Lure diversity and other stuff make fishing interesting

[SPOONMINNOW]

As everyone has gathered from my posts, soft plastics have caught hundreds of fish this year and in previous years. Crankbaits, skirted jigs with trailers, blade baits (spinnerbaits, Mepps, tail spins, etc.) not so much. It's not that they don't catch fish but that my addiction-to-the-strike requires I use lures that have the highest probability of getting hit and that up the numbers on my belt counter.
Granted, most are smaller fish, but a decent percentage are brag worthy considering the average population is on the small side due to the bucket brigade that keeps everything from the various lakes I fish.

Other than lure diversity are the various fish location patterns I found throughout the year for the first time. The easiest are pre-spawn and just posts-spawn locations. Find shallow water with emerging weeds and catch fish with eyes closed. Once fish move under heavy vegetation or out to deeper water, the hunt begins. I used to fish deep large lakes (Greenwood Lake, N.J. and large upstate lakes in N.Y.), but boat traffic and high winds got annoying even fishing from a bass boat. (...one of the reasons I no longer fish bass tournaments.) Small waters still offer deep structure and cover pattern-diversity besides which, downsizing to a 12' V is easier to launch and take out on less-than-Ideal launches.

Sonar is a must and I'd be lost without it. Nothing sophisticated like those forward-facing units, but 2d color units tell me everything I need to know - including the lure types I can use to cover the most water efficiently in an area. Lures are our seek & destroy tools that find semi-active fish willing to come out and play pissing them off enough to attack creatures they've never seen or felt (via the lateral line).

Do fish remember lures they've been caught on? Do other fish avoid lures they've seen other fish caught on? Maybe one in a thousand, but generally speaking, logic is not a fish's strong suit. They are more like children throwing a temper tantrum, not realizing the possible sudden, negative consequences of their actions. Plus, as I've always maintained: fish are bullies and bullies don't have to be on the feedbag to do stupid things (i.e. a big oaf attacking a short ninja warrior, LOL).

The nicest thing about lures is the way they get inactive fish to become active. I've cast a lure to a spot 2x and gotten fish to hit on the 3rd cast. Getting many fish in an area to attack is common in the lakes I fish. example: In one case I found fish in the shallower north end and also parallel to a straight shoreline off of flats that came way out. Fish were caught in numbers in those locations, in 6 FOW for 3 days. Bet they'd still be hitting there. These fish weren't feeding to my knowledge.

But in another lake, I know fish were feeding from their splashes and wakes as they herded minnows. Again, a no-brainer when it comes to active fish. A. In the first case - slow-with-pauses of lures that could be kept in place longer; B. In the second example, noisy faster lures - including surface lures - got bit just as good as those slow finesse lures. The question I always ask myself is: what lure(s) match a fish's susceptibility for that time and place. It could be a lure's slight action parts that say: come hither if you dare! Other lures thump fish's senses and dare fish on a different stimulus level. The former may be the only lures that work; the latter allows most lures to work - within reason.

Presentation always matters and it involves many considerations that allow lures to do their thing a certain way in certain places. Most of you know what they are.

It's always a pleasure contributing ideas and suggestions on jc.com that may be useful if not at least interesting to fellow lure-o-philes.
A SD forum I used to post on got old via the few that ridiculed my ideas with sarcasm and personal insults. Open minded anglers not susceptible to advertising in the fishing media are hard to find. Consideration of new ideas is more common in fish than in many humans such as a fish thinking:
May as well slam that funky-looking. moving object that came from who knows where ?!.

 

[hookup]

Soft plastics is my goto but for size, throwing a hard bait, spinnerbait, or buzzbait seems to attract the big ones more.

Sonar I don't use. Tend to read rivers by knowing patterns that have worked, reading the current, surface, and some times just dumb luck. Look for confluence area's - even underground creeks and fish those. Watch mudlines.

On lakes I'm a neophyte - but do know certain keys that hold fish. I've been known to drop a line marked every five feet with an ospark plug or other heavy piece of junk I don't mind loosing if it gets snagged.

I'm very conscious to patterns. And nature. Birds are attracted go bait and there's fish. When animals are active on land, the fish are too. Fish jumping is a good sign to fish the top with amoving baits; for soft plastics - grubs or swim baits.

Presentation has to be quite. I've known people to dress to blend into the environment, paint their boats, or slow down their movements.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Mornin to yah fellow jigaphiles. Getting colder by the day, how are you adjusting to catch fish? Warm water species bite here is currently dead, luckily meatheads haven't bucketed all the trout yet so getting a few tho #s are steadily on the decline. KISS approach works for me, short black mink fur jigs with or without a John McKean inspired hook shank propeller. In fact, thank you John, a 1/8 #4 black mink Boolie got my best in a long time, very unusual in a high traffic public area 10# rainbow this past Saturday. Likely made possible by ruff trekking close to a mile to the opposite side of a river where most choose to fish the EZ vehicle access side.

Just remembered, the mink fur was originally supplied by Jon aka "JiggerJohn" from his dismantling of old mink coats.

Can't complain if others enjoy eating fresh stocker trout.

At this late stage of the game, maybe my best KISS observational rule of thumb is "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE". You know what I mean, watching guys throwing "no way" stuff without focused tekneek outfishing you haha. While I think I get a fair share with a jigs only regime, self imposed limitations probably do just that, limit success. Manys the time I've been spanked by hard lure chukkers and bait dunkers.

So do fish strike out of aggression or aggravation? Yes indeed. Do they bite something most closely resembling their natural forage? My experience is quite often.

Are fish dumb? Maybe, but in my experience once they've felt the jig on a missed hit or drop off they won't bite again. Of course that too is not an absolute, tho I figger 99+% for me anyway. Sometimes I get lucky, but usually I can't catch the same fish in the same spot even days later. Changing to a different appearance jig SOMETIMES works. Dunno, maybe the bad experience of getting hooked compels them to move?

Based on our successes, we all want to be legends in our own mind. Maybe we need occasional failure to reset and improve ?

Right, blah blah, what happens when I got nuthin bragworthy to post.

 

[SPOONMINNOW]

Do they bite something most closely resembling their natural forage?

My experience - especially with bass - is no, not ever unless by some strange coincidence. Once fish are located in a location pattern (concentrations of fish that bite in certain areas at a certain depth range), then all bets are off where "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. You know what I mean, watching guys throwing "no way" stuff."
Know they water is #1. Knowing what to cast and what retrieve(s) to use is #2.

Guessing what forage animals fish are supposedly consuming at the time, is hit or miss at best and more so trying to simulate them with objects made of all sorts of unnatural materials most fish have never seen in their lifetimes. Name one lure that truly simulates a forage animal in shape and action. Any correlations are human - not the fish's. The only thing I can relate to predator provocations-to-attack, is sensitivity and in the case of fish - a super sensitivity - one that detects moving objects, tracks them like a rocket and then then slams them - some time during the same or next retrieve. That fish was really p.o.'d! but not really in the sense of anger. Rather, It's bully nature was increased to a berserk level due a lure's ability to do just that! Did it want to taste the vittles before swallowing? Again, supposition is nice but not helpful when choosing and using lures.

Example: I watched my cat's fur go up with head turned toward something she heard. Slowly crawling toward it, she pounced and took the mouse down on the run. Rather than just kill it, she played with the terrorized animal playing tag-you're-it until bored enough to end the game. Would she have eaten something not in her usual diet? Maybe, but what matters is the sequence-of-attack and the conclusion.

I can take only a few lures and still catch fish rather than use any of the 40 that clutter in my box. But to me, the spice of fishing is variety: lure and fish species. I stop using a lure that has caught 10 or so fish and attach something different to test it. Same sequence - test, catch fish, rig another. One of those lures may very well be a hard bait (spinner, spinnerbaits, skirted jig/trailer, crankbait, surface lure, etc.) My addiction-to-the-strike knows no bounds! Recording and saving photo logs of caught fish, are reminders of what caught fish, when and where and how they were caught. Kind of an encyclopedia of WHAT THE *^(*< WERE THEY THINKING (or not)?

 

[Hawnjigs]

I only target largies a very few times a year, mostly to keep Bill company as at age 79 with health issues he shouldn't be out alone. I get bit OK on a catfish effective half a Gulp chartreuse Sinking Minnow stub and Bill sometimes outfishes me with his fave purple worm with a pink twisty tail.

Yesterday lucked into a run of small wallys at a popular reservoir inlet spot and most of the 30 or so landed bit my fave small minnow imitator Bobby Garland 2" blue ice Baby Shad on a John McKean Boolie style shank propeller 1/11 oz #2 hook head. Since I tend to position as far away from a crowd as practical I couldn't tell what the other 15 or so guys were throwing but all appeared to be catching. Typically they were all lined up along one side of the outflow pool bank so walked over to the other side alone until white marabou Doll Fly expert Mike showed up close to my stand and he got bit on every cast. Slow steady twitch retrieve for me and lift & pause for Mike.

Variety can indeed be the spice so next time will switch to a 2" chartreuse pearl Powerbait Minnow, & maybe a synthetic floss tied jig. I suspect the large # of predators present exceeds the support capability of available forage resulting in the wallys aggressively biting anything. Runs like this eventually end with predators moving back into the lake en masse after depleting the food source.

There seems to be trend in soft plastics towards baitfish realism, with lifelike profiles & swimming action, shiny foil body inserts, and embedded eyes. Since many upscale jig heads also have eyes, maybe 2 eyes on each side of a jig is doubly effective?

Dunno, many if not most jiggers thinks eyes are an advantage. None of my heads have any and the only eyed baits I use Berkely Powerbait Ripple Shads get head with eyes nipped off for a better fit on the heads.

I'm blind !

 

[SPOONMINNOW]

IMO fish don't know eyes on a lure are supposed to be eyes. But consider this:
Fisheyes anatomically very large in proportion to head size are excellent for seeing details the same as the swim bladder and lateral line are superb vibration/motion detectors. All fish and wild land animals in general have senses that promote survival. Consider this:
The success of lures is, first and foremost, related to those super senses that alert the brain of 1.) a moving object's sudden presence and those same senses assess: a). location, whether still or moving away from a fish, b.) type of motion, whether erratic or subtle and. c.) motion unique to the lure (curl, no tail, thin body, spike tail, slither, etc.).

Specifically, in regard to vision, fish see every detail that is in contrast to its environment, excluding other animals that are usually in it. Does a fish know the difference between different species of prey fish? Does it correlate any lure to a prey fish species? God only knows! But being a lure crafter and tester for many years, there's one thing I've proven to myself over and over: lure details matter - PERIOD! That includes sight-related details such as bright colors that contrast against a dark background, stripes, a coachdog pattern, dots (eyes if you will), lamination (dark on one side/ bright on the other) and even clear hard and soft plastic-colored lures (I've posted pictures on jigcraf.com).

Nothing gets past fish - their senses won't allow for it. Their survival depends on sensing the difference between prey and non-prey: one they eat/ the other they attack for who knows for what reason. I don't pretend I know that reason, but I do know of many shapes and actions that provoke fish to attack just for the H of it. Certain colors and color patterns that add to a fish's irritation of a lure's motion, is one I want to cast.

Considering all the above is not possible for those that must believe that fish are simple-minded creatures with just enough brain cells that are fooled by lure choices that simulate. IMO, fish are too stupid to be fooled, but they are not, by their very nature, insensitive to what's real and what's not. They sense that plastic, metal and silicone are not yummy but the attack anyway.

Again, I go to bed at night knowing the above is true - at least for me -and it allows me a much greater choice of lures.

 

[JUNGLEJIM1]

I agree that lure details matter. When I paint jigs I use colors fish see every day in the forage and bait fish they consume. Typical jig is painted with 3-4 colors. Except for ball head jigs all my jigs have eyes . My favorite eyes look white but actually glow in the dark. They make my jigs more visible on cloudy days or murky water. Fish need to see the bait before they eat it. Since Covid there is a lot more people fishing then ever before so fish are more pressured and wary so anything I can do to up my odds of catching fish I do. Cold clear water now with ice on the smaller lakes I mainly fish requires tiny baits about 1.5" or even smaller in natural colors. Even thread color can make a difference.

 

[Hawnjigs]

What are you catching nowadays JJ1 ? Similar freezing nights out my way icing smaller still water - as usual this time of year I'm fishing moving water for trout & wallys.

 

[JUNGLEJIM1]

Right now I'm catching mostly bluegill, crappie and trout. Used a tree branch to break ice around dock at local park lake and the small crappie and gills were biting. Had the whole lake to myself.

 

[SPOONMINNOW]

The large lake I usually fish has open water even though nighttime temps have been in the upper 20's and snow is on the ground. Rain and air temps 40 and above expected Tues - Wed (at 54 degrees!)
Fishing is done for the year and not again until April.