Snag proof surface lures

[spamhill]

The Zara mouse is a hard exterior lure so would you have to strike immediately or delay like the softer types

[Mr Nice]

Frogzilla!

[Peter Waller]

Strike immediately, just as I do with soft baits!

[argyll]

Never strike a surface lure immediately. A pike striking any lure often misses first time or takes a cautious nip at the lure. Even more so with surface baits... pike feel more vulnerable at the surface and often take an overly cautious approach.

 

To strike immediately will very often mean striking at thin air either because the pike has only partially connected with the lure but not the hooks, or because you've seen a big bow wave or a splash around your lure causing you to pre-empt the strike and pull the lure out from under the pikes' nose.

 

You wouldnt immediately strike if you SAW a fish seemingly grab a diving crankbait in clear water and surface lures are no different. You dont strike until you FEEL the weight of the fish. At that point the fish will have the lure in its mouth and is turning away. At that point you have the greatest chance of 'fish on'

 

In most cases, if hooks are sharp and well placed on the lure, then the lure is almost self hooking and 'striking' becomes a matter of tightening down on a fish. Some combinations of lure and hook are almost guaranteed self hooking, but dont rely on it. Lift smartly into the fish in the same way as you would if using a spoon or spinner or any other sub surface lure.

 

Don't look for the fish, feel the fish.

 

'Interestingly Fred Buller and Hugh Fulkus suggest in their book 'Freshwater Fishing' that in-line, rigid or semi rigid trebles will be much better hookers than lures with dangling hooks. And who am I to argue with those two gentlemen!! '

 

Sorry but those two gentlemen are of another age and Hugh Falkus was more known as a salmon and seatrout angler. I wouldnt suggest that those two venerable writers have nothing to add, but its largely history. Fred's book on tackle and rigs was published in 1967 and his highly collectable Pike and Pike Fishing dates from the early seventies. A lot of the Buller/Falkus stuff is a rehash of those books. Great reading now and essential reading in their time, but since soft baits and lure fishing in general have developed beyond recognition in the intervening years, their words become less relevant today.

 

The thinking that inline, rigid or semi rigid hooks are somehow more capable of hooking fish than those that are free to move in any direction...'dangling'.... is clearly not borne out by reality and modern lure design, otherwise the lures that we all use today would have fixed treble hooks... they dont...even inline spoons and spinners rarely do. Unless of course they are the weedless hard bodied patterns that featured earlier in this thread.

 

Fixed hooks for me, suffer from the same two problems. By their very nature of being fixed over a large hard body and in order to obtain clearance or 'gape', the hook is overly large and difficult to keep sharp...certainly in relation to say a decent treble. Secondly a hooked fish can and will lever itself off, particularly when a fish turns with the bait on a tight line.

 

Its not a mystery why it happens..its simple physics. dont ask me which law tho' I suspect levers and fulcrums are in there somewhere. Its the 'fixed' nature of the hook on a hard surface lure that makes it weedless, but in my view that's a trade off again its ability to hook AND hold a fish.

 

Think about what happens to a lure and hook that can only point in one direction when a fish is moving in another direction. Its almost the same action as levering out a nail from a piece of wood with a clawhammer...the fish is the piece of wood, you're the hammer.

 

Now if the hook was not 'fixed' and was free to 'dangle', it would be like trying to lever out the nail with the head of the hammer fitted to the handle with a ball joint. Not so easy, very nearly impossible to move the nail.

 

Sorry about the analogy...best I could come up with to demonstrate the point.

 

The softbaits that Ken has set aside in favour of hard baits work for me and other friends that have used them for a number of seasons and my catch statistics on softbaits are a dramatic improvement on yours Ken. so maybe I'm doing it right on soft surface baits or getting it wrong on hard surface baits and you vice versa who knows..but as long as we both catch fish.

 

I don't subscribe to the theory that there is a disadvantage to softbaits due to pike biting down on the body, they do that with hardbaits too and have teeth sufficiently sharp to keep a tight grip on plastic and hardwood baits and whilst they occasionally leave teeth marks on softbaits like my current favourite, the Manns Phat Rat, they rarely shred them in one go, other than the vulnerable tail. Its the action of biting down that opens up the big treble on the back that was until this moment shielded by the body. Another advantage of surface softbaits.. you can use a treble hook with them, unlike surface hardbaits. But whether its a soft or hard bait its only the action of a pike releasing or momentarily relaxing its grip that causes the hooks to find a place in the pike's mouth.

 

I hope this doesn't confuse newcomers to lure fishing or topwater lures. Sadly for sure, nothing is for sure

 

Whether one type of lure works on the day is entirely up to the fish. All it sees from below is a silhouette of a creature swimming. If it looks right then it'll go for it. It wont stop to think whether it's hard or soft or whether its a MossBoss or a Sloppee Pig. But it will make choices based on what it sees, and if the one that you have in your box on the day is not IT....then you wont catch and your favourite lure's hooking capabilities are suddenly made immaterial.

 

I can remember a day two years ago on a certain norfolk broad when an orange Sloppee Pig {hardbait) was the only thing that they would take. A horrible lure with a huge 10/0 hook fixed on the back which made hook-ups in the weeds very difficult. but from below that was the one that they wanted. I gave it to my fishless boat partner at the end of the day as a souvenir. Its still in his box but it hasn't caught a fish since.

 

[ 14. June 2005, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: argyll ]

[spamhill]

I'm going out on a small boat on the river thursday evening, do you think it would be worth trying a surface lure or is it too early in the year. We will be dead baiting to start with then lure fishing as it draws in.

[argyll]

On the contrary, summer evenings or early mornings usually are the best periods to try surface lures.

 

I should qualify that spamhill. I tend to fish rivers 95% of the time, where boat traffic will keep surface action to a mimimum during the middle of the day. Boat free stillwaters might be a better place to throw these lures during the day.

 

[ 14. June 2005, 07:50 PM: Message edited by: argyll ]

[spamhill]

I take it we should fish these tight to the margins or will pike take them in deeper open water.

 

A round of applause if you please as I've earned my picture,

[argyll]

Frogs and small mammals live on the banks and in the margins. They only cross open water when required to get to the other side. So firing a lure into the bank and slowly retrieving it across the marginal weed with the occasional stop is what a feeding pike is looking for.

 

The edges of the weed into open water are also important. Fish the slop out into clear water for a few feet and then start again and dont be afraid to cast over the same spot several times. Pike have a habit of sitting tight until you eventually enfuriate them enough to strike the lure.

 

The early part of the season when the fish are lying up under deep sub-surface cabbage beds is probably the best time for openwater surface lures.

 

If you can see the beds then it cant do any harm to throw a surface lure over them. but given the choice, it makes more sense to stick to working the margins. But take your time and dont work at a constant speed or in a consistently straight line.

 

If you see ducklings feeding or a frog swimming, stop and watch them. Their natural movement is how your lure will work best.

 

[ 14. June 2005, 03:18 PM: Message edited by: argyll ]

[Peter Waller]

I must point out that it is pointless striking, imediately or otherwise, unless the pike has the lure in its mouth! And when it has I strike, and Jack will let you know when it has.

 

I agree don't strike just because a pike strikes at a lure, it may just have knocked it, and, given the chance, might try again.

[Dick Dastardly]

Most lures can be made weed free by a simple modification.

 

First the lure must be suitable to use with a single hook,the position of which doesnt matter.Swap the treble for a single and add a prawn pin or one of the barbed,eyed flyline connectors (both for those who are not familiar with either of these are simple straight,eyed pins with barbs on) to either the eye of the single or the split ring which joins it to the lure.Push a plastic worm (split twin tail types also add greatly to the lures attractiveness) on to the pin and then nick the single hook in to it.Weedless but will pull through on the strike.