Keitech, revolutionising soft plastic fishing + Videos

by Jarrod Day on 22 Dec 2013 Remembering back almost 20 years, my first introduction into fishing with soft plastic baits was when Kmart released the Rex Hunt branded 'Bucket of bait'.

This wave of revolution enabled anglers to fish with a rubber style lure providing them with a new technique and challenge to target the same fish they had been with bait. Theses soft plastics were to closely resemble a predatory’s fishes 'natural' food source. Although these were further from looking like something natural, soft plastics today are far more advanced and leading the way we now fish for many species around the country.

There a millions of different branded soft plastics on the market today and while some will simply catch a fish, others can make an inquisitive fish, hunt down and engulf the lure.

Soft plastics aren’t the most difficult lure to use, in fact, they are very simple. Apart from the technical aspect of choosing the right one to the right jig head weight for what species you’re targeting, the technique itself is very simple.

Within the last ten or so years, some brands of soft plastics have really revolutionised soft plastics fishing and today it is the impregnated plastics that are putting the points on the scoreboard.

Japanese soft plastics manufacturing company Keitech has certainly developed one of the leading soft plastic lures on the market today.

Keitech was established in 1996 by Kei Hayashi, one of the most successful tournament fisherman in Japan. Kei, used his knowledge and lure developing skills to develop a range of soft plastics that is so advanced that fish really can’t tell the difference between a real live bait or an artificial lure.

Keitech’s designs cover a broad range of soft plastics for a wide range of species all over the world. In Australia, the Shad Impact, Live Impact and Swing Impact are the most common designs for the majority of species targeted.

I have been playing around with all three of these models and to this day, they have not let me down. Even on the toughest of days fishing for snapper when the barometric drops and they had gone off the bite, we have still managed to land a selection of impressive fish.

Just a week ago we were in the middle of a hot salmon bite with fish busting all around us. While the fish had no worries in taking a lure, it wasn’t until they went quiet that the Shad Impact came into its own continuing to have fish eat it off the bottom.



I have used hundreds of different soft plastics over the past ten years or so and to this day am extremely impressed that when the fish shut down this range of plastics has the ability to initiate a strike even when times a tough.

To see the range of Keitech soft plastics, contact your local tackle store.