Understanding Rubber Swimbaits

My lesson is angling goes on, after tying so hard to understand how fish like plastic instead of real baits, now there is new stuff for me to ponder upon.

Real Bait vs Plastic Lures vs Metal Lures vs Rubbers
Goodness me, when will all these new stuff available in the market stops??!!!

Technically, using plastic should be classify as Luring, I think. To be frank, I always believe that Rubbers will perform better then hard lures, not because they are considered a Newer Technology thing but they are more true to life then the hard plastic. Thus the swimming action, feel and now taste will be as close to the real thing.

My 1st introduction to rubber swimbaits are really bad, not because of me the angler but because no one know how to use them effectively. Further more, the crazy price tag it has and the poor quality rubbers that tackle shop brings in, makes many anglers locally to turn away from using rubbers and put their trust in plastic where it have a better range due to it's more established market.

My first real encounter with rubbers is actually just a few weeks ago, that is when I first meet Alvin at the Taman Jurong Pond.
1st meeting with Alvin
When I first feel the rubber, I am actually amazed by it's soft yet bouncy nature of the material, unlike those that I have seen that are pretty much very hard. With the softness of the material, the swim action of the paddle tail is much much better, entice fishes to 'Check It Out'. Now this is what rubbers should be like.

This kindle my curiosity in rubbers, and started reading more about it from mag, webpages and fishing forum. Also, a couple of fishing trip with my fishing neighbor, I begin to like rubber more and more.

Remember that I did mentioned that using rubber is like luring? Even with it's life like feel of a real bait, it still needed to be worked in the water to attract fishes, jst like hard lures. I am still a novice at using rubbers, and still have a long way to go before discovering more ways to use them.

Taman Jurong Pro Pond
Being close to my place, I visited this place not for fishing but to sit down talk cock with friends. I have the pleasure of fishing here a few times using rubbers. As this pond stocks up mainly seabass (KBL), Taiwan Ngor and Mangrove jacks, you know what exactly what you are fishing for. That's also one main reason why I hate pond fishing.
Using the Cabala's 3" rubber (Model - Action Tail), this is deadly for the KBL in this pond. During my last visit there, 3 anglers is having bad yield, one of them gave up after and give me his remaining 1/2 hours, I managed to hit 4 fishes, 3 KBL and 1 Taiwan Ngor. Pretty impressive considering during at that time live bait yields nothing at all.

New Tiew Auntie's Pond
Tag along for 2 trip with my fishing neighbor, the hit rate is consistent with using live bait or fish meat. As they stock mainly snappers and KBL here, most regular will target the snappers that are hiding under the net area. Using Keitech Swing Impact, Berley's Gulp produces better hit rate.
During our last visit, I tried for about 10 mintues and produced 3 hits, but alas lousy hooked up cause me to loss all 3 fishes. But now at least I know what to expect and have a new plan to catch them should I have the chance again.

If I were to do pond fishing, I think I will use rubbers instead of baiting. Reason being as these fishes are farm breed, and is Catch and Killed, there is no way for them to get used to rubbers, unlike CnR places where they might seen rubbers for like 10000 times. Given that you are covering more area by working the rubbers, I think the catch rate shouldn't be worse then baiting. Although rubbers are likely to cost more if not the same as Live baits, but in retrosect, if they catches you more fishes why not.

Below pics are the Cabala's Action Tail and Keitech Swing Impact with my own DIY Jig head and the Offset hook used to make my jighead for your reference.

Can't wait to try out some new rigging method at the ponds.