Question: If you only had one artificial bait to bring anywhere on this earth, what would it be?
The answer to this, of course, depends on where and how you fish and how you were taught to fish. If you’re a diehard surf caster along the Jersey Shore it may be a pencil popper. If you’re a “Canal Rat” up on the Cape Cod Canal, it may be the crippled herring metal bait in 3 oz blue and silver. If you’re searching for largemouth’s in Florida you probably have a willow leaf spinner bait rigged at all times. The selection of lures available today is crazy and for most of us if we have success with certain baits we tend to stick with it. Some of these options aren’t as versatile as soft plastics.
Soft plastics offer endless size, shape and color options. Often most are impregnated with scent attracting oils and you can even toss coffee and garlic flavored plastics. Trust me those two flavors work. Turns out fish are just like us after all! Soft plastics are also relatively less expensive than your hard baits and you can rig them in a variety of ways. I usually have at least two types of rigs set up at all times. A simple jig and plastic set up and rigged weedless with a corkscrew type of wide gap hook usually in 3/0 sizes for most of the game I’m after. These baits are so versatile I can often use the same set up on Cape Cod for Stripers and Fluke then pull a rod out of the locker when I arrive in Florida and catch Reds and Snook. Soft plastics also come in many sizes from 3” all the way up to the Hogy DW series in up to 14”, a great bait to toss at Tarpon and Big Stripers. Plus you can work these baits in a variety of retrieves making them more versatile than hard baits in my opinion.
My favorite brands are; Hogy Lures, Z-Man, Bill Hurley Baits and Bass Assassins. Colors are, again endless, but you can’t go wrong with white, pink, anything in a root beer and red flake combo for South West Florida. Another reason why I use soft plastics often is for safety reasons. With a single hook and not two or three sets of treble hooks, the margin of error for someone ending up in the emergency room for a surgical hook removal is much less. I always say “treble’s is trouble” especially when I have young kids out on a charter with me. Plus the single hook provides a better catch and release experience for the fish. It’s very important to release our fish with the least amount of trauma to ensure better post catch survival rates.
So if you’re not tossing soft plastics go down to your local tackle shop and pick up a variety. I guarantee you if the fish are in the right mood your rod will get bent. As we say “the tug is the drug”
Capt. John Curry
capefishing.net
Jtcurry77@gmail.com
(508)-209-7741