Best Times to Fish With SP's

[ismail]

Hi all,

This may sound very stupid to most but Im still not sure about when is the best time of the tide to fish with Soft Plastics for species such as bream, flathead, jewies etc. Is it the run in tide or run out tide and also at what stage of the tide. (ie first 2 hours or last 2 hours)

I hope I make sense to you all. I have been fishing with SP's for 3 months now but have really been struggling with the SP's recently for some reason. I started of ok but last 5 trips produce 3 fish. I just want to make sure when is the best time i should be out there flicking them around.

Any help would be appreciated.

cheers
Ismail

[roz]

Ismail,

I like to fish the bottom of the tide, or close to it, for flathead when using SPs. I've had fairly good success.

Couldn't advise you on Jewies.

Cheers Roz

[campaspe_boy]

I can't really help with the best tide times as I have not really got into sp's yet, but something I have found really good when learning something new is to keep a diary of every trip you do fish or no fish, hust jot down things like, wind direction, tide, weather, sp used, fish caught, tide height, moon ect, you will be suprised how quick you can start to pick up pattons and best and worst times. Hope that helps, sire has helped me.

[Panda]

The best time to fish for any species is when they are feeding actively.
It doesn't matter wheather you are using soft plastics or not if there are no fish feeding.

Learn to understand the target fishes feeding strategy. Like, bream like to move up onto the oyster rocks on a rising tide. And flathead like to ambush bait falling off the banks into a gutter on a dropping tide. No tide is better than any other tide overall. You just got to learn to understand the fishes habits rather than just the tides. But of course the different species of fish move around at different times of the year so that that needs to be accounted for too. Learn to think like a fish. Soft plastics in the hands of an amateur are probably about one tenth as effective as a prawn on a hook.

My suggestion would be to get to know your fish first and then once you can catch more than you want , move into the more specialized types of fishing like plastics. You can start at the top level if you like. Up to you.

You got to remember that fishing programmes who make out they catch bulk fish have something like 40 hours to shoot a half hour programme. There is a lot of BS being touted adout on the TV these days. Because you know the objective of these media personalties is catching viewers rather than fish.

[ismail]

Thanks all for the adivce.

[snakecatcher]

Soft plastics can be very effective and I find them more so if I go out and target a particular species. If I go chasing flatties I like the run out tide and I make sure I have a good selection of colours and jig heads with me so I can mix and match to suit the conditions - heavier jig head in stronger currents, darker colours in dirty water and so on. Pink is a good colour to start with (it caught the most fish at the gold coast flathead classic last year followed by chartreuse (poncy name for bright green)) - if you don't have any luck with pink switch to green, white, blue or whatever until you find a colour that works and then stick with it. Change jig heads as well to get the best one for the stage of the tide and use the lightest one possible.

Stick with it and good luck

[beefaman]

Different tides for different locations for different species.
Keep a diary, as suggested, and follow the patterns