opefully this
will be a regular
feature in a
magazine that is close
to my heart. As this is the first,
I feel I should lay down some
markers and give those that
don’t know me some idea
where I am coming from. I
fish light. Not what you might
call ultra light, I just like
using small lures, short
sensitive rods and a fairly
subtle approach. I love zander
and perch in equal measure,
chub are not far behind. I
think pike are amazing,
beautiful, wonders of creation,
but I’d really rather they left
me alone. If I’m rude about
them it is tongue in cheek and
not meant to be offensive to
people who fish for them. If
you do and you are offended,
then enjoy it, because I am
too busy catching tiny perch
to be bothered.
I don’t care how big or small
the fish I catch are, just as long
as I don’t blank, I can’t abide
blanks and as nearly all my
fishing is on canals, this can be
very challenging. At least once
a week, I fish with my mate Pete and it is
a rare day that we don’t help the barmaid
unbolt the door at dinnertime. Last year
fishing once a week for four to five hours at
a time, we had two canal blanks apiece. At
last after more than a decade of lure fishing,
I do feel that I have begun to get to grips
with it and I hope that others will find
enough inspiration here to enjoy what they
do as much as I do. If, as is very likely, you
think that I am talking drivel at any stage,
then I count that a success, because you
wouldn’t be able to come to that conclusion
without having thought about what you are
doing and analyzing how you are going to
catch your fish will improve your catches no
end. Probably more than any other single
thing you can do. If you are struggling, the
answer is never in a lure catalogue, ever. IArtificial
Lite
warn you, I’ve spent a fortune finding that
out the hard way.
Here is an example of thinking hard
about what you do and why you do it.
There is a lot of chatter out there at the
moment about crayfish lures. Do they
work? Which is the best? How do you fish
them, and what is the best rig to use with
them. There are straight answers to these
questions. Yes they do work, the best one
is the one you have most confidence in,
start with a realistic one if you aren’t
sure. Fish them on the bottom, the best
rig is the one that lets you fish them
through the shopping trolleys and old
bikes without losing too many. But for me
those are secondary questions.
The question, to which crayfish lures
were the answer, was, ‘how can I fish a lurethrough the debris, very slowly, when fish
are lethargic and not really feeding?’ Well
the answer had to be, use something
compact, weedless, slow moving at best
and edible in appearance at those speeds.
Crayfish lures, hollow ones preferably, sit
well on weighted weedless worm hooks
and carefully rigged, as snag -resistant as
any lure can be. They cast well, sink slowly
due to their width which also makes them
very stable on the bottom. They don’t fall
over they sit flat. Real ones live there and
they have lots of dangly bits that even if
fish have never seen them before, look like
they are food.
When perch and zander are not prepared
to go looking for food, you have to take the
lure to them. When they are lying immobile
on the bottom, you have to put their food on
a plate under their noses and leave it there
long enough for them to decide that hungry
or not, the meal is too easy to turn down.
Some people worry that the real thing is not
active in the winter and that the fish’s
metabolism won’t be able to break them
down in cold weather. I’ve no idea whether
either of those suggestions is true, they
probably are, but I catch far more on them
in the winter than I do in the summer. Why?
Because the fish are on the bottom and my
bait is worked slowly through their window
of opportunity. They do work in the
summer, but so do most other things. When
the fish are up on the fin aggressively
chasing about, a crayfish lure pootling
about in the leaf litter is not best placed to
take advantage of the situation.
Before you splash the cash on your next
must have lure, ask yourself, ‘what will this
allow me to do that I can’t already?’ Buying
a lure because somebody else is catching on
it, is the worst reason in the world. Put your
lure, whatever it is, in front of a fish and
keep it there as long as is necessary for
them to make the wrong decision. Make
them an offer they can’t refuse.http://www.artificial-lite.co.ukMake them
an offer they
can’t refuse!
H