TIRED
OF BLANKING ?
GET MORE CONTROL OVER YOUR LURES !
says Editor, "Quick" Nick Caine
LURE~CONTROL
IS CRITICAL
Of course, as is so often repeated, location
is vital to successful lure-fishing ..... that's pretty blooming obvious to
anyone! But locating pike and other predators such as perch, zander and chub
is much easier said than done.
Locator Lures
To go some way to help locate some predators I usually use some of my lures
such as spinners, spoons and spinnerbaits as "locator lures", to find~out
if there are any predators in the area that are in the mood to grab a lure or
two.
Critical
Depth
But personally speaking from bitter experience over more years than I care to
bore you with, I reckon that to avoid blanking as far as is possible, the depth
and the speed that you retrieve your lures, and the action and appearance are
as critical too.
After all, there's no point in having located potential predators in water 10 or 15 feet deep, if you then proceed to retrieve your lures only 3 feet below the surface ! You may get~away with this in warm, clear waters but if the water is cold and coloured, your success rate wil suffer for sure. Pike, perch, chub and zander all tend to be slower and lower in the water in colder conditions
Enticing
Action
Following~on from the previous couple of articles about lure~fishing techniques,
hints and tips, I'd like to add my two penn'orth to stress the importance of
choosing the right type of lure and retrieving them at the optimum depth and
speed or slowness to get the most enticing action out of them.
Weedless spoons and spinnerbaits are some of the best and cheapest lures for getting right~down into the predators' action zones, but you've still got to get the retrieve speed and technique right to get the maximum "action" out of your lures. One answer is simply to bvary your technique with each cast — stop 'n' start, or steady, fast retrieve, or slow, erratic retrieve and each and every combination of those methods.
Special Speeds
Some types of lure are much more difficult to control than others, though. For
example, with most spoons, speed is critical to get the maximum designed~in
fluttering action and with spinner~baits,
a certain minimum speed is required to keep the blade(s) spinning.
Jigs,
Suspenders & Sinkers
Jigs are a good way of over~coming both these problems while still
keeping your lure in the predators' zones. Similarly it's a lot easier to control
suspending or slow~sinking plugs, so I find it a tad surprising that the most
popular plugs still seem to be floating divers. I guess they are popular because
they're cheap, easy to fish without snagging, and also catch their fair share
of fish.
Improving Floating Divers
However, the effectiveness of these buoyant floating divers can be much improved
for cold~weather, deep~water lure~fishing by reducing their buoyancy using the
methods described in the previous articles by Ralph Walker and others in this
Section, so there's no need for me to repeat what they've said — just
check-out their ace articles.
I've got to admit that although I've been lure~fishing since I was 7 years old, it's only in the last 10 or 12 years that I've come to realise that there's much more to a bog~standard floating plug such as a Big Alphabet type than just casting them out and winding them back at different speeds.
Patterns
& Colours
As far as lure colours and patterns go, despite all that's been written elsewhere
by some enthusiasts, I don't think that there are any simple black & white
answers, so it's a matter of trial, error and experience. I usually kick~off
with a lure with a natural shad or roach pattern if the water is clear, and
if it's coloured, I use a more brightly~coloured lure in something like fire~tiger
or fluoro~colours. But as I said, there's no instant answer, otherwise there'd
be no fun or challenge in lure~fishing, would there?!
More
on Suspenders !
Going back to suspending and slow~sinking "count~down" plugs, although
it's a lot easier to get them down to the right depth and to keep them there,
some of them aren't all that easy to fish in terms of getting the maximum out
of their "action potential".
Rapala's
Husky~Jerks are now probably some of the best~known suspending lures but I've
found that some of them have very little predator~enticing action. After reading
the other articles I've just mentioned, I decided that I'd experiment with a
couple of my Husky~Jerks, and jointed and unjointed sinking "count~down"
plugs such as Rapala's CD 13J and sinking Shad Rap.
I soon found that by careful positioning of some tiny stick~on lead strips, I could greatly improve the otherwsie poor side-to-side wiggle of the Jusky~Jerks without making them sink too fast. I compensated for some of the extra added weight by putting on some smaller but stronger trebles.
Similarly, with the count-down plugs, I took-off the standard hooks which are a bit too large and heavy, and put on some smaller lighter ones — this gives them a better wiggling action and stops them sinking quite so quickly, thus giving me much more control over them.
Belt
& Braces
Hopefully some of the hints and tips in our series of articles about lure modification
and control will help you reduce the number of blank days you get, especially
when the weather is cold and the going gets harder, but, as a belt-and-braces
back-up in case my modified lures don't deliver the goods, I always take with
me some pieces of smelt, lamprey and eel so that I can rescue the day, hopefully,
with my modified sink-and-draw technique which I call " Wobble and Spin"
I
don't just sink-and-draw in the traditional way, I always add a small spinning
blade up-trace of my bait or, even better, a whole spinner such as a Wordens
Sonic Rooster Tail trailing from a short section of wire trailing from the tail
treble of my snap~tackle — you can read more about this in my separate
article right here in the Pick of the Predators/ Pike Section.
Of course, it can be very hard not to blank on some days, but if you try taking more control over your lures as I and others have described in this series of articles, and use my "wobble-and-spin" method if your lures alone have let you down, I'm quite sure that your blanking dys wil be greatly reduced, provided of course, that you're in a pikey predator location and that they're up for a tussle or a snack — it's good to be more in control ! ..... well nearly, anyway!
Tight Lines & A Very Merry Christmas 2002 to you all
Nick Caine
POSTSCRIPT
Please e-mail any comment or feedback to me,
Nick Caine, the Editor NickCaine
@ Talk21.com