Soft Plastic Baits

My favorite bait for Haruan (Channa Striata) fishing. The wriggling action & supple body imitates live bait much better than hard lures. Haruans are not as aggressive as their larger cousins, the Toman (Channa Micropeltes), therefore, we need to use finesse rigs to get the Haruans to take your lure. Soft plastic baits can be rigged weedless too so it is the ideal bait to be used at swamps & thick vegetation waters where Haruans love to hide.

Special Hooks

To fish Soft plastic baits, one of the critical tackles to use is the (Extra Wide Gap ) EWG hooks. Some call it worm hooks or soft plastic hooks. The EWG hook is very different than normal hooks in that it has an extra wide gap as well as a bent neck to hold the SP bait in place without it sliding down on the hook. Another type of hook is the Octopus hook which can be used for another form of rigging, called Drop Shot rig.

Texas Rig

One of the easiest & effective SP rig is the Texas rig. This is as simple as just tying a Clinch or Palomar knot directly onto the eye of the hook & sliding down a bullet sinker or just any sliding sinker. Rig the SP onto the hook, make it weedless by pushing the hook point slightly embedded into it's body. That's it, you are ready to fish with the bait.

There are 3 ways that I normally play with the Texas rig.

A - Fast retrieve, skim the surface. This technique is used when I know the Haruan are active & in feeding mood. By fast retrieving, the bait tends to create a lot of vibrations on top water. This is to entice & lure the Haruan to make an attack.

B - Lift / drop. This is used when there are finicky Haruans in the water but they are less active & undecided whether to strike. This technique is also used when fishing in relatively deep waters ( more than 2m deep).

C - Slow retrieve, drag the bottom. I use this technique when I am not sure if there are any Haruans around. This is actually a good way to survey underwater structures. Being weedless, the chance of snagging is minimized.

Spinner with SP Trailer

Home made Spinner

One of my most effective Haruan lure. Normally you can purchase an Inline spinner from any tackle shop but I prefer to make my own. Just replace the treble hook with an EWG hook, rig it with a Berkley Powerbait Grub or just about any SP & you are good to go fishing. So far, this lure is most effective for Haruans (Common Snakeheads) in shallow waters.

Haruan caught on spinner

The technique for spinner is very simple. I mostly cast out to a fishy looking area, let it sink to the bottom (if it's not too weedy), give it a twitch & retrieve on a constant speed. Take note that due to blade design variations, some spinners require more speed to turn properly. Generally, the lesser speed to turn the blade the better. What you must control is to keep the spinner as much below the surface as possible.

Remember, for spinner fishing or any lure for that matter, when the fish is chasing, SPEED UP! the retrieve.

         


Soft Plastic Frogs

This is the lure that catches biggies! It may not get hits often but when it does, it's a big one for sure. My favorite SP frog are those weedless designs that comes with a skirted back & is floating. This mimics real frogs most naturally. The technique is to cast it out to the opposite bank, retrieve line to drag the frog back into water. Let it drop with some commotion, leave it floating for a few seconds then slowly retrieve it back in an enticing manner with frequent pause. The skill most important is to control the frog like a puppet, make it swim & hop just like a real frog.

When buying an SP frog. Stick to the smaller size ones.

     

There are many other forms of soft plastic baits in the market but I find that the 3 designs mentioned above are the most effective partly due to their simplicity. For those who does boat fishing, you could try the popular Drop Shot rig that is making waves in US Bass fishing.

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