JUST when I thought soft plastic lures had gone as far as they could, another piscatorial revelation strikes.

Early this month I was in the Northern Territory, staying at a remote camp run by Melville Island Lodge.

My guide was Mick Chick and the other anglers on board were Shepparton tackle shop owner Steve Threlfall and professional cricketer Mark Pettini, captain of Essex County Cricket Club in England.

December marks the build up to the monsoon or wet season, a time when the big barra usually come on the bite.

However, this time of year doesn't suit everybody. Some days it is so humid that if you want a wash all you need do is grab a bar of soap and start rubbing, sweat will create the lather.

On this morning, we were fishing at the mouth of a small, no-name creek that flows into the Johnston River. Making the heat worse was the fact that our target species, barramundi, was not co-operating.

In desperation, after we had tried every colour, type and shape of bibbed minnow lure on board, Trelly dives into his tackle box and brings out several packets of Berkley Gulp stick baits.

We had already tried another well-known brand of soft plastic lures without success, so I didn't hold much hope.

The mangroves are large and overhanging near the creek entrance and Mick holds the boat out from a small cove riddled with dead timber.

It is a likely looking location.

Trelly casts his "Nuclear Chicken" coloured Gulp into the dead timber, allows it to sink to the bottom then tightens his line and lifts his rod tip to jump the lure off the bottom about 30cm.

As the lure sinks back, a mangrove jack slams it. Trelly hooks the fish and as he fights it to the boat, a school of jacks follows.

A second cast hooks a golden snapper, by which time Mark and I are exchanging our bibbed minnows for quarter ounce jig heads with Gulp lures attached.

What follows is pleasant chaos; multiple hook-ups are the norm as jacks, snapper, cod and barramundi are caught.

A contrast to the tedium earlier in the day.

For four days straight, we start each morning casting minnow lures into snags.

This is successful because it seems there is always a hot bite first up.

When the fishing slows after an hour or so, we convert to soft plastics and stay with them for the rest of the day.

The list of species grows and includes golden snapper, jacks, barracuda, cod, Queensland groper and barramundi to 87cm.

It is a consistently hot bite during a particularly slow period.

Anglers on another boat from the lodge are equally frustrated, but when they learn what we are doing, their catch rate shoots up.

Soft plastics save the day and are a prophetic lesson.

This wasn't the first time I had used plastics in the Northern Territory.

About three years ago fishing out of Shady Camp on the Mary River system with Dean McFarlane, we enjoyed a consistent bite on the barramundi with Tsunamis and Storm shad tailed lures.

Any lure fished on the bottom was eaten.

That was really how it was most of the time on Melville Island.

The fish were down deep among the snags and our minnow lures were not drawing the fish out.

There were several sessions when the plastics were being devoured on the drop as they sank to the bottom, but it's hard to say the barra would have been chewing just as well on minnows because no one was willing to change back.

Soft plastic lures have been around for longer than I care to remember, but they took off in late 2000 with the release of the Squidgy range of lures.

Soon anglers were offered other makes under names like Atomic, Storm and Tsunami. Most of these lures were fish or worm shaped and came with rat, curl or shad tails and were impregnated with some form of fish attractant.

The introduction of the Berkley Gulp lures sent the market in a new direction. Manufactured from a protein-based material, these came sealed in a package with a fish attractant liquid.

Tackle storeowners tell me that Gulp lures, which in my opinion should be called soft plastic bait, are the most popular soft plastic lures.

Others offer fish-attracting liquid for their lures, but these tend to work better out of the water.

Australian angling is caught up in an ongoing lure evolution.

You can bet your last dollar that someone will come up with a new concept for soft plastic lures to challenge the Gulp lures and that it too will become the next best big thing.

• Steve Cooper can be heard on the Casting Off program on Radio Sport927 between 4.30am and 6.30am on Saturdays.