Lets talk plastics....

[fishingguy]

I've used plastics on jigs for years. Little experience using other presentations. Pretty much a live bait guy up until now. But with all the new scented(Gulp, Trigger X, to name a couple) out there these days. Seems to me that with all the technology that has been poured into the development of these plastics over the last few years. It could be a great opportunity I am missing out on. Is anyone having luck rigging, dragging spinners, bobber fishing, ect.. Lets hear Whats working. Whats a waste of time.

[goblueM]

plastics on spinners are great, especially since they keep pesky panfish from stealing your crawler

i've never used plastics on a slip bobber or heard of folks that have

[bobbymalone]

i've never used plastics on a slip bobber or heard of folks that have

I've seen it done, despite my immediate protest. and it worked about as well as you can imagine. as long as you are imagining terribly. I got a nice 'toldja' out of it though.

[gloomiseye]

I like using ringworms and moxi while pulling bottom bouncers. Also like using Berkeley gulp 3" smelt.

[PerchJerker]

I use plastics much more than live bait these days, and almost always start with plastics before live bait. But there is usually someone in the boat who still wants to use live bait so that way we can have both in the water and see what works better. Plastics are great but they need to be moving in my opinion .... if you try bobber fishing or even slow rigging with a plastic you are likely to not have a very good experience with them.

[Lakeside_Nelson]

I am with PerchJerker. I use plastics 85%of the time. Obviously there are times where you just cannot out fish live bait, but in most cases I will fair just as well as those who are. I have used them under a bobber but only in current, it produced some fish but it was just an experiment. I typically like using 3" smelt and black shad Gulp! as well as ringworms, 4" Gulp! crawlers, and the 3" power minnows. I have also had some of the biggest walleyes of my life on large 5-6" paddle tail shads, especially late in the year.

[fishingguy]

Thank You for all the responses. With all the new rules for live bait, water issues for invasive species ect... It seems plastics could be a viable option. Any other info, like rigging, brands, types, how to's, ect.. anyone would be willing to share with a plastics newbie. Would be greatly appreciated!

[tolle141]

While out chasing smallmouths I've had some pretty good streaks with walleyes. Mainly using tubes and curly tails. My friend is all about the gulp though and loves to run it on spinners.

Good luck! They sure do outlast crawlers that's for sure.

[tunrevir]

I like plastics early in the year and again in the fall. Plastics produce in the areas I fish year round as good or better then live bait but I tend to go with the livebait when the bite is tougher.

Tunrevir~

[ozzie]

I will use Gulp under a bobber on windy days or days that I am searching and using the bobber..lift-drag-sit repeat....I really love the gulp alive with a jig casting and using various retrieves...if you get stuck on a weed you can just snap it off without losing bait

[Shane Z]

I've used Trigger X jigging for walleyes for the past three years and have had great results! Your able to work weedlines and structure much more aggressively without having to question whether or not you lost your bait. Just think of the time wasted when a fish short nabs ya or your live bait is gone for no apparent reason. With that being said...there are some situations when live bait trumps anything else ya throw at'em!

[TyGuy02]

I experimented hard last year with plastics and definitely did some learning. I loved gulp crawlers on a slow death or spinning rig, pitchin jigs with plastic shiners/shads shallow for walleye/pike/bass. I never found a nice plastic minnow that would work behind a live-bait rig though (i guess that must be an oxymoron or something like that).

I'm bad at forgetting things when going out on the lake. It was nice to have a back-up plan when I got to the lake and forget to pick up bait one time!

[anchor man]

for the plastics veterans, what's you preferred method, Spring, Summer, Fall. pitch and drag in the Spring, vertical jig, troll spinners in Summer? Just curious. I definetly want to gain more confidence in plastics and their countless methods of use.

[Brain_Melt]

for the plastics veterans, what's you preferred method, Spring, Summer, Fall. pitch and drag in the Spring, vertical jig, troll spinners in Summer? Just curious. I definetly want to gain more confidence in plastics and their countless methods of use.

I like to vertical jig late spring into summer and pitch in early spring and fall. Using bigger plastics then what you think you need has porduced for me. When fishing big water I'm using 6" paddle tail shad in black and silver or a 5" ring worm. Storm makes a great swim bait that has the weight and hook molded into the plastic. Just remember BIG fish eat BIG!!!

[TruthWalleyes]

Pitching jigs with ringworms, moxies, Kalins, etc works well all year round...Something i've been slowly learning from a guy who hasn't put live bait on the hook for years.

[Rick G]

I will use Gulp under a bobber on windy days or days that I am searching and using the bobber..lift-drag-sit repeat....I really love the gulp alive with a jig casting and using various retrieves...if you get stuck on a weed you can just snap it off without losing bait

I too have had good success with the Gulp alive on windy days with bobbers. The ones I have had best luck with are the leeches and the pinched crawlers. It has to be a pretty decent chop to keep the plastic moving enough to trigger bites. Imo you can't beat live bait for slow rigging Lindys or under floats in most cases.

[anchor man]

with ringworms and moxies in lakes, are you doing a steady retrieve, dragging, hopping along the bottom, snap jiggin? Or all of the above? Have you have any issues with fish letting go quicker than with live bait?

thanks

[ozzie]

with all plastics I have found I change my retrieve until I find one that works and then try to repeat it. sometimes the fish want it on a swim retrieve and sometimes hopped along the bottom and sometimes they will take them with the aggressive snap jig.

[mnviking28]

I think ozzie makes a very good point there. Unfortunately that seems to be one of my biggest frustration when fishing plastics. Sometimes you catch a fish when you aren't paying as close of attention as you should and find yourself saying "now what did I just do different"?

[ozzie]

well you aren't alone!!! I do that all the time where I try to replay my last cast back in my mind to figure out if I was up high in the water column or off the bottom was I swimming it or hopping it...amazing how after the surprise of getting a bite sometimes makes you forget what you were doing!!!

[DARK30]

YUP! Plastic grubs on a jig. Sloooow and easy...sloooow...Bang!

[mnviking28]

A few years back out in Devils Lake, I was shore fishing. I had tried several different spots without a lot of luck. I pulled in and tried another spot. Cast out a swim bait-wham! 18 incher. Over the course of the next couple of hours, managed to pull 4 more, some white bass, and lost about a 40 inch northern. Never did figure out what I was doing differently on the casts when I caught fish as compared to the ones I didn't. But, they were definitely the ticket, as I tried a slip bobber, a lindy rig and a floating jig head on a slip sinker on my "second rod" with both minnows and leeches and never got a single bite on that one.

[Chumba]

When you guys say you are using crawlers on spinning rigs, does this mean like a lindy rig? And what type of plastic minnows are

You guys funding best for jigging? I am having trouble finding them. Thanks.

[Mike Stark]

This is a spinner rig. Most people will troll them. You can put them behind lots of different types/size of weights depending on how deep you want to fish.

[RiverFish]

When you guys say you are using crawlers on spinning rigs, does this mean like a lindy rig? And what type of plastic minnows are

You guys funding best for jigging? I am having trouble finding them. Thanks.

I pull the gulp crawlers on a spinner/crawler harness on a bottom bouncer. The gulp crawler holds up better going through rocks/timber/snags. I can pull the rig through a snag and not have to reel it in to check the crawler like I would with a live crawler.

I mainly run this from late May through August depending on water temps.