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