I was going to post this in the soft plastics forum, but realized its all lures. Metals not so much as they sink but do end up in a fish stomach or gob.

25% of our oceanic food now has traces of plastics. I dont think it should be allowed to produce lures that dont biodegrade. I know that includes some soft baits poppers, jigs, the works. But it needs to happen.

But you look at Gulp products, they are designed to break down. That is a responsible practice and should be mandatory for all lures. Werent stainless hooks banned? Anything that does not degrade quickly should not be in our ocean.

What can manufacturers do to produce tougher lures that do degrade quickly? What can we do about metal lures like slices etc so they degrade but still attract fish so effectively?

During my volunteer field work with the Mrs (double PHD) I see soooooo many plastic lures either in the water or on beaches that dont have access to being cleaned up (along with all plastic products). But most disturbing is finding dead sea bird carcasses with the stomach just chock full of plastic so no other food can enter. :-(

Its great countdown are moving to paper bags (just like the good old days) or bring your own bags, but how products like the meat section needs to change as well, its a start.

Im an optimist, I think we can turn the sea of plastics around, we have band nano beads and plastics which was a huge thing. Science and morality will turn it around. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HBtl4sHTqU

They use to think there were only 14 Albatross, but the believe there are now up to 21. 14 of these breed in NZ. And this is what non biodegradable plastic lures is doing to the worlds coolest birds who spend up to 85% of their life at sea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUM58LIU2Lo

pjc wrote: Exactly on S/B,have mentioned it before.They might say Bio degradeable but no time frame is given,as you mentioned.

First my bbq now my softbaits, bloody vegans �£

kaveman wrote: 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

Regarding softbaits, probably like a lot of people have and do lose a lot of Gulps to being bitten off. Just forked out another $80 worth for spring sometimes they make a difference, but I don't like using them anymore. I used to be only Gulp but some of the quality of the lures was bad.

Tried ZMan naturally or eventually and now they are my preferred SB. Compared to Gulps my loss of lures has gone down hugely and only lose on the rare occasion of bust off or snags. Mostly they get retired though.

An obvious thing we probably all have had similar results with various none Gulp SBs.
I tried a Gulp left on my fence once, was there years all it did was shrivel up and harden.

Not sure how seriously I take this article on this blog type site.

Clifftastic its not about worrying about what other people do or what happens in the world. A few lures over 100mil fisherman = 300mil softbaits floating around either killing birds or leaking toxins (light estimate 100mil fisherman in the world)