My lures: how I use them and what I catch - part one

[Adam S]

I thought i would stick this here, it mostly covers pike at the moment , but its only part one so more sea fishing lures will be covered in time

Lures: how I use them and what I catch.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4987.jpg[/img]
A Lure Bucket is Often the Best Way to Store Larger Lures


Over the years I have gathered a huge amount of lures through fishing, as I do, for pike, coarse, sea and game fish. So, as you might guess, I have managed to collect lures to catch everything from 3oz perch to 30lbs pike and from small wild brown trout to double figure crash diving Pollock. I have boxes with literally hundreds of lures with everything from tiny spinners, spoons and jelly worms to big cranks, jerks and dawgs.

I have been lure fishing for about 20 years, since I caught my first pike on a spinner but there is just such a vast amount of lures out there, and so much that you can do with them, that I wouldn.t consider myself a particularly expert lure angler in any way. I do however love to break the lures out and I have been fortunate enough to land some big fish over specimen size on lures and would add these captures to some of the most enjoyable I have had.

What I hope to do in these pages is to have a run through the collection of lures I have by type an give a description of how I use them, how I rate them, what tackle I use to fish them and what I have caught on them. I will aim to put up as many pictures as I can (a picture paints a thousand words as they say, but with lure fishing I think the number may be a lot higher than 1000) and will include pictures of lures, rods, reels and some catches. Though I do enjoy fly fishing its such a complex article in itself, and worthy of many of its own articles, so flies and fly gear is not something I will be dealing with in depth here, though I may touch on it form time to time. Towards the end of the article I will go over some lure accessories that you will need and finally I will profile the fish you are likely to encounter on these lures.

The lures I will be dealing with may be species specific, or they may catch many species of fish, so I will deal with the lures according to lure type, rather then the fish they catch or the venues they might be suitable. I will discuss target fish and suitable venues for each group of lures as I work through my collection box by box. I will start with the big guys first. These are pike lures predominantly: jerks, big cranks and big soft plastics.


[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4452.jpg[/img]
Big baits: Jerkbaits, soft plastics and large crankbaits.


I have built up a fair collection of larger lures since I purchased my first jerkbait rod about 7 years ago and will give a run through some of my favourites here, firstly though I will show the traces and tackle I use to handle fishing with these heavyweights of the lure fishing world. Your basic tackle for fishing with these lures would be a one piece jerk rod, multiplier reel and braid. My own setup at the moment consists of a rozemeier classic 6ft one piece jerk rod coupled with shimano corvalus multiplier that.s loaded with 80lbs power pro braid and backed up with 20lbs mono. I also have a seven foot rozemeier matched with an okuma multiplier loaded with 50lbs power pro for lighter jerks, such as medium sized sliders, and some of the smaller plastics. Traces are 80 . 100lbs single (or multi for bigger cranks if you want) strand titanium (or steel if you want, but titanium lasts a lot longer and is the way to go for me) with strong stay-lok snaps. Now this might seem exceptionally heavy gear to someone who has not fished this style before but you need to go heavy for several reasons.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4500.jpg[/img]
my medium sized jerk outfit

Firstly there is the shock of casting a lure that could weigh as much as 5 ounces or even more. If you try to cast such a lure with a spinning rod and 15lbs mono it wont be long before you are saying goodbye to an expensive lure as it flies through the air after a crack off. The multiplier will also help this as multipliers are generally tougher than fixed spools and will better deal with the shock of casting and retrieving bigger lures. You can also more easily load a multiplier with the heavy braid that you need for this sort of fishing whereas you might find that 80lbs braid just doesn.t sit as well on a fixed spool. Multipliers can be a bit tricky to start with for those who have not experienced them before, and likely you will have a few birds nests, but they really are the best option for his style of fishing. A big robust fixed spool may do the job for you if you are really pushed, but it wouldn.t ever be my choice.

The second reason for fishing this style heavy is to keep lure loss to a minimum. Some of the lures in this category could well cost up to .20 - 30 and, unless youre stinking rich, not something you would want to leave buried in a snag at the bottom of the lake, so it makes sense to have strong mainline and strong traces. This is why its vital to use strong gear right through your setup you need strong mainline, strong stay lok links, good knots (I use grinners) and a good trace. The titanium traces are excellent, flexible but very hard to kink and the more rigid solid construction even seems to help the action of the bigger lures. You can use solid stainless steel traces too but, though cheaper than titanium, they wont last as long and may end up being false economy.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4457.jpg[/img]
Solid traces

The third reason you need to fish heavy is fish welfare. Fishing big lures like those in this category wont see you catch many 1lbs jacks or 1lbs perch. Fishing this way and a good percentage of the fish you will catch are going to be a good size, doubles, twenties maybe or even thirty pound fish so it makes sense to have good stout gear that can land a big fish quickly and safely so you can get them back in the water as soon as possible. Check your gear regularly and don.t take chances with damaged, worn or old components in the end its just not worth the risk. If there is a weak point in your gear this sort of fishing will find it and if it does, at best, you will lose an expensive lure. At worst you could lose an expensive lure and leave it in a pike and that.s really bad news. That.s the background out of the way , so ... why use such big, heavy, expensive lures. Well that.s an easy one to answer, because they catch pike and they catch big pike. When the fish are on lures and you want to single out the better fish then this could well be your best choice. Small lures catch big pike too of course, and I will talk about this later, but if you want to selectively target the big girls from the bank and, perhaps even more effectively from the boat, then this could be the method for you.

For each subtype of lure I will try to cover at least three in more depth. My three personal favourite big soft plastics are bulldawgs, replicants and twin fins. Some of my other favourite soft plastics like mag grubs, bone grubs and sandras I will cover in later sections with other lure types.


Large soft plastics

So what bigger soft lures have I got in my lure bucket at the moment , lets look at the soft plastics and the combination hard/soft lures (like the invaders) here. I guess starting with the Bulldawgs (dawgs) and their copies would be a good way to go as they are probably the soft lure that most people will be familiar with. Dawg style lures are famous, infamous to, in both pike and musky fishing circles and while some people love them, some hate them too. Actually the amount of people I have talked to who love them is probabaly balanced 50:50 with those who say they just cant catch on them. Me? Well I am in between and while I have had some fish on dawgs, uptown dawgs and on my daiwa sonic tails (cheaper, but lesser quality copies) my catches on them will hardly set the world alight with my biggest on them just 19lbs. Still they are relatively easy to work and can be fished effectively in a number of ways. They can be cast, fished sink and draw, trolled and even jigged vertically in deep water. They come in a vast array of colours too, and also in different weights (to fish deep and shallow) and sizes and sizes, so you should be able to find one that suits your purpose. One I would always have in my lure bucket. Some of the copies are decent but some are just rubbish, being too soft and having inferior components so be careful which ones you buy.


[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4453.jpg[/img]
an uptown dawg

Lure Profile:

Name: Bulldawg and Dawg copies

My Rating: 7/10

Advantages: Versatile, they catch.

Disadvantages: That first jack can shred one to bits sometimes, and they are not that cheap

What they will catch: Pike (maybe Pollock too over wrecks)

My best fish on one: 19lbs pike

How many I have: 8 (including uptown dawgs and sonic tails) to cover the different sizes and colours

Right, so onto another one of the more common soft plastics types, the swimbaits, my favourites here would be the castaics, sub-zeros and the replicants, I will deal with the replicants in more detail. While still in the same subgroup of lures as the bulldawgs (they are both soft plastics) the replicant swimbaits are a very different type of lure. More real then the dawgs, hence the name, they have a much more subtle action with a throbbing pulsating tail that makes this bait one of the more realistic looking lures out there. Again they come in various colours and sizes, and I particularly like the 8 and 10 inch versions in perch, fire tiger and red tiger patterns. Like other swim baits the reps are best fish with a more consistent retrieve then the dawgs, with less jerks, to allow the paddle tail to wag in a natural way. This means that reps are particularly suitable for trolling and also casting with a slow deep retrieve. Especially for trolling I wouldn.t want to be without some swimbaits to fish deeper and slower then with other baits like jerks and cranks.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4991.jpg[/img]

Lure Profile:

Name: Fox Replicant swimbait

My Rating: 7/10

Advantages: Realistic, for days when pike want a more subtle presentation.

Disadvantages: Like the dawgs they are easily shredded, and prone to tearing to the rear of the single hook. Cable ties can help hold them together and prolong life

What they will catch: Pike, ferox maybe in smaller versions

My best fish on one: 17lbs pike

How many I have: 6 two each of the perch, fire and red tiger patterns

Finally in this group I am picking the twin fin, the second of the musky innovations lures that I will talk about. The twin fin to look at is almost a hybrid of the replicant and the dawgs. It has a more realistic fish body including a rattle eye (like the reps) but has a large exaggerated tail more akin to a dawg. Of couse the tail is not a single, like with the dawg, but a double, giving the lure its name. Like both the lures above the twin fins come in various colours and can be used in various ways such as trolling, jerking or straight retrieve/casting. One thing I do like about the twin fins is that they seem to last a bit longer for me then dawgs. Why? Well maybe its because the tails are held out proud of the body and so away form the strike zone, maybe it.s the grade of plastic in them or perhaps a bit of both. Either way they last well and they can catch pike too but I have found that , on average, I seem to get less hits on the twins as I would on a dawg or a rep. Still, especially if I was trolling, I would not be without one or two.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF5019.jpg[/img]

Lure Profile:

Name: Twin Fin

My Rating: 6.5/10

Advantages: Versatile, tough.

Disadvantages: I just don.t seem to get as many fish on them as the other two soft plastics above

What they will catch: Pike

My best fish on one: 14lbs pike

How many I have: 3

Before I leave off on the softs I will just list a few of the other softs and hybrid lures that I would have in my bucket to make up my top my top ten. Ace Hell Tail, Pace megabait Charlie, Deep invader, storm naturalistic, large size tiger tails (similar to zoota sprogs), castaics, sub zeros and zoota wagtails (ok , ok that.s 11 but this one is a new one for me as I was just given one but I am impressed already so its included, lets call it a maybe).

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/A4-1.jpg[/img]
a 19lbs Pike , caught on a trolled crank

Jerkbaits

Next up to look at are jerkbaits. This is a type of lure that I don.t have as much experience with as I do with the soft plastics but they are lures I intend using a lot more this season as I boat fish the larger loughs. The three I am going to look at are all very different from each other and these three together cover a lot of the jerkbait fishing I do, they are the salmo slider, the cora king of jerk and the muskymania burt.

The best one to start with is probably the slider. Made by polish company salmo the slider is a balsa glidebait that comes in numerous colours, sizes and in sinking and floating varieties. To anyone just getting into this type of lure fishing the slider is an excellent first starter lure as it has often been described as an .instant jerkbait.. The sliders live up to this tag and are very easy to work right out of the box. Sliders will work with a variety of retrieve speeds and styles and in many ways its difficult to go wrong with them. The sinking varieties fall quite fast and are good choices for fishing bank and boat in depths of up to 25 feet. My number one pick here is the largest size (12cm I think it is) in shiner or perch pattern, with white/red and firetiger also regularly catching for me. I find fish respond well to these lures well with a good quick upstroke of the rod, followed by a pause and then a downstroke (or more then one). This will cause the lure to wobble enticingly side to side and then to sink like a dying fish on the pause. You can vary the speed and strength of the pulls to impact a more erratic action into the bait and this will help you pick up fish when they are in different feeding modes.

The floating sliders I find really come into their own around spawning time or the early autumn when the pike are active and in relatively shallow water. Bays and margins of 6 feet deep or shallower are ideal for this lure and, being a floater, it can be effectively fished in water as shallow as a couple of feet. On the downstroke of the retrieve the floating sliders will dive to about one or two feet subsurface depending on speed of retrieve. You can use them fast, with an almost constant retrieve with jut a few jerks to make the lure wag or you can twitch them slowly and erractically so they stay on the surface. This can lead to some explosive takes. Again I prefer the 12cm size in shiner and perch pattern.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4512.jpg[/img]

Lure Profile:

Name: Salmo slider

My Rating: 8/10

Advantages: Versatile, long lasting, ease of use.

Disadvantages: Hmmm, there must be one

What they will catch: Pike

My best fish on one: 18lbs pike

How many I have: 8
The second jerk that I use quite a lot is, like the floating sliders, well suited to fishing some more shallow areas and also along marginal cover. The Cora Z king is however a very different lure to the sliders in a couple of key ways. It a plastic lure for starters and it has internal rattle chambers. Some days pike seem to like jerks like sliders and fatsos that don.t rattle but other days they seem to respond best to louder lures such as the Cora King or the sinking Burts.

What I like most about the Cora king is the noise it makes, it really does rattle loudly. Its action is decent too and quite erratic. I find it.s a lure that I have had most success on around spawning time when its action and noisy action might just irritate a wound up pike into attacking. Best worked, I find, in water of eight feet or less when the pike are quite active and can be tempted upwards to attack. Worth trying in those spawning bays this one. I like the firetiger pattern.

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/adamsalbum79/lures/DSCF4454.jpg[/img]

Lure Profile:

Name: Cora Z King of Jerk

My Rating: 6.5/10

Advantages: Noisy, erratic action

Disadvantages: Not good when the pike are after a more subtle presentation

What they will catch: Pike

My best fish on one: 16lbs pike

How many I have: 3

Finally in this group I will move onto the burts. This is a lure that is pretty much as far away, in the jerkbait spectrum, from the slider as its possible to get. Probably not a beginners lure because, as anyone who owns a few will tell you, no two are the same. I don.t have any of the floating version, just the weighted sinkers. I like these lures because they rattle really well and are impossible to miss. The action is great too and if you tune them just right, which can take a bit of fiddling, then you can make them work in an excellent manner.

If you get the tuning just right with a burt, or with the soft plastic tailed squirrely burt then you can make it just hang in the water on the retrieve , with the tail (of the squirrely variety) just fluttering in the water, This is often the time when a pike will hit. In a way both the greatest positive and the greatest negative with the burts is the tuning. A positive in that you can make the lure work for you, how you want it and how it works best in your waters. But the fact that it may need to be tuned and can be difficult to perfect is what puts people off too. Still for searching the depths I would recommend it.

Lure Profile:

Name: Burt/Squirrely burt

My Rating: 8/10

Advantages: Effective, can be tuned to suit you

Disadvantages: No two are ever alike, can leak at times

What they will catch: Pike

My best fish on one: 15lbs pike

How many I have: 3

The other jerks that I own and use regularly to good effect are the cobbs jerkbaits, Zalts (starting to love these), Salmo fatsos and the Fox rooter. I find these cover me for most situations. As I said this is probably the sub group of lures that I have the least experience with, though that will change over time. Jerkbaits are lures that I intend using a lot more in the future.

Next Part ...... Large Cranks and Metals

[rapalajoe]

Hi there Adam.....nice and informative thread there.....at least theres a reference for everybody that wonder bout lure that catching their eye in the shop.....either it for pike or bass or pollack.....i have no doubt that even a certain pike lure can be use for bass too.....just a suggestion.....how bout a reference thread on a lure that everybody use,regardless an old fashion spinner or plug or any modern lure .....any body can post the specs of lure that they use....picture/photo.....how they use them.....etc.....like this thread that u post for reference.....just wonder should it be put under the same thread or just make a new one.....cheeerrrsss....

[Adam S]

hi joe

yeah i have a good few lures that i havce had pike and bass on, various cranks, spinners and spoons, and also various soft baits.

the lures i have covered at the moment happen to be the bigger ones, but if/when i get time to get to smaller cranks and metals and softs if will be mor applicable to sea fishing.

the smaller bulldawgs and copies would catch pollock from the boat, might try that this year just to see. 80lbs braid and soft-ish hooks and they wont snag terminally

good idea about the thread