Confused on lure/spinning striking

[Ken L]

Now that you've established that pike are present have yourself a bit of weedless fun. Beef up the tackle just enough to get fish through the weed and either try a Heddon Moss Boss on the surface or either a spinnerbait or an unweighted soft plastic rigged weedlessly subsurface to try to conect with the pike more concistently.

[fruitloopy]

Now that you've established that pike are present have yourself a bit of weedless fun. Beef up the tackle just enough to get fish through the weed and either try a Heddon Moss Boss on the surface or either a spinnerbait or an unweighted soft plastic rigged weedlessly subsurface to try to conect with the pike more concistently.

 

Those Heddon Moss Boss things look good and I have just picked up a pack of three (ooeer!) from an ebay seller for £12.99, not bad as they're about £6 each.

 

If your talking about soft plastic do you mean any of these?

 

 

I'm not sure what hooks these things need but this seller on ebay has these which look like they do the job:

 

 

I assume I just thread these things up the hook?

[Dan Dan]

Yes, they are plastic shads, and you just feed the hook through and clip your trace onto the weighted head.

[Steve Burke]

Several members have posted that fish hook themselves when lure fishing. Yes, they often do so. But then often they don't!

 

In fact, I remember an underwater US film that showed that an awful lot of takes go completely unnoticed by anglers, even experienced ones, in this case tournament pros. These takes of course didn't get struck at, but the fish rarely hooked themselves.

 

Granted perch often bite at the tail of their prey to slow it down so that they can catch it. I also agree that striking too hard can rip the hooks out of perch.

 

However, I wouldn't have caught a lot of the fish I have on lures if I relied on them hooking themselves.

[Neil G]

Interesting Steve

 

I know you can often feel the 'nibbling' from Perch following and biting at a lure...I'm another person who relies on the fish hooking itself.

 

Went out last night and had some unmissable takes though on surface poppers in around 10/15ft of water...big splashes breaking the silence. Unfortuanately the pike were missing the lure in a big way!

[Andy Macfarlane]

I've seen something about perch nipping and prey fishes tails, and even biting them off to immobilise the prey. Then they can take them at their leisure. This was part of the reasons for putting red wool or something red on the treble.

 

Although there is scientific evidence to suggest that perch have excellent vision and see red particularly well, I cannot say for certain that red is any more productive than any other colour. I've certainly caught on lures with red fluff, red marabou, red tinsel and even John Roberts baitsavers on the end treble but can I say that it was red that made the difference?

I may have done so before but now I'm not sure that I can. Now I prefer to take a wide selection of colours and I'll very often give each colour as little as 5-6 casts before I change. If the colour is right, perch usually let you know fairly quickly.

[Vagabond]

can I say that it was red that made the difference?

I may have done so before but now I'm not sure that I can.

 

I think the "drag" of the water on the wool is very important in maintaining the rear hooks in the right orientation.

 

I know I found Toby lures much more effective after putting wool on the hooks (that's salmon, pike, bass, pollack and saithe I am talking about).

 

"Wool" definitely beats "no wool" but whether red wool is better than other wools is difficult to say.

Edited July 27, 2008 by Vagabond

[Newt]

I don't know about UK perch but they are similar to black bass in many ways and from what I've read and observed, actively feeding fish prefer lures with blues and greens while avoiding golds and yellows. Usually.

 

I also remember watching that underwater video of black bass sucking in a lure with a flare of the gills and expelling it without the angler ever noticing anything. I tried finding it but no luck.

[Neil G]

Well I could have used every colour under the sun at the weekend and still not had a touch....the pike are on 'holiday' lol

[Andy Macfarlane]

I think the "drag" of the water on the wool is very important in maintaining the rear hooks in the right orientation.

 

That's a point. I've given the hook orientation thing some thought before. Do you think some lures would benefit from a bit of heat shrink tubing over the split-ring/hook-shank to keep the end treble 'rightly orientated'....hmmm?