overcomplicated lures

Questions about Saltwater Fishing

overcomplicated lures

Postby jtaggart11 » Sun Oct 03, 2010 3:26 pm

Hey,

I have spent a lot of time lately perfecting some wooden spooks, and plastic lures which I learned on this site. I started with the one piece mold, and after talking to a few craftsmen, moved on to a two piece. I fish and live on Martha's vineyard in the summers and especially love chasing striped bass and large blues while wading on flats. I started fishing these flats with a lure called the jumping minnow and the common slug-go. The lure choices in these areas are very sensitive and I only saw results with those two lures. The most success I have had is with white and very natural presentations, so when I started innovating my own plugs and softies I kept that in mind. Most of the time, the fish in these areas I believe are feeding on a variety of large crustaceans, but it is interesting to me how they will rise up to devour other patterns. The fly fishermen often fish these areas with crab flies, including some popular permit patterns. I had a hunch that the fish were hitting the lighter colored lures because of the squid associations that the slug-go and jumping minnow had. At the beginning of the summer I fished side by side with a friend with two lures that I made, and I gave him the special squid formula coloration. I fished with a very similar lighter colored lure. He had twice the hits that I had, and it was evident that the fish were selecting the more squiddy lure. I have been manipulating that same lure, and I now have a very interesting smaller spook that is THE ONE. It does not have any rattles and minimal shine, but I feel that under most flats fishing conditions, minimal attractant is a better choice. I have been thinking a lot lately about the sequence of events that occurs when a fish approaches a lure, and it makes sense that shine and rattles, could be important initial attractants under some conditions. The actual pattern that a lure makes in the water, and the characteristics of the action of the lure are also very important. It is fun to think about how far a single fish will come when attracted, and the order of importance of these attracting factors. I feel that at times, overpresentation is a bad thing and I was wondering about your thoughts on any of this, from any of your experiences.

Thanks

James
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Re: overcomplicated lures

Postby Terry G. » Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:49 am

astute observation your doing there , keep it up as its always interesting to read what people are finding out about the lures there making and testing.
when one cant fish, , one draws fish!
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Re: overcomplicated lures

Postby jtaggart11 » Tue Oct 05, 2010 2:12 pm

What I am most intersted in are the baits like the whopper plopper and the gliding bait. Why are those characteristics of gliding and plopping and rattling so effective as overall attractants? There has to be some kind of association being made. I would love to find out where those associations are coming from and why the repititious nature of these baits is so effective, and under which situations it is most effective. Many fisherman claim that water clarity has a lot to do with it, but i haven't seen enough conclusive evidence myself to support those claims.
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Re: overcomplicated lures

Postby dahlberg » Wed Oct 06, 2010 2:44 pm

fish are in one of three "moods"; negative, neutral or positive. different lures, speeds, sink rates, etc. come into play depending on how fish are reacting.
A negative fish, one that's spooked can not be made to bite as long as it knows it's trying to be caught.
A neutral fish can sometimes be triggered by a suspending bait, or once contacting bottom sometimes at super high speeds, stop and go, certain surface sounds and motions, etc.
Positive fish will travel a distance to chase down a lure. IMO, often loud, large, highly visible lures that you can cast a mile are the best choice in those cases.
best,
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Re: overcomplicated lures

Postby jtaggart11 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:40 pm

That makes a lot of sense. I have been trying to come up with similar formulas for fish behavior and the steps to "cracking the code."
Thanks

James
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