Deep water Plastics

[Platitudinus]

Hi guys,
In the 1960's we used to fish 'the new' redgills deep on the Plymouth wrecks (240ft = 75m of water) using an L shaped boom with a 6 to 10 ft trace plus a sinker on a rotten bottom. We had great success with the pollock, ling and coalfish. I now fish the queensland (Australia) reefs in over 80meters of water and wish to try my redgills, squidgies, gulp etc and wondered whether there were any new deep water rigs in use in the UK for plastcis? We usually drift the offshore reefs at a rate of about 1 knot. Obviously there has been plenty published around the world about plastic fishing in up to 30m of water but is anyone going really deep and avoiding tangles?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Peter

[Platitudinus]

Ok; so either no one knew what I was talking about with deep water plastics or it was of little interest to the UK 'bottom bashers'.
Both last Monday and yesterday we went out to the 50 fathom reefs off the GoldCoast. Wind was 15-20 knots and we had little current. Drifts were fast and the bottom bashing brigade were using 16oz leads to get their rigs down and dropping line back every 20 seconds to stay on the bottom. Success was intermittant with a steady stream of 2-6kg fish into the boat on both days caught mainly on fresh flesh fish baits.
Several of us were 'floatlining' which is where we fish a small ball weight directly onto a single or in-line two hook rig, baited with whole pilchard, large flesh bait or a live bait. Results were much better with larger kingfish and snapper finding the bait at whatever depth they were feeding as the bait was slowly sinking. (The aim is to get your bait to the bottom naturally over a four to five minute period - watch the line as you feed it out and a bite indication can be tightened on fairly quickly. This method is used extensively in New Zealand and Australia for quality fish.) We were busted several times by large kingfish that prowl the reefs and wont go near anything that looks unnatural.
So whats this to do with deep water plastics? Well I now know that the technique for plastics is similar to float lining. Forget the metal booms and paternosters (known as 'junk jewellery' in Australia) and use a 1.5 to 2 oz jighead and feed the line out as if floatlining. Experts in their own boats get into a rythem whereby they use two rods and cast well upwind of the drift and as one is sinking, one is retrieving. We tried it with good success and achieved a higher catch rate than the bottom bashers and we were only trialling it!
If that gives you some new ideas - great.
Perhaps the waters in the UK are so fished out and time on the water is limited so new ideas are not given a fair go! Bring back Jack Hargreaves he was always keen to try something new.
Good luck
Peter

[John Marshall]

Hi Peter, welcome to the forum,
only just caught up with this and I'm intrested so will try over slack tide when
the fish and summer return.

John.

[Platitudinus]

Hi John; thanks for your interest.
I will be back in the UK over the summer and hope to give floatlining a try around the Salcombe area. It is obvoiusly easier over water around 30-50m in depth and I suspect the pollack and wrasse will have a field day if I just drift a mackeral fillet towards the bootom. Anything bigger (bait) would probably get a conger on the bottom. I also remember we had great success in the Salcombe area before the heavy boat traffic took over, with floatlining live sandeels on small ball sinkers. That is what we are trying to imitate with plastics, rather than the old method of whiffing or slow trolling for bass.

Based on past experience with redgills, I suspect the fish are now harder to catch and twitching plastics may well be the way to go. I have googled up several good articles from the USA, NZ and Austrlia on the subject and many anglers here are now leaving base without any fresh bait at all - being solely dependent on plastics.
Good luck anyway.
Peter

[John Marshall]

Hi Peter, a question,
with 15-20 knots of breeze you must have been skating over the reef.
How long was the drift?

I fish off Portsmouth, and long reefs holding fish all along their length don't
occur so I may have a problem trying to get the skipper to go far enough uptide
to give me 4 or 5 minutes to get to the reef.

Still worth a go thou.

John

[Platitudinus]

Hi John;
Obviously the drifts depend on current and wind direction and our 'ribbon' style reefs are fine to drift down if everything is right for 20 minutes or so. However the more usual scenario is that we drift across them and the fish shoals tend to be localised. For this, just use a little more weight to halve the time it takes to float the bait or plastic down according to depth. It will still look more natural than a boat load of leads with assorted 'paternoster jewelry' scattering all the decent fish out of the way. Trial and error is the way to go. Don't worry about tangles with others on the boat as your lighter line/weight will have you streaming clear of all the bottom bashers and should have you into the better fish a couple of minutes after someone else hooks up. Make sure the skipper understands what you want to do otherwise he will just get everyone winding up, once the reef or wreck feature clears the fish finder.
Good luck
Peter
PS: once you hook up you will enjoy the pure pleaseure of the fish rather than feeling the lead weight all the way up - especially on braid, hence you can get away with using a lighter outfit than your mates.

[John Marshall]

Peter will give it a good go.

John.

[Kiwi Angler]

Hi Peter,

Last year we fished an area off Great Barrier Island here in NZ, the bottom was sandy and about 60-70 meters, one bright spark attached a worm hook to his shop bought legdger rig, he caught a lot of good snapper using 16oz to get to the bottom in strong currents while the rest of us struggled with bait been stripped from the hooks before we felt the bites.

We are off to the same area in a couple of weeks, so I have made up a no fail rig, I will attach the sinker to the main line as a running sinker, and I have made a 2m long trace with a worm hook tied to the end for a Gulp soft plastic bait and about half way I have made a 8 inch loop and will tie a normal flasher hook to this and bait that with squid or pilchard, it's like an each way bet!!!

I will let you know How I get on.

Nick