The Skinny on Lures

Many new anglers feel compelled to use bait and don’t trust artificial lures. However, being in a kayak it’s difficult to keep bait alive. Another issue about live bait is that it’s one more stop before you get on the water either at the bait shop or chasing pilchards or mullet with a cast net at sunlight.

In contrast artificials are easy to acquire, store, use, and are very effective. There are times when only live bait can be effective, but these times are rare, so it’s certainly worth the trade-off to count on artificial lures. You can also be assured that many anglers have fooled a multitude of fish with almost all of the lures hanging at Gander Mountain and Bass Pro, so go ahead and try a few.

When we consider the shelves and displays at Gander Mountain and Bass Pro we see an endless variety of lures and often don’t know where to start selecting or what options to consider. There’s a choice of soft plastic or plugs, top water, or sinking, and certainly other options all with every color of the rainbow. As a result I see many anglers choose a tackle box full of lures, so many in fact that they could open their own tackle shop. Once on the water they will change lures about every 30 minutes, thinking that their lack of results is due to the lure.

I advise you to talk to a few veteran club members and ask them what works for them. In our club Jim uses the Mirrodine by Mirrolure:


Ernie uses quite a few of the Berkley Gulp products:


95% of the time I’m throwing the Exude RT Slug rigged weedless:


Other members use other lures, and the point is that the more experienced anglers have smaller tackle boxes and focus their efforts on their “go to” lure. Talk to these anglers and find out what they like about their preferred lure and why. Ask them what conditions are most favorable for their chosen lure so that you can duplicate their efforts. Go with these anglers on the water and pay very careful attention to how they use the lure and try for yourself. Youtube also has great videos so that you can watch in order to learn how to “walk the dog” using a topwater lure like a Heddon Spook, Rapala Skitterwalk or Mirrolure surface plug.

Practice in your pool or on a pond so that you can mimic the magic action to entice fish. Most of the time you want the action for sub surface lures such as soft plastic jigs, slow sinking plugs, and jerk baits to be an erratic wounded baitfish motion. To authentically duplicate this behavior I encourage you to try the same thing a veteran angler long ago taught me: take a baitfish, pinch it hard, and throw it into the water. You will see that it will spastically twitch and spiral down to the bottom. Fresh pilchards and greenbacks will do the same thing when you initially hook them. This is the exact same action you want to duplicate with short but very quick jerks of the rod tip followed by a retrieve of the line. If you don’t feel confident yet with this technique then there are other lures such as spoons and soft plastic shad bodies on jig heads that require a simple cast and straightforward retrieve.

Trust that these lures are productive and give it a shot on your next trip, and get the advice of other anglers familiar with the lure you’re learning to use. It will feel awkward at first, but eventually you will see success, so invest the time and effort.