid Vicious they come apart by snapper piranahas (under size)?

To me they would have to be costed to compensate for the lures not holding together as well as plastic. Im sure 99% of people would rather do the right thing by our ocean and our fish and our birds and pay a bit more than full toxic plastics (maybe not bbq millenial vegan haters but hey, we are working on this generation lol ;-p)

Half the cost of a bag of pillies for a full fishing session would be fair imo.

What about your plastic/rubber Marlin lures when they get snipped off by something toothy?

What about your awesome lead sinkers when they get snagged?

How about 1000m of mono going into the sea if you get spooled by a gamefish, or 300m of braid if you bust off at the boat when puka fishing?

We put lots of dumb **** in the sea. I dare say the volume of plastic put in the sea by boats that roll on bars each year in NZ exceeds the amount of soft plastic lures going into the ecosystem. Not to mention if the boat then gets thrown onto the rocks and smashed to bits, there you go, maybe a couple of tonnes of non-degradable epoxy and fibreglass on the bottom of the briny.

Yes, we need to do more, but being sanctimonious about a few softbaits probably isn't the first thing we should focus on.

I can't comment on other peoples products, just what I was told when talking to plastic material suppliers about the biodegradable plastic they supplied.  This was the material I looked at  https://www.aquapakpolymers.com/" rel="nofollow - https://www.aquapakpolymers.com/  

Can't say what the application was as there are still NDA's in place, but it was a very low volume item that was actually aimed at protecting sea life.

Waste mangement did a test on the bags and once buried and starve of oxygen,it will take (drum roll) 20 + yrs to naturally breakdown so much for clean n green.

I might get a quote on numbers from the guys I guoted. 

Honestly dont get me started on Auckland recyclying. We al do the right thing but the plants dont have the technology to sort the recycling so guess where it goes,,,,,,

Personally I think its a great way to employ a number of people so it can be hand sorted until they have the tech to know which plastic is which etc. You cant mix plastics is the problem, not all plastic is the same.

Im going to try and find the best Bio Baits on the market and test them out. 

I still think we could produce our own, via the method I outlined on the last post of the last page. 

This guy is using Gelatin (ie cow lol). He says it digests in the fish stomach. This should not be too hard to simulate, I will create a gelatin stick, find the PH of Snapper, as they seem to be our national fish, and put it in and see how long it takes to break down.

Quite a ot of people making their own biodegradable fishing lures via moulds it seems, will keep looling to see if any are using ocean based plant resin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFFBg9hRBo8" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFFBg9hRBo8

Yes been reading a few myself along with seaweed resin.

Both sound promising and not that far away.

I think everybody with morality will feel better using actual biodegradable non toxic products.

Which leads back to the question, if gulp is biodegradeable, does it also use toxins ?

Thanks for being honest and taking some ownership.

And yeah bro, Americans STILL buy BOTTLED PLASTIC water for home use, makes me want to punch Netflix. Wtf are they on.

A lot of hard bodies can be and are traditionally made from wood, more so top water stuff. 

I dont think corroding metals is going to be anywhere near the toxic problem of plastics anyway.

And as I keep saying, put the dumb stick down, jump in the water and shoot that 20kg lurking under your boat :-). If you can swim of course.

What is that Island in the pacific that they basically live on top of their plastic waste? If that gets hit, thats a whole lot nasty in the ocean which this liatest hurricane has already been doing.

But we have to focus on what WE put in the ocean as fisherman. Will always be others adding to the problem until somebody in their group takes ownership. Like flappn American buying plastic bottled water. And some how over the last 20 years thats just become the norm. Perhaps their recycling tech is better than say auckland councils and they can sort different plastics and not just landfill your reycle bin.

Main reason slimy mackeral are getting scarce is that around 12000 Ton are purse seined annually ,mostly from North Eastern waters.

Agree with the amount of burley that is used. Must impact on bait fish numbers.

Personally i never use burley and very rarely buy bait.

Catch my own bait on site,live or otherwise.sometimes troll lures or Kabura for bottom fishing.

Where did you source this info?

Recycling plastic technology is not used is the infomation I have. Will be happy to point it out to the source of the info if I am wrong.

Yes if you are right it should be something the council is advertising locally. 

Same, I catch any of the small stuff i the sheltered bays. Some of the sabikis have lumo, so if you flash it with a UV light it works even better.

And nothing wrong with Berley as you say, who would pay money for berley, its like the same price as a bag of bait......

When spearfishing I use kina which are becoming a pest in some spots, so eat em up. But I do what most spearos do and crack em open then through them over a kelp ledge just bob down and sneak into view, doesnt usually take long for the first customer. but whats great about spear is you get to choose which fish you take home. 

RE that hook in his guts, I thought they changed the law so all hooks must rust out. perhaps it was fresh. either way I use demons which are fully circle hooks and ive never gut hooked a fish, and ive had a 13cm snapper hook itself on a side of kahawai haha.

Of course how we release is important, minimum wet hands, preferable gloves wet, even better in the net or released at side of boat with barbs that have been flattened with plyers. 

not going to judge anyone on how they fish but to me id rather lose a fish than not hook him corner of the mouth and use a baitrunner and gut hook him. But shows you can release a gut hook, maybe try to snip as far down as possible?

Well spotted. Wow, rang out of SB hooks maybe.

The big Red hooks are often used in a double hook on a side of cuda or whatever down the berley trail, on a bait runner style reel, so they way for the fish to swallow the hook before striking. IMO this encourages gut hooking.

But back to this, well spotted Steps. Gut hook recurve Mustad hook. Id say thats gold, but its a negative. 

Seems though the REAL bio baits are starting to appear from what ive been researching and the prawn ones posted on here. I think the prawn ones would make a mean soft bait for snapper if they keep their flavour 

What is that fake crab meat made out of? If you could just make that 3x chewier, there is a bio bait haha.

Birdbrained best fisherman in the country.

Definitely part of the problem not the solution 

Luckily the majority do give a F, thankfully. And plenty of solutions are on the way.

Do you have a link to the rigs by any chance steps? I believe scientifically proven, anything with a tentacle moving like motion is recognised as food by most fish.

I suppose thats why leatherjackets like squid vicious so much....

So what if a soft bait buried in mud takes a thousand years to break down. Rock takes millions,sometimes billions of years to break down before it turns into that pesky sand.

But the reality is not all fisherman are that capable or they fish irresponsible line weights around reefage etc.  I guess that goes back to what Cirrus just said, people problem.

Its simply about the ownership of not adding to the problem, as best we can. If these bio baits do progress to the level of either being tastier and catching more fish and stronger than certain tentacle baits that just get bitten off then the added issue of not wanting to leave plastics which degrade to toxins will have some impact on the soft bait market. But from what I see we are a while out from that happening. And the use of freshly caught bait, as someone said, isnt always easy to find and some people simply dont like the mess/smell of real baits. 

The leatherjackets will happily digest discarded softbaits

My apologies if I didnt post it, but I know I clicked the emoji ;-p

Yes 100% agree. The reality is this isnt an overnight fix. They are all major problems. We need to get our recycling in check, I meant to chase that up as the poster had said it had been outsourced. My source says it gets sent oversees for landfill. Possibly a combo of both.

But we print the damn recycling type on the bottom of the plastic container. Why cant NZ, specifically Auck first, invest in its on plastic recycling tech. In some countries you cant mix your recycling, even down to the colour of your glass bottles. Yet Auck city STILL doesnt have one method of collecting trash or recycling. Its a big frustrating when yes you want plastic out of the ocean yet main contributors arent even close to being corrected. 

I remember my uncles use to break their beer bottles in the ocean thinking they were doing good lol. But its no longer the 60s yet I still see other boaties chucking rubbish over the side without even thinkng its not right. 

Mono is a pet peave, we all find it, everywhere. 

Carby 2 Smokes are banned in Aus FOR NEW SALES(up to 19kw), Im not sure why not in NZ. Prices of the old Honda 4 strokes in the 80s have come down significantly and 2 stroke direct injections are awesome. So I think this is another that will be sorted fairly soon in NZ following Aus, at least I hope.

Does anybody know if diesels are implementing new tech? Im not sure what Mercruiser is up to etc

There is one beach that has family meaning to my ancestory in the coromandel. It looks like those islands of plastic above the storm/high water mark. I want to clean it up. Its about 1km long. But I dont have the logistics yet, ie bother seperating recylcing, how many bros I will need to help, etc. But its amazing what eventually finds its way back to shore. 

Im reading more on their plans to clean up the bulk of plastics in the pacific. So that is somewhat inspiring. 

Re Softbaits, I think biodegradibility in the ocean is not 30 years off etc, it will happen. People take time to act as one, Im a realist about that, I know not everyone is going to buy Bios immediately over a stronger lure. Price per lure/longevity is the key strategy there in reality.