Gulps & Powerbaits : A Con-job or are they for real ?

[gone_fishing]

i have more success with plastic than with bait
catching bream around the mangroves and flatheads in the faster moveing water
when i stat getting the tails bit off its usally little toadfish ( dropped one in about 3" of water one day and the little buggers came from nowhere and destroyed it before i could pick it up ) i either move on a bit or try somthing else
never had a bream bite the tail off but they have ripped the middle out though
better to be lucky than good id reakon
ill keep trying them they are hard work and make you think of how and were your fishing lots of trial and error

[BilgeBoy]

You poor bloke...I sure know your pain.

It goes against every bone in your body to persist with this ridiculous plastic affliction. I sure agree with Webby that SP's are cocaine for fisherman. In fact I would love to meet the Berkley Exec's. I can just picture this building full of fisherman in little rooms being questioned by psychiatrists.....MUST BUY PLASTICS!

I myself have been at this plastics game for a short while now and am only just starting to get some results. Jig head choice, SP colour, leader etc all play a big part but by far the most effective is the technique. I too have watched a few vid's and thought I had it sussed...but as I am learning there is more to it.

Nowadays I take bait and plastics...and fish the situation!! Odd way of describing it but some days I couldn't buy a bite on placcies and other days...they go off!! Who knows.

One big plus is the ability to keep and emergency fishing kit in the car. Then anywhere anytime I can wet a line and let the world pass me by....

Good luck with it mate.

Regards

BilgeBoy

[alfish]

rogersto
i know exactly how you feel.
I'm on a mission this season to master bream on placcies, i,ve caught a grand total of zilch in 20 hours fishing so far, but i'm a stubborn bastard and won't give up until i've got a decent return on my investment.
My mates are havin an absolute ball at my expense, so i haven't told em how much i've been out recently.
I'm even going down to manly now to have another go.

what a sucker, but thats fishing.

cheers al

[Th0m]

ive been messing with them aswell, first time i used it i landed a nice flat head and took home and ate and was generally impressed. but then after bout 2 weeks of buying the things. watching the little leather jackets pull the tails off and leave em i become a little sceptical of them. do they attract fish? no question they do attract more i think than the average bait. not so sure.
tommorrow im planning on heading round a mates n seeing how they go but as for fishing on them all day, nah to pricey. im just gonna grab some other common baits and see how they go.
also with the sofites seems that for me i only do land keepers. i know everyones a little different but i really dont mind realing in a few small ones or undersize fish and chucking them back rather than just waiting there and getting nothing all day

[Jeremy]

all you whingers and sooks....if you don't like it, don't do it. No one is forcing you. SPs work for those people who persist and enjoy the hunt and the thrill of fooling a fish into taking an artificial bait. If you don't have the patience, or soaking a bait is more your thing, just stick to that. If you choose not to believe all the reports of fish taken on SPs, knock urself out.

SP and lure fishing in general is an active form of fishing which requires some skill in the choice of lure and the presentation. It doesn't work all the time, but then neither does bait.

(and yes, I have caught bream, flathead, trevally, snapper on SPs)

Jeremy

[bushbeachboy]

Hey Rogersto,
The jury is still out on SP's for me personally, but I've only put in minimal time and effort yet. There seems to be lots to learn about stuff like leaders, jig head weight in relation to run, sizes of plastics etc etc etc. I think you would have to spend a lot of time and effort to become consistently successful with them, and remember it also depends on the fish. If they aren't interested at the time you are fishing, you won't catch them. Personally I'm starting out gradually, taking the SP's on every trip, but mainly fishing with bait. The SP's open up other options for me, they are cheaper than hard body lures, can be fished weightless, or lightly weighted, or heavily weighted, light leader, or heavy leader, or tied straight to mono, or straight to braid, slow retrieve, fast retrieve, almost no retrieve, swum in the current, more rod movement, less rod movement etc etc etc. It's all fun, and better than work. Hehe.
Cheers mate and good luck!

[yellahunter]

Tallebudgera River up near Yabby island reveals that little whiting also chase after them chomping into the rear ends of the plastics. As the plastic becomes visible in the shallows on the retrieve, I can see whiting, toadfish and some other fish with a zebra patten nibble into the plastic's rear end. Bigger fish seem to ignore them, and they're in there because when I cast off the footbridge I can see bigger fish swimming around the gulp with the littlies mucking around with it and chomping on the tail. Repeat same exercise with a yabby, yep the little fish usually beat the bigger fish to it, stealing the bait, but the bigger fish try a little bit harder though.

Cast after cast next to one of the bridge pylons produced nothing on the M1 overpass, nor down below the Gold Coast Hwy bridge at Currumbin Creek. Repeat same exercise with Yabbies, and nibbles galore, lots of lost yabbies, but landing the occasional fish here and there. Lots of undersized bream around, but it proves without any reasonably doubt that Gulps are over-hyped and DO NOT outfish all other bait, that statement on the packet is misleading and should be against the law.

What gives?

Doing everything the guys are doing on those 2 DVD's in terms of how to put'em on the jig, slow retrieves with little jerks and all that, but no fish?

Hey Rogersto,
Mate it all takes getting used too etc as its a very different style of fishing to the old yabbie on a hook thing. Ive been fishing with plastics for over a year now and rarely use anything else. Im landbased most of the time and enjoy reasonable success using them.

I have found that the Gulp shrimps are the best plastic for currumbin creek and seem to catch plenty of fish. It might be that your fising areas that are too crowded with small bream/toadfish, thus the plastics are getting destroyed. on average a pack of gulp shrimp would last me 2 weeks fishing everynight for an hour or two in currumbin. Ive found that the only time i lose a lure its when its snagged or ruined from catching 1/2 a dozen fish.

I will tell you right now that fishing with gulps/plastics is not as productive as throwing a live yabbie in however its more enjoyable if you like to constantly move etc. I would say that the quality of fish is better too, on a yabbie your likely to encounter bream/toadies/whiting all under 20cm however on a gulp you are more of a chance to tangle with bream (20cm+, trevally, flathead, mangrove jacks, pike etc)

mate if your keen to fish currumbin one night pm me and we can go down for an hour or so and i will show you what ive learned.

cheers,

Ben

[rogersto]

that's definetly an offer I will be taking up.

All I want to see is some results and introduce some variety into my fishing. It's mostly yabbies all the way, and yep, I always land heaps of smaller fish which end up going back to live another day, but I also bring in keepers and interestingly some luderick or a jew for variety, but depending on the time of year, it's mostly Dart, Bream, Whiting and the occasional Flathead and on very rare occasions the odd jewie to spice things up....

I'm keen to notch up more flathead which has been one driving reason towards the placcies.

[Chris Ryan]

I have been trying Squidies for over a year now and not a fish in the boat or on the shore. I have had some hit and shredded but not a hook-up. So after much soul searching and self confincing I bought some berkley Gulp! baits in various sizes and colours and through them around the back of Peel Island on Sunday morning (with the carpark of others chasing that bait school). I did get two undersize flatties to the boat but they spat the hooks before I got them in - but I saw them and the Mrs saw them so they count!!!! Ha ha ha. I had larger sizes as I wanted yo see if I could get into some of the bigger fish around. I changed to a 4" shad in pumpkin seed and the tails were desctroyed everycast......I blame the grinners in the bay for that.

I will persist with the squidies and might try the scent spray, but after mucking around for ages I can say I caught two fish on placcies now. Just need to land some bigguns and frequently. Just as a comparison the only biggun we got on bait all day was a 40cm sweetlip around the back of Mud Island. Everything else was either rays, shovelies or F***ING Grinners....

However I would still be keen to see/watch/learn from someone more attune to the art of placcie fishing to see what/if there is something I am missing. If Starlo and Bushy can do it..........................

Puff

[Roo]

I've played with these things for nearly 15years and am nowhere near an expert but i believe therefore i catch......mostly. you need faith in your lure for it to work well. I've pinned flathead for years on simple Mr twisters and lately I've finally managed to get the occasional bream on the placcies too. I couldn't figure out why the bream wouldn't take mine until l slowed everything right down.

keep at it.

cheers roo.

[Nowhere Bob]

I'll sing along with the choir.
I bought my first plactics as an inexpensive alternative to the snag gods appetite for my HB lures. I too went through a period of thinking they were a pointless marketing device, then I thought they only catch really dumb and desparate fish, Now I think they are an interesting & productive way to go for a fish.

I think when I first started with HB's I went through a similar process.

As with most lurers I like the active 'hunt' of lure fishing more than the stationary bait approach. That said, these days I will usually take lure & bait and will try the lures first. If no luck, then I'll switch to bait.

Hope this helps, all I can sugest is persist.
(And I bags all those fish you miss. They are mine, all mine! wahhahaha)

[marty+jojo]

Rogersto,
Do a search on my name or Foggy, T1,Tinn,Poodroo,Scalem etc have a look all these guys, they and plenty more use plastics with success. If you still are not convinced give up and go back to being a bait fisho.... i will happily take all ya plastics.
Marty.

[PinHead]

I think they may have created plastics for those that are a bit "soft"..they don't like the smell of bait...lol

[Scalem]

Rogersto,
Do a search on my name or Foggy, T1,Tinn,Poodroo,Scalem etc have a look all these guys, they and plenty more use plastics with success. If you still are not convinced give up and go back to being a bait fisho.... i will happily take all ya plastics.
Marty.

Thanks Marty for the mention - there's now a list of AF members successfully using SP's- too many to mention. I learned a valuable lesson on the weekend where I would have definitely been better off fishing bait. NEVER take an inexperienced family along to fish places like Wello. I epitomised the word frustration, and if anything practised my knot tying skills like never before. I should have taken the family down the pin and pumped yabbies, but added some of that fluro glow stuff on their backs just to help my addiction

But it's not holdens or fords, cowboys or broncos.. If you feel that your tails are getting knocked off, don't write it off and say the toadies love these gulps, you might be surprised to find it's a school of chopper tailor and are better putting on a ganged hook. You can certainly mix both styles. But this is where failure often sets in, and understanding what environments and species respond the best on bait or S/P's. If you have fished plastics for a few occasions and got nothing, how many fish SP's for a few minutes, then anchor up ( 1st sign of failure with SP's IMO) and start fishing bait, then forever resolved to saying they are a rip off? Some will unreservedly jump in and tell everyone what they think of the plastics, but I know a couple of them have larger boats that make drifting difficult, and may not have tried plastics in a smaller boat capable moving around stealthily. Let me take some of your larger vessels out to cape Moreton to fish for pearlies and Snapper, that's the environment you should be very successful using placcies.

I know T, Aquarius, Adamy have all had newbies in their boats with great results!

Here's some stats.
Using "For Steve" as an example - if that's OK Brad. He had caught one or two fish around Peel and a couple of places I can't remember, using Placcies. I went to Wello in his boat, observing he had all the right gear. Just one small modification to his technique that I suggested.... and a couple of trips later he's having a ball with a PB a few weeks ago of 52cm and we have named a spot X off Green called T.I.G.S which stands for "this is getting stupid" because we were catching an Absurd amount of fish. In Brad's case I hope I had some hand in his recent success, I hope so. Another mate Anthony is in his mid 30's ( fished since he was a kid) and never used SP's. 1st trip out with me and registers his PB Flathead and PB Snapper. I had mixed success in the bay with baits over the years, a 37KG PB Cobia on livie, some LT's, Jack, Spotties, Parrot but never did much good on Snapper... Until I started using Placcies. I have to keep targeting Parrot with the Gulp shrimp because I've caught them on this before.... Twice I put one of those on my wifes' line and both times she got busted up big time!! But I should try bait ( fresh squid or crab ) if Parrot was the target species, and with much heavier line. Another reason I should consider bait more often is that lately I have had more than my usual chances to wet a line, getting out almost every weekend for the last 2 months. The largest amount of plastics I went through in one day was 5 packets, average price $9.00 a pack. With jig heads and leader material, it's fair to say that's $50.00 per trip + fuel. Yep, the yabbie pump has to come out for the next few trips!!

Scalem

[blaze]

thumbs up for Scalem
Great reply for a fisho thats 99% bait
cheers
blaze
ps
will always be a bait fisho but play with them smelly soft plastics sometimes to keep others amused