Thread: Yesterday wasn't a banner day but revelations made it worth the gas

Thanks Skeet!

When I think of all the lures I've bought over the years, many of which caught fish when fish were found, even as early as 20 years ago I was fiddl'n with skirted jigs and spinnerbaits. I would vary skirt colors to see which did well -most did. Then it was spinnerbait blade shapes and sizes - most did fine. Same for in-line blade baits with various fur bodies - including my dog's hair LOL and jigs tied with the same.

Slowly it dawned on me that lures I could catch fish with didn't have to be bought. The reason for fish strike had nothing to do with edibles but everything to do with an irritation of a mysterious moving object that their senses told them wasn't real. The word natural isn't in their vocabulary and IMO, unnatural moving objects (like lures) set off a short series of events in their simple brains that take then out of their usual stupor and turn them into stike & destroy machines.

Before digital cameras, I kept a logbook with over a thousand entries of lures that caught fish at each body of water with dates (still have it). Now I have over a thousand photos stored on different media showing the same thing so I can easily duplicate those lures. There is no doubt that if I mass produced many of the shapes for sale, many would become classics like those of Mr Twister and Gary Yamamoto.

Better still is the ongoing search for designs that stand-out-from-the rest, especailly when I can't go fishing - like during this weekend's 4.5" deluge in my area.

Modification and hybridization are king in my book and forever my personal continuing saga of what and why fish strike things of which they don't have a clue. Catching fish is fun; catching fish on new shapes and actions is mind-blowing!

Thanks BIG!
Met a guy at the launch who asked me what used to catch 35 fish in 2 hours. I told him all of the above and gave him some as well as showing how to work those lures. Gurarentee he's gonna want to buy some after he catches fish but won't be able to because I didn't give him my number.

Note: all the lures shown caught fish in a lake I hadn't fished in 5 years and was up a over 6" due to heavy rains this last weekend.