Lure anglers

[Peter Waller]

DJMCJERICO:

Am i the only one that noticed how long this threads gone for?

 

Could be a record    

Naaaaaaa, no way. Got to mention the Countryside Alliance for any chance of a record.

[Nutshell]

MrMatthew:

I have a deep and distressing confession....

 

I have been fishing for around 15 months and not long after starting I started buying lurefishing gear...

 

I have a dedicated multibox sectioned bag, at least 80 lures and a bucket full of various rubber bits with jig heads ( when I started I used to lose 2 or three lures each trip). I have 2 multipliers (an abu and a LHR shakespeare), 2 fixed spool reels and a john wilson 6 shotter reel. I have a 7ft red wolf lure rod, 6ft 6-shooter, 10ft Shimano Compre spin, 4 ft  ice pike rod (for my son) and a 5ft somthing micro lure rod.  I have pliers, side cutter, massive foreceps and a filleting glove. ( a lot of the gear was bought cheaply on t'internet or ebay)

 

I have spent 60 or 70 hours lure fishing.

 

All this time and money and not one single fish, not one pike, perch or zander...

 

How ridiculous is that!

Don't worry mate. I've never caught anything either by lure fishing. But then again, I've never been lure fishing.

[Peter Waller]

MrMatthew:

I imagine someone like your self could put a new (and more useful) handle on it but thats a little beyond me! Your right about the handle though - you don't have to chuck a 32g spoon one handed for any length of time before your wrist kills!

Have repaired that type of handle now twice for friends. You are not alone in twisting the cork off like that Matthew. Should be a health warning on them. To repair the handle, more or less as is, unscrew the end until its free to run up the rod to the first ring. Now, using masking tape neatly wind on a couple of layers just where the handle meets the rod and carry on about six inches along the rod. Thread the screw-down bit onto the thread of the handle and tighten LIGHTLY! With a bit of care push and pull the cork back into shape. You might need a smidgeon of superglue to hold it together. Once its in shape wind sellotape, rather than masking tape, around the cork. With sellotape you can see if the cork is still in place. Carefully unscrew the screw-down bit until its just off the thread of the handle. Now fill the screw-down bit with Plastic Padding gel coat, or similar. Quick, before it hardens screw it back down onto the thread of the handle. Wipe off any residue that should, hopefully, squeeze out. Let it harden then unscrew and remove the tape around the blank of the rod. Screw back onto handle. Now sand a wine cork so you have plenty of cork dust, stuff p.v.a. glue into the cracks and scars of the cork handle and rub in plenty of cork dust. Obviously let it dry!! Get hold of some fine wet and dry and carefully, and lightly, draw it around the repaired cork until everything is nice and even. Allow to dry, stand back and admire your handy work. Then flog it on e-bay and buy one of Trev's rods!! Alternatively complain to Masterline and maybe they will replace it.

[Newt]

MrMatthew:

I have spent 60 or 70 hours lure fishing.

 

All this time and money and not one single fish, not one pike, perch or zander...

That has to be frustrating.

 

Suggestion for you to get a take or two and I think after that, it will get easier as you get some confidence that lures can catch with you flinging them.

 

- Start with a lure that gives good indication of when you've had a take. Best is some sort of spinner lure that stays in reasonably constant motion. Inline spinner is OK but I prefer one with a blade or two on an arm. I just like the action better and they tend to snag less with a single hook that should be running point up if all is well.

 

- Make sure it's a weight you can cast comfortably and a color that produces this time of year. Best if a UK angler gives you specifics but I like white with a brass blade in colored water and green or green-yellow with a silver blade in clearer water. High summer and warm water so I'd go for a dual-blade design if you have one.

 

- Try a session or two starting before sunup and going for a couple hours after - basically until things start to warm up. Also try a session or two starting 2-3 hours before sundown and fishing until it is dark.

 

- Stay with a single lure for a session and vary location (margins, center, along weed beds, whatever), depth, retrieve speed, and retrieve manner (steady, run/run/stop/run/run/stop).

 

- If you feel a bump, strike. If you feel the vibration on the line change at all, strike.

 

- If you strike and nothing happens, continue to retrieve.

 

- If you get bumped or notice fish following without good takes, change things SLIGHTLY. Lure color, blade color, lure size, but don't change too much.

 

BTW - the wrist fatigue you have noticed is a good point in favor of the US style of casting then changing hands to retrieve. Gives your casting wrist a rest. I can fish longer in comfort with a multiplier doing this than with a fixed spool where the main load is always on the same wrist.

[argyll]

'BTW - the wrist fatigue you have noticed is a good point in favor of the US style of casting then changing hands to retrieve. Gives your casting wrist a rest. I can fish longer in comfort with a multiplier doing this than with a fixed spool where the main load is always on the same wrist'

 

Newt, Mr Matthew, the rod in question is not a single hander... its a top heavy lump that doesnt respond to subtle singlehanded casting. It doesn't have sufficient 'action' built into the blank to make single handed casting viable. Its not so much 'very fast'...more.... 'very stiff'

 

The handle is long enough to get a decent grip with both hands and if thats the rod that you choose to use, then double handed is how you should use it. You need to put power into the cast to get the blank to perform even remotely well.

 

The rest of Newt's advice is good advice. I would add however that if you can find someone locally that has good lure fishing experience to show you the ropes, then you can short cut the learning curve dramatically.

 

[ 04. July 2005, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: argyll ]

[argyll]

I never look at a rod from the perspective of the handle that the factory put on the rod. The weight and action are the primary factors that make a casting rod work and if I need two hands to make that happen then thats the way I'll try to use it. That means in this case, cupping the base of the handle with the second hand, rather than being able to grip it. OK so you cant get two large hands around it. The blank is unbalanced and doesn't feel comfortable as a single handed rod... thats why you suffer from wrist fatigue when you use it. It isn't the 32 gram lure, its the 'not so user friendly' blank and the reel position.

 

I tried and wasnt happy with the rod that you have and its not too dissimilar to a BassPro Spiral Graphite 'so-called' single hander with pistol grip that I have in the hall, probably even lighter than a six shooter, but it also suffers from being badly balanced for single handed use and wrist fatigue is noticeable because I had to work hard to bring the rod's action into play. The other problem with a pistol grip rather than a traditional straight grip is that it sometimes puts your casting hand too far to the rear of the rod for comfort. A little further forward and more of the weight is now behind your hand and that sometimes makes a great deal of difference to the castability of a rod. Thats not a generalism, most of them work out of the box.

 

Rod designers don't always get it right and sometimes the cosmetic appeal takes over. Pistol grips look good but they arent always appropriate for the blank.

 

If you're at Andy's do at Lodge Pool, I'll put a properly balanced single hander with a straight grip in my car and you can try it and see how it compares. I've checked the Lodge Pool rules and theres nothing in the rules about fishing for carp with bulldawgs...just as long as we dont use braid apparently Kidding Andy.

 

...added note. I've just picked up a pistol grip and I CAN get both hands around it. Just feels less comfortable and less effective than cupping the bottom of the grip with the second hand.

 

[ 04. July 2005, 11:38 PM: Message edited by: argyll ]

[Steve Burke]

Fatigue is probably a personal thing. However, I have a muscle illness that means that I get fatigued very quickly. Sometimes I can barely pick up a rod let alone fish with it. On these days of course I don't fish. It does mean though that I'm more sensitive to fatigue than others, so what follows may prove useful.

 

I haven't used a single-handed lure rod for many years. The reason is that I find that it's actually less tiring to use my double-handled rods, even though they're longer.

 

Presumably that's because the work is shared by both arms, and also more muscles in each arm.

 

However, an even more important factor is probably that the rod is held steadier. I suspect that this avoids the see-saw effect of only one point of contact. I imagine that any slight movement here wastes energy, leading to less casting distance and more fatigue.

 

The longer rod also means that I can cast further with less effort anyway, which again is less tiring.

 

I haven't any recent experience with pistol-grip handles so I can't comment on them. These days I use fixed spool reels for all my lure fishing. (I don't use very big lures or jerkbaits, as I find these too tiring. With jerkbaits a multiplier is far superior to a fixed spool reel.)

 

One of the reasons is that I find that I can cast further with fixed spool reels than multipliers. This is especially so with braid, that is much thinner than nylon of the same breaking strain. For instance instead of using 10lb nylon I use 20lb braid. This gives me both increased strength and reduced diameter, the latter of course increasing casting distance.

 

The handle length that suits me is 14 inches of cork behind the reel seat. A tall person with longer arms may prefer a longer handle. However, too long a handle compared with your arm length may make it difficult to manoevour the rod in front of your body.

 

The foregrip on my rods is just 1 inch. This enables me to rest my forefinger on the blank, and I feel this increases sensitivity for detecting takes/weed etc.

 

Thickness of handle can also be very important. In particular I find a thick handle rapidly becomes tiring.

 

To sum up, the design of the handle can make a great deal of difference on a lure rod in particular. But what’s best for me may not be best for you. So, as Gerry suggested, until you know what suits you it may be worthwhile to borrow lots of rods with different handles. You can then modify the handles on your favourite rods accordingly, or get rods custom-made as I do.

 

[ 05. July 2005, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]