queensland 1st fish on sp!

[tobie10]

Went back to the Brisbane side of the Hornibrook bridge around sunset with my new sienna/sonic combo to practice soft plastics fishing. Downgraded to 1/16 size 6 jighead sizes to confirm what Kriso said was nipping my lures last time and sure enough it was a mad school of little toadfish! Pulled out and returned two and then thought about things a bit, upped the jighead back to 1/8 size 1 and stuck on a 2" Gulp nuclear chook shrimp. The color seemed to put off the toadies a bit and I cast out as far as I could away from them and reeled super fast when I got closer to shore. A few wonky casts into it I finally got a perfect cast that was far enough away I could let the gulp sink to the bottom...then sort of wobble the rod since I haven't figured out what else to do and then on! Well I thought it was a bream, but it turned out to be a little flathead, and when I got it in I did a bit of fist pumping in victory and probably shouted a bit. heh Anyways it went back, and I went home quite happy.

Know this post was a bit long-winded for just a little flathead, but I just wanted to show how much I've learned from this forum. I fished for a long time previously with not much success or improvement and since joining this site a few months ago my knowledge and skills have grown exponentially. So big thanks to all! And so far loving soft plastics and gulp!

[tugger]

nice 1 tobie you'll be an old salt at this before too long

mark

[noname]

the thing with plastic's fishing is, there is no real right or wrong way to fish with them, just keep trying different things, especially now that you absolutely know they will catch fish, you will only improve, and good luck with it.

[Feral]

Fantastic! Congratulations on your first SP fish.

[ryanyoung]

Ha ha, well done Juls! Look forward to hearing of further victories in the near future.

Cheers,

Ryan.

[alex1]

good on ya tobie10,

I started the same. A bit dissapointed in plastics at the start until I got the hang of it. Now I hardly ever fish with bait anymore. Once you've mastered the sp's give the hb's a go, you never know what you can catch. We often target bream but have caught allsorts and when you get a big flattie or tailor or jewie on your light rod that's when the fun begins.

keep at it

alex

[Bommie]

congratulations Juls, may it be the first of many to come

[Angus]

noname wrote:

the thing with plastic's fishing is, there is no real right or wrong way to fish with them, just keep trying different things, especially now that you absolutely know they will catch fish, you will only improve, and good luck with it.

I agree with this. The first fish on plastics is the hardest purely based on confidence.

After the first it gets a lot easier as even if the fish are not biting you know your not out there wasting your time!

Angus

[tobie10]

Thanks everyone! Haha, yeah I pretty much think this flathead was a beginner's luck fluke, but it certainly ups my confidence esp in the products, which I have not used before (gulp, braid, fluoro). Can't wait to go flathead stalking again. I'll be onto hb in the future.

[josmo99]

tobie10 wrote:

Thanks everyone! Haha, yeah I pretty much think this flathead was a beginner's luck fluke, but it certainly ups my confidence esp in the products, which I have not used before (gulp, braid, fluoro). Can't wait to go flathead stalking again. I'll be onto hb in the future.

Hi Tob,

Well done on the flatty!

Took me ages to understand SP fishing. I found a good way to build confidence on SP is to target pike. When you sucker anywhere up to 10 pike a session using different retrieve methods, it really helps the ol' confidence. My last SP 'victim' was a small fingermark - it looked like a jack with a black spot on its back. I've also had quite a few squid hit my SP. I've been using squidgy stick baits and 3-4cm grubs in motor oil or pearl.

PS. Pike aren't kind to SPs and superglue will only go so far.

[kriso]

nice one juls! the toadies get annoying hey, as angus said confidence when using lures is the big thing, it took me ages before i got something on plastics as i never persisted to hard with them because i thought it could just be a gimmick then one i hooked a fish, my first was a flattie too! i started to catch more because i new the lures where okay i just needed to find the fish rather then just firing them out where ever. congrats mate!

[RichH]

well done , i guess its one of those things , until u actually do it yourself it seems a hard task and pretty technical , uve done better than me , no fish on sp's jus yet

[Keen-as-fisho]

Congrats on the 1st sp victim. Mine was a pike! Persistence will pay off. I found that if I took bait I would not catch a thing on sp or hb's, since I discovered that NO bait is aloud in my boat, just a cast net, yabby pump and shrimp nets, just in case the fish aren't hitting the artificals!

[Kboukes]

great work! I caught my first flattie around there as well!

But on mullett and ive yet to catch one on SP's

[MoparKevUk]

Well done fella! I like to do a sesh of SPs/HBs and a sesh of bait each week if possible, keeps yer hand in with both. Although I have acquired a nasty habit of jigging my bait now.......Which seems to work more often than not!!!

Here's my first SP catch!!! :blush:

[tobie10]

Kev..is that really a fish you caugh? :laugh: Thanks, everyone, for all the encouragement - yeah Kriso, I used to think lures and plastics were all gimmicks too. And toadies are the plague!

[HookedOnTackle]

congratulations! you have now started on a slippery slope of addiction stronger than party drugs

the fish don't know what kind of retrieve you are making, they only see things as food, predator, or not worth worrying about. i like to have a good look at what my lure (hb or sp) does when i manipulate it in some clear water. try to figure what looks like a wounded bait item and go from there.

if you need some company out there sometime, i am on the northside too and love to wet a line.

good luck with your next catch, whatever it may be!

[Scope]

Great effort mate. Nothing like landing that first one and going "WOW! These things really do work!"

Cheers Jono

P.s - my first bream on a blade vibe was a couple of months ago. Lure was almost longer than the bream!