Offroad-Express

any1 activly involved in softbait fishing??
looked fun so i went and brought a nice little combo today

got a shimano starlo styx graphite rod and a shimano sorona reel looks and feels really niuce cant wait to try it out

any1 got any tips that could help me out

nice combo

i actively soft bait fish off my kayak and find it VERY productive,its all in the action and how you present the bait so dont think your going to be good at it right away. get a couple of vids or talk to a few people who do it and you will be much better off. a couple of my mates are very good SP fishers and often catch more and bigger fish because of thier better technique.
and if the fishing is slow i always take a bag of pillies with me and just pop a pilly chunk onto the jig head hook and drop it to see if theres anything around.

theres a heap of different types and shapes and sizes of SP's and have found(fishing mussel farms) that the GULP camo and nuke chicken and lime tigers work well, 4 or 5 inch. more often than not you will only get the bigger fish to


tight lines

ok i brought the complete softbait fishing guide that had a few good tips in it so will hopefully be able to take my tinny out this weekend and try it out thanks for the response

wopass wrote:its all in the action and how you present the bait so dont think your going to be good at it right away.

I bought a VS45 and 10-15kg graphite rod.
I've watched the vids, read the books know the spots (I think I do anyway) but never seem to have that much luck.
Bait works fine but so far the SP's have really impressed me. (though I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong)
I sometimes wonder if the rods action is too heavy....

2MEKE wrote:

wopass wrote:its all in the action and how you present the bait so dont think your going to be good at it right away.

I bought a VS45 and 10-15kg graphite rod.
I've watched the vids, read the books know the spots (I think I do anyway) but never seem to have that much luck.
Bait works fine but so far the SP's have really impressed me. (though I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong)
I sometimes wonder if the rods action is too heavy....

10 - 15kg rod is waaay to heavy for SP fishing man, you need to get a 6 -8kg (ish) the lighter the rod the better action you get out of your bait. the guys i fish with have diawa combo SP gear and they run 6-8kg gear and its awesum !, even saw my mate battle a stingray of around 40 - 50lb and win... from the kayak ! that was fun.

yea thats exactly what i got told the lighter the gear the better the action.

what is a good sized jighead to use?

for normal SP fishing we use the3/8 or 1/2oz jig heads but the lighter ones give better action, also use the 5/8oz in deeper water or where theres more current. try the lighter ones first and then go bigger if you find your not getting deep enough. just remember that kingys like the SP's to and are most fun on the small gear and the small gear is up to it so dont be afraid to target them

wopass wrote:10 - 15kg rod is waaay to heavy for SP fishing man, you need to get a 6 -8kg (ish)

It works something awesome with big SP on kingis...got quite a few in the 15kg range. ( rod is a XF701DSXH )

It's the Snapper I've not had much success with.
Must go rod shopping....

What weight line are you guys using?...my full spool has 10lb on it but I've got another empty one that could be filled with lighter stuff

my spool is rigged with 10lb braid cost me 40bux at hunting and fishing

10 lb is good alround, my rigs range from 3, 4, 6 to 8kg but mainly use 4kg rig.
Wopass pretty well covered it for you but a bit more advice wont go astray, are you heading to coro this weekend wopass?
Use just enough weight to get to bottom for max action, you dont need to overdue action, not like jigging, more like tapping a snare drum.
Use flurocarbon trace not to heavy, about 15 to 20lb for 10lb braid.
Your knots are critical and comes down to personal preferance, I ve tried a few of the new fancy knots but can be difficult to tie with a rolling boat, slippery fingers and a hot bite, therefore I have gone back to back 2 back uniknots, double braid and treat as single strand to bulk up diameter to match fluro, this will improve knot strength heaps.
If things are a bit quiet try changing colours ,style and size of softbait.
We dont like pizza everday do we.
Try using a genie clip on end of fluro trace, this will avoid your trace having to be cut and retied to change jighead which will evetually shorten trace too much, simply cilp on different jig heads as required.Can even clip sabiki rigs on and use rig for catching livies.
Dont put used softbaits back in packets of new ones as they will all go off unless using gulp alive tubs.
Do purchase one of those berkley softbait bags, one half for baits and the other for tckle box with jigheads and trace etc. Dont do what my bro did and empty softbaits into plastic folders, keep zips lubricated with inox or silicon spray, this set up keeps everthing in its place and organised.
Keep it up, you will soon learn what works best for you, practise your knots and good luck.

don't get too wound up by the soft bait fad.

its just a different bait, different bait for different conditions/times. nothing to new, it just gives you more options. softbaits will work fine with heavy gear.

this light gear thing is not new, i was doing it 20years ago. still have my 10lb rig. its not soft bait exclusive and you don't have to have light gear for softbait.

light gear is good and will generally catch fish when the heavy gear won't. down side is when the action is hot you miss out on a lot of fish because of the much longer time it takes to pull the fish in.
thats why it pays to have two rigs ready to go, use the light weight gear but when things get going good switch to the heavier gear.

just picked up 2 rod/reel/braid combos.
$100 each, but i only brought em cause they are nice strong looking setupfor the price, the reels real tight and smooth, 7' rods 6kg.
my first soft bait rigs, and they were on special, usually $160 each, so i got 2 of em 1 for the mrs aswell, see how they go this season, then if need be can up grade, but for the price they look strong as