The Ultimate Paddle.
For the past couple of years I have really gained a serious amount of confidence in a particular brand and style of soft plastic lure. Working in the fishing tackle industry for close to ten years now I have seen and tried my fair share of fad lures and new products that come out on a monthly basis. Some products are so good they are a must have and others are just all hype. The product I am about to talk about goes into the “Must have” category.
I have always used soft plastics and caught plenty of fish on them, but I have never really found that one “go to” soft bait. I have tried lots of different styles and brands but have never been entirely impressed to the point of saying I think it is the best thing going. That is until recently.
I have finally found it, the soft plastic that I consider for myself the best soft bait on the market for targeting west coast bottom fish. It is produced by Zman and the model is a Swimmerz 6”. It is a 6” paddle tail minnow that has a slender body with a large tail for maximum action. The plastic has a slit down the belly to allow for easy rigging and great hook exposure. An added bonus to having the slit down the back of the plastic is being able to fill it full of procure scent for those shut down days when you need some extra attraction to get the bites.
My biggest pet hate with nearly every soft plastic that I have ever used has got to be the durability of the product. There is nothing worse when fishing that there is a hot bite but with every drop or every second drop you have to continue to change soft plastic because it is torn or the tail has been bitten clean off.
For those that haven’t used the product before, Zman is made from Elaztech material which is super strong, extremely stretchy and will last far longer than its competition. The material is also extremely flexible and has great natural movement in the water meaning you can put less effort into working the lure for the maximum action.
I actually find Zman lures in general to be easier to rig and in the instance of not rigging the lure on the jig head straight you can simply re-rig the lure without damaging or deforming the plastic. Across the board Zman offers a large range of colours with the majority of them being so good it is hard to pick what one to tie on.
I always tend to pick a particular colour lure that I like, more so then trying to match any baitfish etc. I tend to think fish react more to action and profile then they do to colour, sure there are times when certain colours work better but the majority of the time if it is acting right I believe they will eat it.
For the size of the fish I generally target you would assume that such a small soft plastic would not be the ideal lure to go for, I find a lot of my customers try and opt for a larger lure thinking that it will attract more fish. When fishing larger soft plastics I find I tend to miss a lot of bites, mainly because there is not enough hook exposure to cover the entire size of the lure. Whenever I do fish with a lager plastic I always tend to fish a small stinger hook in the back to allow for those short takes. Fishing with the smaller plastic I get far less short takes and a lot more hook-ups due to the fish engulfing the whole lure.
I generally fish 30-60mts of water and opt for 2oz and 3oz headlock jig heads in the 8/0 size, the hooks are extremely sharp and very strong. I only thread the keeper weight through the head of the plastic, exposing the shank of the hook in the slit on the belly while the hook point is exposed on the top of the lure. It is not that often that you get short takes on a 6” Swimmerz but if you do there is still room to allow for a small stinger hook close to the tail.
I have experimented a fair bit with varying the action I apply to the lure and after fishing with the Swimmerz for some time now I have found I see the best success from working them very slow. Sometimes I even fish them almost like a bait, lifting them off the bottom and literally just holding them still. Because the material is so soft, a lot of the time I believe the current is strong enough to work the plastic for me. I do still give the plastic a flick here and there but you would be surprized as to how little I work the lure.
I normally will fish a Swimmerz relatively close to the bottom, slowly working it up to about three meters off the bottom and then releasing it back down. It is important when retrieving the plastic faster to have a lengthy pause, a lot of the time the hook up generally occurs during the pause or when you let the plastics fall back to the bottom.
For me a big part of being successful when fishing with soft plastics is being able to feel everything that is going on at the other end of the line, you really need to be able to feel those little taps and subtle sucks. This is where fishing with light 20-30lb outfits come into their own allowing the angler to really get the idea of what’s going on with the lure.
You gear doesn’t have to be anything too flash to be able to enjoy fishing with soft plastics but you will need something that will be able to keep up with the amount of fish you will be catching on them!
Next time you are in your local Bluewater Tackleworld, grab a pack of Zman Swimmerz in the 6” size and give them a try. You will be impressed!