Going Soft on Snapper

Adam Royter explains that it’s not all smoke and mirrors when it comes to catching snapper on soft plastics. After nearly 8 years of trial and error, he reckons he’s got it almost sussed!

WHERE DO YOU START?

“Where do I start?” Not the question I get asked very often but it bloody well should be! Most people are more concerned about what colour, size and type of soft plastic (SP) they should use. Like the soft plastic is a silver bullet or something. “Here, buy this colour and they’ll jump into the boat.” Rubbish! That’s the last thing you need to know.

Seriously, the majority of people who are taking up this style of fishing already know how, where and when to catch snapper. But as soon as you give them a SP rod and a bag of plastics they leave their brains at home when they hit the water.

You’re doing nothing differently to when you’d fish for snapper with live or frozen baits. You should go to the same spots at the same times and set your boat up in the same manner as you always have. The only difference is that you are going to feed them a soft bait instead of a live, fresh or frozen one!

There are other methods you can employ when using soft plastics, like drift fishing, but the majority of people are trained to fish one way and one way only for a given fish species – It’s human nature. But now is the time to kick the blinkers off...