Soft Plastics for the North

By Nick Honachefsky
Jan 12th 2017

Like Nick's tips for soft plastics in the south? Here is a follow up with suggestions and techniques geared towards the northeast.

We covered soft plastics for the south in last week's blog, now let's concentrate on what soft plastics reign supreme up north from New Jersey through the New England states. A different cast of characters inhabit the rocky jetties, boulder lined coasts, deep water bays and in the surf; including striped bass, bluefish, summer flounder, weakfish, and false albacore. Water temperatures are way cooler in general, but will enter tropical temperatures during the heat of the summer, allowing for a wide span of bait-mimicking profiles to utilize throughout the year as spearing, adult and peanut bunker, sand eels, bay anchovies and herring are the predominant baits.

Starting from the bottom, if you're not fluke fishing with Berkeley Gulp! Baits, you're simply not in the game. Hot shot offerings include the 3 to 4-inch white Swimming Mullet or Natural Shrimp when plying the shallow 4 to 10 foot backwaters, while larger offerings like the 6-inch Gulp Grub in chartreuse or 4-inch Nemesis Chicken on a Chain (man I love that name) works best when tipped on large bucktails plying the ocean grounds or deep bays in 25 to 65 feet of water.

All Northeast anglers know that striped bass are number one on the hit list. Jersey anglers tend to drop and jig 6-inch Storm Wild Eye Swim Shad in bunker pattern from the boat deck onto striper schools off the coast, while New England bass hounds prefer to cast Hogy Original 7 to 10-inch soft baits around boulder fields and rocky outcroppings, but I've seen many a Jersey and Montauk Angler surfcasting the Hogy baits off the jetties, rocks and surfline as well. For back bay bassing, the 3-inch Tsunami Holographic Shad or 5-inch Berkeley Gulp! Smelt Jerk Shad tipped on a light 3/8 to 1/2 ounce leadhead will pick off stripers from the sodbanks and pull ‘em out from under the docks.

During predawn hours, weakfish can be found cruising bay channels during moving tides, and if you're lucky enough to find them, toss out Zoom 5-inch Super Fluke in pink or 4 to 5-3/4-inch Fin-S fish in Bubble Gum or Rainbow Trout color patterns. A quick tip for weakfish is to reel the rubber bait in very slowly and methodically without even twitching it. False albacore speed around for a run and gun approach off the coastline and I've had success with the same Zoom grubs, but rigged with the ever so slightest weight, cast out and sharply twitch jerked frantically to garner a strike on the surface or down in the water column. And when it comes to bluefish, well, my advice is to not throw any soft plastics. You'll just be wasting money. But if you must, any soft bait will work, just try and best mimic the bait that's in the water at the time.