GIVE
YOUR LURES THE EDGE !
suggests Ralph Walker
INTRODUCTION by Brian
Barwell, Deputy Editor
Like his surname-sake, Ralph
is a very experienced, enthusiastic all-round angler. A couple of decades ago
he tried his hand at lure-fishing for all sorts of predatory species. Like most
of us, at first he found things quite hard-going and as he developed his skills
in the technique, he decided that his lures also needed tweaking, hopefully
to give him the edge over standard lures. He has found this very sucessful in
increasing his confidence and catch-rate, and in this article we have asked
Ralph to share some of his ideas with you.
GIVE
YOURSELF AND YOUR LURES THE ADVANTAGE
I've found that there are so
many variables and imponderables in fishing that there's little point in spending
time wondering why another angler is catching and you're not ! For me this is
all part and parcel of the fun and challenge, especially of lure~fishing. But
I have found-out that it is worth spending time on doing something
about it, such as tweaking your lures to give them the edge over standard, un-modified
ones.
Of course, this isn't a new or original idea by any means but it can be very effective if you haven't tried it already. If you fish with lures left exactly as they came out of the packaging, you've got no advantage over anyone-else who does exactly the same, but with a few quick, cheap and simple tweaks, you can easily give yourself and your lures the edge over unmodified ones.
Although it bugs me a lot to have to do it, I find that usually the first thing I have to do with newly-acquired lures is to take off the hooks and split-rings and to put some decent ones on! While I'm doing this, especially with spinners, I add some red wool, feathers or hair to the hooks to make my own hackles.
Also, if I can afford it, I usually try to buy two or three plugs of a type that I've found particularly successful and I tweak one of two of them by giving them a new paint job and/or adjusting their buoyancy. To do this, first I usually coat them all over with Tippex to give them a base coat of colour and then I draw on my own patterns with coloured permanent marker pens or those little Humbrol enamel paints.
Sometimes I leave my plugs white all over except for dabs of red paint or pen for the gills and fins, plus some nice black spots for eyes. I' ve read some so-called experts saying that colours and eye-spots don't make a jot of difference but personally I don't give a stuff, because I'm as sure as I can be that my weaks get me consistent results and certainly give me loads more confidence. One of my favourites is an all-white plug, such as a Rapala J9, with a red head as in the photo below:-
Sometimes I paint my plugs black all over, but I think if I had to choose only one type of pattern it would be perchy stripes or fire-tiger. Here I'm mainly talking about medium-sized floating plugs. I also find that many types are a tad too buoyant for my liking and I like to make them much less buoyant so that they dive quicker and deeper and stay down longer so that I can slow down my retrieve especially in the colder months when the pike are close to or right on the bottom.
There are two main ways that I add weight to buoyant standard floating plugs to reduce their buoyancy, internally and/or externally. If the plug is hollow, I drill a small hole in the top and pour in some small ball-bearings until its buoyancy is just right. I get the ball-bearings from my local cycle shop, and while I'm adjusting the weight of the lure and testing it in water with hooks and trace attached, I cover the hole with a small piece of water-proof Duck Tape. When it's just right, I plug the hole with a bit of wood or matchstick and seal it off with Araldite Rapid, as you can see from the little lump on the top of my modified Big S below:
If your plug isn't hollow or you can't be bothered to drill a hole and add ball-bearings, you can always add weight to the outside but using stick-on lead strips to its keel, if that's the right word. You can get these stick-on lead strips from hardware stores; they are normally used to make normal windows look like leaded-glass windows.
I've found that it's best to add these weights just in front of and just behind the belly hook, the front one if there are two or more. Some people suggest adding lead wire wrapped round the shank of the hooks but I've found that this often wrecks the action of the lure. If you look very carefully at my photo of my customised Rapala J9 (below), you will see that I've added some extra strips of weight underneath and have painted them white to match the rest of the lure's body.
Of course, some Doubting Thomases will say that all these modifications make no difference at all, or that it's impossible to prove that they do, but take no notice of them! One of the most important things in lure fishing is to retrieve your lures as the right depth, and in colder weather this means as deep as possible, and this is where plugs with reduced buoyancy will win, and if they're painted to look more like prey fish or a sick or dying fish, then perhaps they stand a even better chance of fooling those pike and other predators — I for one am totally convinced and for me that's all that matters.
Ralph Walker
POSTSCRIPT
Many thanks for sharing those top tips, Ralph. We'd be very interested to hear
from anyone who's tried these types of modifications; here at Nick Caine's Angling
Team, we're all going to give them a go, we've got nowt to lose and everything
to gain. Why don't you try them too? Please e-mail your feedback to the Editor
NickCaine @ Talk21.com