What Are the Best Fishing Lures for Australia? Types and Rigs Explained

Walking into a tackle shop for the first time can feel more like browsing an art gallery than shopping for fishing gear. Rows of metallic spoons, feathery jigs, and rubbery creatures hang in neat packages, each promising to be the one fish can't resist. The assortment is part of the appeal—and, for plenty of anglers, the overwhelm.

Artificial lures have been fooling fish for thousands of years, and the basics haven't changed as much as you might think. What has evolved is the sheer variety, the refinement of action, and the rigging systems that put a lure exactly where feeding fish are holding. This guide walks through the main lure types, the rigs that position them in the water column, and how to narrow the choices for Australian waters—without pretending there's one magic offering.

What Are Fishing Lures and Why Use Them?

A fishing lure is an artificial bait equipped with a hook, designed to mimic the look, movement, or vibration of prey. Unlike live bait, which relies on scent and natural motion, a lure depends on the angler's retrieve to bring it to life. Archaeological evidence suggests lures have been used for at least 12,000 years, and by the mid-18th century, English tackle shops were selling tin minnows—the ancestors of today's hard-bodied plugs, according to the Wikipedia article on fishing lures.

Lures offer a few practical advantages that go beyond tradition. They're reusable across hundreds of casts, they target predatory fish that hunt by sight and vibration rather than scent, and they let you cover water efficiently when you're searching for active fish. A less obvious benefit: lures tend to hook fish in the mouth rather than deep in the throat, which correlates with higher survival rates for catch-and-release fishing. That matters in fisheries where voluntary release keeps populations healthy.

There's also an ecological angle. Daniel Pauly's work on "Fishing Down Marine Food Webs" highlights the pressure that overharvesting bait species puts on marine ecosystems. Switching to artificial lures reduces that demand, even if it's just one angler's contribution. It's not a cure-all—lure fishing still requires thoughtful handling and selective harvest—but it shifts some pressure away from baitfish stocks.

The Main Types of Fishing Lures

Lures fall into a few broad categories based on how they move through the water. Some wobble, some spin, some dart, and some float on the surface creating a ruckus. The trigger each one uses—flash, vibration, silhouette, or a combination—determines when and where it tends to shine. None of the types below is universally best, but understanding the mechanics helps you reach for the right box when you're standing on the bank staring at the water.

Spoons

A curved metal blade that wobbles and flashes like a wounded baitfish—that's the spoon in a sentence. The concave shape reflects light as it rocks side to side during the retrieve, and the vibration carries well in open water. Sizes range from tiny trout spoons to heavy trolling models that plummet deep. Variable weights let you work different depths on the same cast by adjusting your retrieval speed.

The modern spoon has deep roots. Nordic people made them as early as the 8th-13th century AD, and the versions we'd recognise today trace back to Scandinavia in the late 1700s. The Little Cleo is one widely recognised example that's been in tackle boxes for decades—its tight wobble and bright finish make it a go-to when fish are chasing smaller baitfish near the surface.

What you give up with a spoon is weedlessness. The exposed treble hook snags readily in structure. But over sandy flats, along drop-offs, or when casting to schooling fish, that flashing metal profile is hard to beat.

Spinners

A spinning blade creates vibration and flash, effective in stained water where visibility drops. The two main families are inline spinners—where the blade revolves directly around a central shaft—and spinnerbaits, which use a safety-pin-style wire arm bent at roughly a 60- to 90-degree angle with one or more blades spinning freely above the hook.

Spinnerbaits have a practical edge in cover-heavy water. The wire arm deflects off weeds and timber, keeping the hook riding upright and relatively snag-free. Blade shape changes the personality of the lure: Colorado blades produce a heavy thump for murky conditions, willowleaf blades slice through the water with more flash and less drag, and Indiana blades fall somewhere in between. Choosing among them is about matching the vibration to how aggressively fish are feeding and how far they need to detect the lure.

The inline spinner, simpler in design, excels in streams and rivers where its constant flash triggers reaction strikes from fish holding in current. A steady retrieve is all it takes—no advanced technique required.

Plugs and Crankbaits

Hard-bodied lures with a diving lip that swim at predetermined depths. Plugs and crankbaits are shaped like baitfish, frogs, or craws, and many contain internal rattles that add a sound element to the visual profile. The diving lip—the clear plastic blade jutting from the nose—determines how deep the lure runs and how wide it wobbles. Deeper-diving models, like the Spoonplug, can be trolled to reach fish holding well below the surface.

The family tree goes back to those 18th-century English tin minnows, but the modern era really began with floating plugs like the Original Floater. That design proved that a buoyant lure, retrieved with pauses, could hover over structure and draw strikes that sinking lures missed. Today's crankbaits run the spectrum from shallow squarebills that deflect off timber to deep-diving models that reach 20 feet or more on a cast.

The trade-off with lipped plugs is precision. They run true at their designed depth, but they don't adapt to structure the way a jig or soft plastic can. They're tools for covering water and triggering reaction bites, not for finessing a single stubborn fish.

Jigs

A weighted head with a soft body or skirt, fished vertically or cast. The lead head—dressed with hair, feathers, or a soft plastic trailer—gives the jig its versatility. It can imitate a craw scuttling across the bottom, a baitfish darting through the middle of the water column, or a creature burrowing into soft substrate. Deep-water jigs can be fished down to 300 metres, making them one of the few lure types that spans from the shallows to the abyss.

Two examples capture the range. The vibrating bladed jig known as the Chatterbait throws off vibration and flash while remaining relatively weedless—an unusual combination. At the other end of the scale, the tiny Mormyshka ice jig, barely larger than a fingernail, tempts panfish through a hole in the ice with the faintest quiver. Same category, entirely different worlds.

Jigs reward patience. They're at their best when you're probing a specific piece of structure—a rock pile, a drop-off, a submerged tree—rather than searching open water. The feel of a jig bite is often subtle: a tick in the line, a moment of weight where there shouldn't be one.

Soft Plastics

Realistic rubbery imitations of worms, bugs, and baitfish that can be rigged weedless. Modern versions are typically silicone, but the concept isn't new—realistic rubber bug imitations appeared as early as 1800. Today's soft plastics come as worms, grubs, creature baits, swimbaits, and more, in sizes from a few centimetres to over 30.

The defining advantage is how they can be rigged. A Texas rig or Carolina rig buries the hook point in the plastic body, letting you drag the lure through weed beds, brush piles, and timber that would snag an exposed hook immediately. For pressured fish in clear water—the ones that have seen every hard bait in the catalogue—a weightless soft plastic falling naturally can draw strikes when nothing else will.

Soft plastics do have a shelf-life. They tear, dry out, and get chewed up faster than hard lures. But at a few dollars a pack, they're a low-stakes way to experiment with colours, profiles, and presentations until you find what the fish are responding to that particular day.

Surface Lures

Lures that create noise and surface disturbance to trigger explosive strikes. Poppers use a cupped face to spit water and make a distinctive "bloop," while walking baits like the Zara Spook glide side to side in a rhythmic, zigzagging motion called "walking the dog." Both require an angler-imparted action—the lure itself does nothing until you twitch the rod tip in the right cadence.

That's also the pain point. Surface lures take time to learn. A popper is more forgiving—pop, pause, pop—but a walking bait demands a specific wrist action that can take seasons to dial in. When it clicks, though, the visual payoff is unmatched: a bow wave, a boil, and then a fish cartwheeling through the air. Over shallow flats, weed beds, and when fish are visibly feeding on the surface, there's no more exciting way to fish.

The limitation is straightforward. If fish aren't looking up, a surface lure is just a floating piece of plastic. They work when fish are in the mood, and that mood can shift with the light, the tide, and the season.

Fishing Rigs That Position Lures at the Right Depth

A rig is the configuration of line, weight, swivel, and terminal tackle that controls where a lure sits in the water column and how it behaves once it gets there. The right rig makes the difference between a soft plastic gliding past a fish's nose at the perfect depth and dragging uselessly along the bottom 10 feet below the feeding zone. The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department's guide to common lures and rigs emphasises matching your rig to where fish are holding, and a few setups cover most of the situations you'll face.

The Carolina rig slides a weight onto the main line above a swivel, with a leader of lighter line extending to the hook. That sliding weight lets the soft plastic move freely and naturally along the bottom, perfect for deep points and sandy flats where you want the lure to drift slightly behind the weight. Fish picks it up, feels no resistance at first, and you get a clean hookset.

The Texas rig pegs the weight directly against the nose of a soft plastic, with the hook point buried in the body. It's the king of heavy cover—you can pitch it into the gnarliest tangle of timber you can find and pull it through without hanging up. The compact profile also lets the lure fall vertically, imitating a creature dropping through the water column.

The drop shot rig ties the hook directly to the line with a weight suspended below it, keeping the lure hovering at a chosen depth above the bottom. It's a finesse approach for clear-water situations or heavily pressured fish—less is more, and a tiny twitch of the rod tip makes the soft plastic dance without moving the weight.

For a completely different purpose, the Sabiki rig strings multiple tiny hooks along a leader to catch live baitfish. It's a specialised tool that doesn't target game fish directly but fills the bait tank efficiently when you do want to fish with live bait.

How to Choose the Right Lure for Australian Conditions

Australian waters span everything from tannin-stained billabongs to crystalline coastal flats, and no single lure covers all of it. But a few general principles narrow the choices quickly. Match the colour and profile to water clarity first: natural baitfish patterns—silvers, greens, translucent finishes—tend to work in clear water, while brighter colours with more contrast help fish locate the lure when visibility drops.

Depth determines the next cut. If fish are busting bait on the surface, a popper or walking bait puts you in the action immediately. For fish holding deeper—along the edge of a weed bed or around submerged timber—a diving plug or a jig gets the lure to the right zone and keeps it there. The water column isn't one big swimming pool; fish often hold at a specific depth, and a lure that passes three feet above their heads is about as useful as one that never got cast at all.

When you're feeling the overwhelm that comes with a tackle box full of options, start with two versatile lures: a spinnerbait and a soft plastic on a jig head. The spinnerbait covers water quickly and handles weed edges without constant snags. The soft plastic slows things down, letting you pick apart structure with a more deliberate presentation. Together, they'll give you a read on whether fish want speed and reaction or subtlety and patience—before you spend an hour tying on something more specialised.

One habit that repays itself quickly: pay attention to the local baitfish. Their size, colour, and behaviour give you a template. If the water is full of two-inch silver minnows darting near the surface, a six-inch chartreuse crankbait is probably not the call. It sounds obvious, but it's easy to overlook when you're focused on the lure you bought last weekend instead of the fish you're trying to catch.

Frequently Asked Questions About Fishing Lures

What is the best lure for beginners in Australia?

A spinnerbait or soft plastic on a jig head is forgiving and versatile. Both cast easily, resist snagging, and work at multiple depths with a simple steady retrieve—no advanced technique needed to get started.

Do I need different lures for saltwater and freshwater?

Many basic types like spoons and soft plastics cross over, but saltwater versions often come with corrosion-resistant hooks and hardware. Heavier terminal tackle may also be necessary for larger fish and stronger currents.

How do I stop losing lures to snags?

Weedless rigs and single-hook lures minimise bottom contact. A Texas-rigged soft plastic or a spinnerbait with a single hook can slip through timber and weeds that would grab a treble instantly. Learning to feel bottom composition and lift the rod to hop lures over obstacles also reduces losses.