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soft plastic/rubber lures


paul mc

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Hi All

Me and my brother bought some (hundreds) soft plastic luers from Harris angling http://www.harrisangling.co.uk in the summer.They go from about 12mm(1/2")-100mm(4") long with single hooks in them.some of them are just strips of coloured rubber and and dont resemble fish.We bought them with perch, chub,grayling and trout in mind.

Having never used these types of lure before i was wandering what fish i might expect to catch with them and will pike take them requiring us to use traces and heavy line.

plst%20lures.jpg

Regards Paul Mc
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Pike love 'em to bits! Yes, you will need a trace, as in any piking. I either mount a single treble, or a single circle hook, onto 18" of wire. I put a bead above the hook. I then, using a baiting needle, thread the wire through the bait, in at where the vent would be and out through where the mouth would be. I then fish it as I would sink and draw. Great baits, tight lines, and you certainly will have!!

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I bought the samee pack from Harris last year. Its great! The grubs are great for perch and the shads are fantastic for winter pike as you can wobble them about on the bottom. I didnt have much luck with the worms but i did manage a grayling using one. Good luck.

Regards

Ed 'Herefords bagging machine'

www.kingfisher-club.vze.com

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Peter - I'm a real fan of circle and kahle hooks. But for rigging soft plastics, the hooks made just for that are somewhat better IMO.

 

Can you get these styles in the UK?

 

Gamakatsu G-lock

worm-hook-g-lock.gif

 

Owner Worm Hook

worm-hook-owner.gif

 

And if you think folks will scream "Eek - bent hook", just rig them at home and they won't be noticed as "bent". :D

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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Newt, I rig my hooks, rightly or wrongly, so they swing clear of the bait. Just a personal fad but, like a hair rig, it leaves the hook unobstructed. I mount the hook with a bead against the eye. The bead stops the hook pulling into the bait.

 

Yes, the hooks that you showed are available, by mail order within the UK. Just never got round to trying 'em so have not been able to compare! Its got to be worth trying though, thanks for the tip, it looks good.

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Peter - if you fish with a free-swinging hook, how do you keep from getting snagged?

 

Rigged with these and the point lightly nicked into the side skin of the lure, they will get into and out of just about any cover you can think of. And the large fish seem to love to bury themselves back in the thick stuff.

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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Newt, its no more of a problem than with any lure that has free swinging hooks, as most lures do. Okay, so trebles can heft up on the bottom but circle hooks seem pretty immune to such problems.

 

Pike do feed off the bottom, especially in the winter. Nevertheless I suppose most of my lure fishing tends to be away from the bottom, even if very near.

 

Pike feed off eels that bury themselves in the mud. I've had pike in the depths of winter that have thrown up some half tidy eels! In that situation I tend to use lipped lures that shovel the lip into the bottom whilst lifting their arses up and keeping the hooks off the bottom and shielded. Another device I'm playing with is basically a lump of lead moulded in a desert spoon, with the hook in the top. Bit like a solid Heddon Moss Bross. You simply tow it over the bottom, sometimes with a floating lure or soft body in tow. However, this hook in the top lead weight, with nothing in tow, has yet to catch anything! Basically its a bottom bouncer and, as such, works well, but not as a lure in itself, although I hoped that it would.

 

The idea of nicking the point of the hook into the skin of the bait seems, to me anyway, suspect.

If the hook won't therefor hook into a snag, might it not then hook into a fish? I bow to your greater experience on this one.

 

Yes, I do snag fish, although I get some pretty severe looks from fellow pikers. The general feeling is that fishing near, or in amongst snags, is asking for trouble. A snagged fish can be a dead fish. Its just a case of being sensible about it, and pretty able and experienced when it comes to playing a fish out of, and away from snags. Not something that I would recommend to my good friends Noddy & Big Ears!

 

[ 06. November 2002, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

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I ordered some of the "bent" hooks a few days ago from cabelas.com It's a US company that is quite popular. You can also order rubber baits as well. The best part about using these hooks is for the benefit of not getting caught on snags and such. I like to rig them with a bullet weight at the head of the bait to keep it close to the bottom. Another option might be to tie a rubberband between the weight and the bait, hence you can adjust the distance from the bottom that you want to fish. Then to keep the bait bouyant you can inject air with a fishing syringe. I may have lost fish but I believe its because they didn't want to be caught :( When they do you know it!! I don't know anyone that has caught all the fish... That's why they call it fishing.

Cheers

Jeff

 

Piscator non solum piscatur.

 

Yellow Prowler13

2274389822_1033c38a0e_s.jpg

Ask me at 75...

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Peter Waller:

The idea of nicking the point of the hook into the skin of the bait seems, to me anyway, suspect.

If the hook won't therefor hook into a snag, might it not then hook into a fish? I bow to your greater experience on this one.

The weight of the soft plastic is slight enough that the hook point won't be exposed usually by just pulling the lure over a snag or limb or something. Especially since the weight normally hits the snag first and there is no pressure placed on the hook.

 

Hopefully when a fish hits, there will be a little mouth pressure on the lure body that will free enough of the hook point that it can dig in.

 

I often fish soft plastics in such thick cover (logs/limbs/weed/etc.) that with any exposed hook point I would lose a lure per cast. But that is so often where the fish are. So I rig that way and deal with the fact that some takes will be missed due to no exposed hook. But most won't and I will certainly get lots more strikes than I would fishing in more open water.

 

The circle hooks are great for not snagging on logs or any larger surface. But they will catch a twig or small projection on a log.

 

I usually rig the soft plastics with either a hook barely in the side skin (tex-posed) or normal texas rig with the point into the body but in that case, I run the hook thru until the point comes out and then back it off a little until it is hidden again. The pre-groved channel also helps get the hook in the fish since there is much less resistance for the hook to use an existing hole than to make a new one.

 

If fishing soft plastics in more open water, I do pretty much the same as you with an exposed point. But with the hook shapes shown above, even that is less likely to hang up since the point can either be lying on and parallel to the lure body or pointed slightly down at it.

 

And for really open areas I do sometimes leave a hook exposed and dangling as it would with a more conventional lure. But not often since there is nothing on the soft plastic that will act like the lip of a crankbait and help jump it over the occasional object. Or will act like a keel as the spinner on a spinner bait does and keep the hook pointed upward most of the time.

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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  • 1 month later...

Do you guys do any drop shot fishing in the UK? It is a method of finesse fishing with small soft plastics that is becoming very popular in the states.

 

JT Bagwell

Contact me any time: Facebook.com/Bagwell or Facebook.com/BagwellsBassTactics or Twitter.com/JeremiahBagwell

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