rigs for soft plastics? - bream

[cuzzamundi]

g'day all,

i'm a land-based angler and i was just wondering, if fishing with berkley dropshots, what pound line should i put on for snaggy areas around pylons etc. for targeting bream. i have never fished with soft plastics, so will i need a sinker swivel etc? may sound stupid, but i wouldnt have a clue. also, do soft plastics work in broader areas where the water's deeper and you have to cast further? thanks heaps for your advice. here's to hookin a few!

cuzza

[Brenno]

while i haven't caught anything yet on soft plastic, i understand the basics.

most people on this site will tell to use a leader of twice the lenth of your rod, depending on the area you fish this could be 4 to 6lb mono.

with soft plastics, you should buy some jig heads, these jig heads can be bought at your local tackle sore. these jig heads are a sinker and hook in one. no need for a swivel, just tie the line onto the jighead.

dont be shy to ask any question, there are some very experienced people on this site and they are more then willing to tell you what they know.

[Brissyguy]

This is a job for Tim the Bream...
Cuzza, Zeeke is the "Bream on soft plastics officianado"
Send him a PM, I'm sure he will put you right.

Cheers,
Rich.

[zedjack33]

Sound like a fun topic. I'm trying to get into this myself with little/some success. I'll be interested comments and tips etc.

Zedjack33

[Hutcho]

Cuzza,

When fishing SP's for bream, I would strongly advise using braid as opposed to mono as your main line. As for poundage, I'd go for between 6-10 pound, jsut on case you hok something a little larger. The breaking straing on braid is normally a more than what is stated when you buy it. There are some special knots you'll need to learn to tying off your braid, and tying it onto mono. Look at bimini twist for your braid, and then an albright knot for your mono leader. And your mono needs to be a decent length, you shouldn't be casting your SP without the mono still spooling out from your reel. Expect a few bust off's from the bream if you're fishing around snags and pylons though! you'll have to be quick! Put your drag on as tight as it will go, and watch your braid line (get yelow or fluoro green) closely as sometimes the bream will actually take your SP on it's way down.

As for technique, slow and steady wins the race. I'm sure someone else will fill you in on the method!

Good hunting.

Hutcho

[Zeeke]

Ok, this is the third time ive tried to post, hopefully go in properly because its a sort of long post

Line: Id Recommend either 4lb Fireline or 4lb Platypus Braid.. Fireline has 3 Coloures, Flame (Charteuse Green) Smoke (Grey) and Pink (Yep.. its PINK) and Platypus Braid only has 1 colour.. Charteuse Green.. when starting off, if your using a new spool, make sure you spool up the reel with some monofilament fishing line, it'll help fill the spool more when it comes to winding on the fireline, due to the very thin diameter, fireline when wound onto the spool, it will sit very shallow and give you shorter casts, the mono backing will give it some body on the spool and give you longer more accurate casts.. it also stops the affect i call spool spin.. fireline has a tendancy to spin around on the spool if its not wound on tight enough

Leader: Berkley Vanish 6 to 10lb .. buying it in the BIG spools is cheaper and you can play with it a bit more, some people said use 2 rod lengths, well, if your getting busted off, your leader is going to get really short and you'll be going through leader like nobodys business.. i use a 3 to 5ft leader.. and have gone down to 15cm in length of leader.. doesnt matter really, you can use straight fireline, the leader just gives you that stretchyness when a fish starts head shaking because braid is solid and doesnt have any stretch

Jigheads: my favorites at the moment for Berkley Dropshot minnows are the TT Lures 1/22 and 1/16 Jigheads with size 2 and 4 hooks, when rigging the plastic, the hook should come out around the R on power and B on bait.. which gives the lure plenty of action but leaving a nice setup for any decent bite

Rigging: Once youve got your fireline spooled up, you'll need to tie your leader on, i keep things to the K.I.S.S method (Keep it Simple Stupid) at the end of the fireline, i do a very basic spider hitch to form a loop, then with my length of leader i tie it to the fireline using a very basic half blood knot or any other kind of knot, the idea is to keep it basic and simple, but knots you know you can rely on, its also good to have your knots as small and tight as possible, big bulky knots when running through your rod guides slow your line down and create wind knots in your fireline which can be a real pain when casting (think of a birds nest in a baitcaster then think outside the spool). Wind knots can also be created by knots catching on the fireline while on the spool, the reason i like keeping slightly shorter leaders.. then all that is left is to tie your jighead on, same as you'd tie your bait hook on, rig up your plastic and start catching fish!

Retrieve: Best action for dropshots is a twitch motion.. twitch the tip of your rod in lil bursts.. kind of *twitch* *twitch* *stop for a couple of seconds to let plastic drop down a lil bit deeper* then *twitch* *twitch* and while doing that, wind up any slack line slowly so you can feel the bites, remember, plastics arent like fishing with a hardbody lure, you cant simply cast out and wind in, you have to work the lure in a way you think they'd work best.. you have to give the lure life because soft plastics like dropshots are pretty much a stick of soft plastic sort of made to look like a fish.. no swirly tails like on a grub or anything

Locations: Well, Mooloolaba river, if your land based, try around the coast guard jetty, theres a small sand flat to the inside of the jetty you can walk on and ive picked up a few flathead and small bream casting towards the jetty and working it back in, also try around the boat ramps, lots of bream and flathead lurking there for fish scraps

Also try the La Balsa Park area, the boat ramp and along the rock wall holds good fish, also up towards the mouth theres a small bay .. pretty rocky but holds good fish, then you have the rock walls on each side of the mouth, good and sometimes.. Very big fish lurking there

Hope that has helped you and a few otherpeople interested in plastics

Tim
p.s. Bream like this lurk mooloolaba.. and some are even bigger, this one was only 45cm long

[vertico]

jeez wonder who took that photo

[Zeeke]

unfortunately it wasnt you mate, heh, it was Raef

Tim

[Jeremy87]

This is all good stuff, keep it coming. I'm going to be after a few bream in the coming months so this is all welcome.

[cuzzamundi]

thanks so much for all the advice fellas! i really appreciate it. tim, yourpassage was invaluable. damn nice bream you had there as well. i'll see how i go with all the tips. be a while before i do it, as i need to learn how to do these new knots. anyway thanks once again all!

cuzza

[basserman]

one of my fav sofie rigs at the moment is the good old 2" dropshot or squggie bug unweighted on a worm hook size 3 i think
cast to the structure and let it drift past unweighted and wait till the big boys hit

[s.tury]

what about colours any preferences i went to the bait shop this afternoon but thought i would wait to talk to the experts any preference

[Zeeke]

Greens and blues work well, If your after dropshots, Blue Pearl and Blue Pearl/Watermelon are the top 2 colours, then anything else, the only best colour is pumpkinseed, it always works

Tim

[basserman]

watermelon (purple)
can't go wrong with christmas tree in the 2" berkley power grub
motor oil (brown)
chertuse (floro yello)
any reds
but there are truly too many coulors to name and i would say almost all work
but more important than the colour is getting out there and casting right into the snags where the fish are, when you are doing that you will find i rarely has anything to do with colour or the lure but more the casting

[MY-TopEnder]

I was in the same boat as you.. never ever used soft plastics before and thought what the hey... lets jump on the band wagon.

I walked into ProCatch at Sunnybank and easily spent a couple of hundred dollars on a complete setup.

And let me tell ya, it worked well... second cast with a Ecogear 1/16 Jig Head into a Ecogear Mini Tank (watermelon) and BANG... nice size bream. Haven't looked back since.

The rig i bought was a Penn Powerstick 6'6" Light action rod with a Penn PowerGraph II 2000 reel. Its spooled with 6lb Platypus Pre-Test line in fluro green.