Soft Plastics 101 - Chapter 35 - Beach / Surf Fishing with Plastics

[Music] hey folks we've been posting a few videos lately of catching fish on soft plastics off the beach or in the surf and that's fired up a lot of questions from people what species avaiable in the surf what plastics do I use had I rigged them had our fishing where do I fish them so today we're going to try and address a few of those questions and get you guys followed up for a session off the beach in the surf throwing soft plastics firstly you can pretty much catch any species that resides in the surf on a soft plastic it's just a matter of picking the model picking the size reading it right and putting it in the right place retrieving it correctly so let's it let's break it down so firstly we'll start with some of the smaller species and we'll work up to the bigger stuff so whiting in the surf whiting anywhere can be a nightmare for people on lures just to crack the code and try and catch them in the surf is no different there there are tough species to catch go catch them on worms no problem ideal probably the best way to target them but if you can't get worms you may want to have a crack with plastics and we've caught plenty of Mon plastics but it's just a matter of knotting out the technique so for me I fish a 1 a 1 8 ounce jig head number two foreign wire hook and a two inch grubs in bloodworm color so it's got to be a nice small profile to fit in the mouth of that that whiting and they feed by sucking that plastic in just swim up and grab it so the trick I've found is when the whiting most aggressive they're most aggressive in the two days leading up to a full or new moon and a day after they school up and they feed more aggressively and that's our chance to target them on plastics so the trick I've found is find those beautiful whiting gutters where you normally catch them on bait so look for a nice little deep high tide gutter or a little deep low tide gutter bit of foamy water or those deeper holes and the trick is to keep the plastic moving put lots of scent on there cast out there and keep it moving you can flick it a bit as well shake it as you want but keep it moving because if you fish it too slow the whiting will come up on it okay that's not right and they'll shy away from it so for the whiting in the surf that's your best go out catching a few keep the thing moving and you'll also catch other species as well while you're doing that like brim and dart as well so that's warding speaking of dart Swallowtail dart very popular species get quite large fought really well generally when targeting Dart I'll go for a curl tail plastic loads of action and a two and a half inch profile is perfect and I found this color especially chartreuse sparkle is is deadly on the dart it really pops when you put it into that blue water you can see it very easily I'll fish that on a quarter-sized one forecasting distance into the foam look for gutters and areas where there's that nice foamy water rolling over the back bank and I will fish it down to about a 1/8 jig head depending on the size of the surf and the amount of run and the wind that you're dealing with go between a 1/8 one sixty one quarter ounce and another trick is if you're catching dart on bait you'll know you're fishing a ball sinker to a swivel a lot of the time and then you've got your leader down to your bait you can actually just snip your bait off if you having trouble finding peepees or you don't have the bait for the dart these are extremely effective also tied on behind your sinker and swivel so that gives you the wait to get that cast out there and the plastic will just follow the sinker so as you lift the sinker the plastic will come up you let the sinker drop the plastic will dive and you'll get some aggressive strikes from the dart so there you go that's Dart in the surf that two-and-a-half-inch grubs is a deadly presentation from there we move to our flat head and Mull away and trevally queen fish all those other species that we find in the surf and we step up a bit in size in terms of plastics and there's a few different models of plastics that are available and some different ways that I fish them so for example a curl tail plastic getting into our larger size curl tails a curl tail has loads of action and because the Zeman's buoyant the curl tail will stand up in the air so these curl tails are excellent for prospecting deep gutters where you really your you're in touch with the plastic but you're also letting it sit and waft around with the current and that buoyancy and that tail up in the air will really fire up those mulloway golden trevally flathead and other species that are hunting in those surf gutters so an ideal plastic prospecting nice big silhouette lots of tire movement very very good for prospecting no surf gutters and lots of vibration as well from that tail if the surf gets a bit more ferocious or I want to cast a long way cover a bit more ground then it's hard to go past a jerk bait jerk bait style plastic so the difference is we don't have that tile action that tail action can create resistance when we're casting so take away the curl tail or a paddle tail style plastic and just have that straight profile it casts a long way with less weight it sinks much quicker through the wave there's no tail action to hold it up in the wave so you can really get it down to where the fish are and you can also fish it with whatever retrieve you find work so you can want it quick you can fish it aggressively twitch it around like a fleeing baitfish so those guys work extremely well on a wide range of species and the cool thing is jerk baits are available in a ton of different sizes so you know we can go out 3.75 for Dart and tailor and salmon and things when they're feeding on tiny bait we can step it up to a four inch profile if we're looking for a bit more profile in the water the five inch is extremely popular for a wide range of species in the surf from flathead to Mull away to our queen fish and now trevally and the difference there we've got our standard jerk center jerk shads profile with the split tail and this guy here the streaks has a single pin tail and it's almost impossible to hold that tail still so it works well both as a finesse bait and also to high-speed retrieve it gets up a nice little tail shimmy as well so if you're looking for a long cast quick to the bottom aggressive retrieves and those sorts of things it's hard to go past a jerk shared jerk bait style profile especially if your fishing big heavy surf and a lot of wind it really allows you to get it out there and flick it around and get it moving for the fish my favorite though I kind of hedged my bets a bit between the two is a paddle tail soft plastic and a paddle tail a lot of the fish that you see in the surf will be feeding on bait fish they're feeding on hearty heads and kill kids and mullet and those sorts of things the guys are a great representative representation as a bait fish and we have had some amazing sessions fishing the 3-inch minnows that's French profile especially in natural baitfish colors so opening night pearl blue glimmer is an absolute weapon and also that green lanten color those really nice natural baitfish colors for chasing Queenie's and Taylor and all sorts of species so as an example chasing Taylor on these you might think oh gee I'm gonna throw in a fluster can't get one Taylor and that's the end of it being that 10 times tough material once the fish hits that you'll often find it pushes out to the side of the mouth and you can catch up to 20 Taylor no worries on a on a single French minnows and even when those fish are a bit flighty a lot of the time they're getting attacked by larger predators and they're on the move and you can't get them to eat you'll throw slugs over them metal slugs and it just spooks them and chases them away roll or plastic pass them and they can't resist that paddle tail and that's slower action you don't have to fish it as fast and as aggressively so an example my wife and I walking the beach one morning chasing Taylor we found a little patch of Taylor they would they were really flighty you wouldn't eat a slug we've moved ahead of the school and we were casting ahead of the school leading the school and bringing the lower back as the school came to the lure we fished a three-inch minnows and the trick was slow rolling the plastic just rock slow winding it back in we'd catch two or three fish shut down change it up we'd fish a burn and kill three fast whines pause three fast ones pause and they'd hit it a couple of fish they drop off again they stopped following the Lewis stop tapping the law we change it up to hopping so we were hopping the plastic and bringing it back and we basically moved along the beach and we switched it up between those three over three different retrieves every time I shut down and we've got about 20 Taylor for the morning so that's a definite winner the 3-inch minnows and then stepping that up a couple more favorites if you want to fish a bit slower and prospect the surf drains it's hard to go past the z-man swimmers in a four inch and a six inch they they're excellent mullet representations you can rig them nice and heavy to get that long cast and you can fish them nice and slow or you can speed them up that paddles tail still works effectively so that's Hubbs prospecting deep gutters and fishing nice and slow jerkbaits if you want that big long cast in wind and swell and you really want to whip it around and try a few different retrieves and then paddle tail is a good all-rounder if you throw a paddle tail in the surf you're likely to catch a bunch of different species the trick a lot of the times for people in the surf they go I took my normal gear I went and fished the surf and I didn't catch fish what you need often is just to upsize your jig head because you're dealing with wind you're dealing with current you're dealing with swell by upsizing your jig head weight you stay in contact with that plastic better so you're really driving it better you're also detecting those bites a lot better so I'll generally start on my three-inch plastics upwards I'll generally start with a quarter ounce jig head I'll step up to a 3/8 and a lot of the time even when I'm fishing fairly calm conditions I'll still throw a half ounce I could punch a long cast out and I can really get that plastic moving so for an example in these guys you're going to go a quarter ounce 3/8 half ounce 300 is perfectly those four very versatile presentation will step up in our swimmers and our larger plastics will even step up from there so we'll go 3/4 ounce 1 ounce and even a one and a half ounce jig head if you're pitching a big plastic out into a deep gutter and you want to get it down there bouncing through the gutter also don't be afraid to mix it up in terms of rev locks so we mainly fish our head locks HD heavy-duty hook very strong hook these are another option to switch on the bike when it's a bit quiet you can run a rev lock switch has that blade underneath which just gives you additional flash and vibration I normally stick with the silver color in the surf and the willow is good for running faster deeper the Colorado if you want to slow things down with that more rounder blade so that's another deadly presentation and also check out if you're throwing big plucky's in the surf check out those swim locks so that's a big heavy-duty hook on a tapered head that controls big paddle tiles and it's got an attachment point underneath where you can attach a treble or you can attach a stinger hook and maximize your chances of hooking fish oof or you are running big plastics through the surf scent wise I always send out my plastics especially when I'm fishing slow and a few favorites in the surf hard to go past mullet as mullet ever and the surf bloody tuna and sardine pilchard they're three and my go-to when I'm fishing the surf rod and reel wise I just carry a general little seven foot three tequila three to six kilo spin stick with a three thousand size reel loaded with ten pound braid twenty pound leader that's for a lot of the small work step up there for an eight to ten sort of foot surf spin stick eight to ten foot around five to 10 kilo twenty pound braid forty pound leader for chasing your bigger stuff and then I've got a 13 foot or thirteen foot six surf rod loaded with thirty pound braid on saying out eight thousand size reel thirty pound braid forty pound to ATP and leader depending on the species that I'm targeting and if you carry those three combos with you you're pretty well covered for all of them well everything you'll come across in the surf so there you go I hope that helps you out soft plastics definitely effective in the surf deadly in the surf have a look at a few different weights of jig head a few different styles of plastic mix it up find those good gutters and have a crack see you on the beach [Music]

Channel: Tackle Tactics TV

Views: 14,593

Rating: 4.9478259 out of 5

Keywords: fish, fishing, surf, beach, soft plastics 101, soft, plastic, plastics, z-man, zman, tt, tt lures, jig, head, jighead, lure, lures, 4wd, tailor, salmon, whiting, dart, flathead, queenfish, kingfish, tuna, cast, casting, trevally, spin, spinning, how to catch, rig, rigging, revlockz, tips, techniques

Id: kFcItXOJ6dg

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2019