Any last minute advice

[jasonthomas]

Heading up sunny coast tomorrow to pop my "soft plastic" cherry. Got geared up for fathers day and have still not gone out.

Have been doing my research and have come up with a plan based on what I have heard or read.

Any last minute offers of advice would be much appreciated. This is what I'm running with at the moment,

1. Gear to be used. Nothing special about rod and reel, using braid main line and about 12lb mono leader. Soft plastics vary in color and shape. Have about a dozen different ones ranging from 50 - 100mm.

2. Time and tide. High tide is 4.30am-5.00am tomorrow and I am led to believe falling tide is best so aiming to be at waters edge not long after it.

3. Location. Was thinking of a few different spots. Coochin creek. Bribie island. pumicstone passage (caloundra area) currumundi. Would love to hear of some areas offering results of late.

I'm only new, Be gentle. Your advice will go a long long way and be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,

Jason

[tunaticer]

Three hints I guess.
Do not try and feel the bite, watch the line between your tip and the water, if it does anything odd, strike. Work at maintaining a even amount of droop in that line between the tip and water. Fish tight and you will lose the ends of your tails and not bring a fish home.

Fish with a relatively light jighead, in 4 metres of water I generally count to about 8 or ten to hit the bottom, your line will drop as soon as the bait hits the bottom.

Take your time, plastics still work even if you don't retrieve them and just jiggle them occasionally. Generally a simple lift and drop technique will tempt most fish around. The bite will come on the drop most likely.

I would be using bloodworm colour Squidgy Wrigglers between 65 and 100mm as my first lure to try.

[004dam]

Check out mooloolah river, Some very nice fish around lately. My favorite for the river are 100mm bloodworm wrigglers or 3" powerbait minnows. You can see my latest report from the river here (http://ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthr...acker-Saturday!). Currimundai goes ok if you head towards the mouth and throw around plastics for flatties, I find a 1/16th ample weight for the mouth I swear its no deeper then around 1.5m in there. Sometimes find the odd bream or whiting there but there normally rats.

[Gon Fishun]

In and around Coochin and the Donnybrook areas I prefer a run in tide. As the water is coming up over the weed beds and banks where the feed is, you will usually find flathead and bream coming up for a feed and in fairly shallow water.

[gunna]

Read all of Mullet Musketeer's reports on fishing Bribie. He gives quite good detail on both location and method.

[SunnyCoastMark]

Your Leader should be flourocarbon - not plain mono.

[jasonthomas]

Thanks for the tips.

Will definitely put them into practice next time I go. I only have 4lb fluorocarbon so thought it would be too light and went for my bigger mono.

I ended up in the pumicstone passage early about 5am. Spent about 2 hours flicking plastics to no success. Lots of fish everywhere including the odd Flathead being kicked up. I even stood on one. Scared the absolute shit out of me. I had packed a beach worm in the esky in case I was having no luck to try for some whiting. Second or third cast and doing a nice slow retrieval and I pick up a Flathead. $50 worth of soft plastics, nothing. Dirty old frozen beach worm and there you have it. When I let him off he just sat at my feet and after a few seconds buried himself in the sand and I was able to snap a photo. Also picked up a dart, a bream and a few whiting in quick succession.

As I had come to learn the arts of plastics I decided to switch back and spent another hour and a half for no increase to my tally.

One question rising from my adventures this morning. Why do bait fish break the surface of the water. Are they panicked and larger fish in area?

Well I guess its back to square one. Read read read. I have been analyzing mullet musketeers threads along with many others since fathers day but have much to still learn.

None the less. A very enjoyable morning. Even if I did not achieve my goals.

[Si]

Your Leader should be flourocarbon - not plain mono.

generally agree with that but it doesnt really have to be fluoro. a few people around the traps think the whole fluoro thing doesnt make much difference, especially at night and dirty water. mono is generally more thinner than fluoro, offers more shock capacity and when you work surface lures the weight of fluoro will sink or impart a bad action on your lure. mono still has merit for a leader depending on your application. The price of fluoro it is exorbant as well.

[Si]

Thanks for the tips.

Will definitely put them into practice next time I go. I only have 4lb fluorocarbon so thought it would be too light and went for my bigger mono.

I ended up in the pumicstone passage early about 5am. Spent about 2 hours flicking plastics to no success. Lots of fish everywhere including the odd Flathead being kicked up. I even stood on one. Scared the absolute shit out of me. I had packed a beach worm in the esky in case I was having no luck to try for some whiting. Second or third cast and doing a nice slow retrieval and I pick up a Flathead. $50 worth of soft plastics, nothing. Dirty old frozen beach worm and there you have it. When I let him off he just sat at my feet and after a few seconds buried himself in the sand and I was able to snap a photo. Also picked up a dart, a bream and a few whiting in quick succession.

As I had come to learn the arts of plastics I decided to switch back and spent another hour and a half for no increase to my tally.

One question rising from my adventures this morning. Why do bait fish break the surface of the water. Are they panicked and larger fish in area?

Well I guess its back to square one. Read read read. I have been analyzing mullet musketeers threads along with many others since fathers day but have much to still learn.

None the less. A very enjoyable morning. Even if I did not achieve my goals.

keep at it mate, using plastics for flathead is one of the easiest and enjoyable ways to catch them. and you dont have the stink of bait on your hands for the next two days.

[Mossy247]

Best advice i ever got was..... leave the bait at home. Was hard for me at first but you get there in the end. But agree that soft plastics are the most enjoyable way to fish for me, vary up your retrieves, vary the twitch, try an aggressive flick, just try anything you think might work cause most times you'll change something slightly and that is all it takes to get a bite i fish mainly a 8lb leader f/c most will say too light for flathead but has got my PB, lost some good fish but held many more don't be afraid to go light on the leader you might surprise yourself with what you can land on light gear. Leave the bait at home and try new techniques it doesn't always have to be a lift n drop, I have got them on a slow roll to a fast spin retrieve. Why not hit up a local ausfisher to show you a thing or two, most people are pretty helpful and share their knowledge, can never learn too much. tight lines - mossy

[dazyz1]

I don't have any problems catching flatties on plastics or hardbodies but i suck at bream so heres my flattie advice. Go with a plastic that has heaps of tail action Berkley grubs or the grub tailed minnow are my favourite. Lighter or brighter colours make them easier for the flatties to see and use the minimum weight jig head you need to get the plastic just above the bottom. I usually use a constant retrieve with a jerk or two every wind. The flatties will hit anything that moves in front of them so the more ground you cover the better.

If you happen to master the art of catching bream on plastics or hardbodies make sure you give me some tips.

[Scalem]

Thanks for the tips.

Will definitely put them into practice next time I go. I only have 4lb fluorocarbon so thought it would be too light and went for my bigger mono.

Mossy has said it already, fish light, you will be surprised.

Here is one of the biggest mistakes I beleive people make. Repeat this to yourself a miilion times over till you think you have got it embedded into your subconscious. I can never fish too light with soft plastics. Once you have that sorted, you might play within a certain range of leader material suited to the fish you are chasing, but if its Bream, start from the lightest you can find and work back from there till you find a happy medium. Light guage hooks for bream help too, not heavy wire.

If you start applying this, then it puts focus on the other end, such as the quality of your gear and the ability to apply smooth, even pressure on the fish when hooked up using light line.

Scalem

[PinHead]

if you fish plastics light...how the hell do you cast a one zillionth of an oz jighead? Buggered if I can do it. Feels like trying to toss a piece of paper out there.

[Scalem]

Greg, I was concentrating more on leader material than the actual weight of the jighead.

Scalem

[softplasticsdude79]

i go alright on flatties around moreton bay,I use 3/8 jighead as standard, 1/2 if the tide is running,3/0 hook and find the colour is more important than the action,squidgies are great 100mm evil minnow works a treat,and my go to is Berkley gulp 4 inch jigging grub pumkinseed.

heavy jig weight rules out any bycatch except jewies,which doesnt faze me.

best session this winter was 14 flathead in one incoming tide,all 45-65 cms,and a 65cm jewie.

i fish a daiwa tournament rod and tierra with nano 6lb and rovex 10lb fluro.

long cast into the deep then bring back up the shallows,30 sec to sink then 20 second pauses followed by 2 flicks of the rod.let the big ones run as long as theres no structure around,they tire quickly.

Adam