{{+1}}Coastal & Estuary Lures{{-1}}
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There is no doubt about it … lures catch more fishos than fish. If you walk into any fishing shop these days you can expect to find a wall or walls of all sorts of lures … wow, where to start.
I have mates that have boxes and boxes of lures and it's common to see them sorting through those overstuffed boxes and trying to find lures that they think will do the job.
Well, my approach is a bit different and is much the same process as I applied when I was representing Australia and Fly Fish Australia in World, Commonwealth and Oceania Fly Fishing Championships. What I always did for my fly fishing and now do for my lure fishing is to sort my flies, and now lures, into categories and then to only include lures that have earned a place in my category selection to cover a particular purposes.
This post is not a be all and end all, of a selection for Coastal Waters and Estuary fishing, just a starting point selection to give you some guidance and ideas to build your own selection on.
Traditional soft plastics
These are of course soft plastics made with traditional plastersol soft plastic. Among my favorites are:
The Jerky J Swimbait 5" is the little brother of the 7' version. It's a great lure to employ for Coastal and Estuary targets.
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Berkley Powerbait Hollow Belly paddle tails. Powerbait Hollow belly soft plastics are available in 5" and 6" versions and I use them for both weedless and jig hook presentations.
There are heaps of traditional soft plastic lures available from big name lure manufacturers or you can follow my lead and make your own. Mine is a Grub tail prawn soft plastic and it pretty well always gets a swim.
One of my favourite soft plastics is the Molix RT Shad. The 4.5" version is a great bait for Coastal and Estuary waters.
VIBES
There are a lot of really great Vibes out there including but not limited to:
Samaki Vibelicious Vibe Lure 8.5cm
Zerek fish trap – vibe/crankbait 90 & 110mm
Coastal and Estuary fishing involves a lot of terrain where the fish favour structure including rocky headlands and reefs and coral reefs and fishing those areas it is pretty easy to loose a couple of vibes in a session. With that in mind, where there is structure as described above, I tend to lean toward cheaper vibes.
Reel Action Vibes
The ones I like best are Reel Action Vibes which work out at about $8 each including freight. For shallow water I select the 95mm with 20gram of weight and for deep water I go for 115mm with 45grams of weight.
TPE Prawns
TPE is not a brand name its a type of soft plastic that has become popular as a medium for some of the big brand names to make soft plastics out of.
I particularly like Chasebait – flick prawns. These are incredibly realistic and made from ultra durable and flexible 10X TPE material. These are fantastic for fishing the edge of mangroves as bait including prawns are moving into mangroves as the tide rises and retreat from mangroves as the tide falls. Species that you may like to target with TPE prawns include Mangrove Jack, Flathead, Blue Salmon, Grinter and Fingermark and of course the ever present Rock Cod.
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HARD BODY LURES
There are times when the right bait for barra is a hard bodied lure.
Selecting the right style and swimming depth of hard bodied lure is definitely one of the keys to that process.
In my view I also favour hard body lures which have a darker back than the belly colour.
And, then for lures that are targeting pelagics such as Trevally, Mackerel, Queenfish etc , which you will find in Coast Waters a lot of the time an also Estuaries from time to time I lean toward Hard Body Lures that are a combination of a colour lighter than the back and chrome.
My hard bodied lure categories are basically arranged by swimming depth.
SURFACE LURES
Hard Body Lures that I can use to target top feeding fish are more appropriate to Coastal fishing and really only come into play in estuaries occasionally. May favourite lure for this situation is.
The Bassday Sugapen Floating 70mm and 95mm walk the dog style lures. This lure is designed to splash with its cupped face, like a popper, but have the advantages of being a dog walker which attracts more fish. This is the best of both worlds in surface fishing.
MID WATER LURES
For me its hard to go past the 79mm Hank Tuned Jackall Squirrel lures. They are my goto hard body lure for Coastal and Estuary fishing and great for a wide range of species found in those environments including Trevally, Queenfish, Mangrove Jack Flathead, Grunter, Fingermark and even Barramundi. They swim at around 3 meters deep and come in a version including rattles and a silent version.
DEEP SWIMMERSI have got to say that I hardly ever fish deep swimming hard body lures but a one I do carry just in case swims at a depth of 20 feet. That's the Killalure River Rat. It is a stand-out general purpose saltwater lure.
Zman soft plastics are fantastic baits but, after so much frustration with Zman lures being accidentally stored with other brands of lures and even other Zman lures I made the decision to not to include any Zman soft plastics in my Coastal and Estuary lure selection. That is because, Z Man softies are made from Z Man's own secret proprietary TPE material called "ElaZtech". This proprietory TPE material melts and deforms traditional plastisol based soft plastics and consequently Z Man soft plastics must be stored away from all plastisol soft plastics in a non-PVC based container or their original sealed packaging. Zerek Chasebait, Transams and other TPE lures made from relatively standard TPE material don't have the secret proprietary additive that is in "ElaZtech" and will suffer the same melting and deforming problems that traditional plastisol based soft plastics suffer if stored in the same container as any Z Man soft plastic. {{end}}  Categories: Lures - coastal and estuary waters
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Last Updated: April 9, 2023
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