Keeping it Simple – By David Hodge
Having been lucky enough to have been introduced into the fishing industry at a young age, I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to speak to thousands of people in most corners of the country. Of course those conversations almost always revolve around fishing, and to be more specific, lure and fly fishing. I’ve also had the opportunity to fish with some of the most talented anglers this country has produced, and to learn why, how and when they target a particular species with a specific lure, and often fly. It’s interesting to note though, that many of the anglers use very contrasting lures, and often contradictory tide times to other anglers, but there’s no denying the success that they each enjoy is similar in numbers and size of fish caught. So, how is it that so many conflicting or contrasting techniques or lure choices, be so similar in results at the end of the day. Of course you do have the additional variation of each individuals hunting skills, or understanding of the times, tides, environment, diet etc of each species being targeted.
For some anglers there’s only three colours they use. Gold, Gold or Gold. The coarse reflective finish on the TB80 flashes when paused and twitched. This one has had most of its finish chewed off, but still catches well.
Confidence in the lures you’re using is a huge part of being successful I believe, and if you’ve caught plenty of fish on a particular lure, and have fine-tuned the casting, manipulation, float rate control and appropriate pause time in the right proximity to a snag, back water, current line or mangrove stand, and it’s been repeatedly and exceptionally successful for you in past, then that’s going to be a ‘go to’ technique and lure choice in the future for you, especially when things may get a bit tough.
There are of course other factors that may alter your choice like tidal flow, water colour, water temp, depth etc, and an experienced and prepared angler will have the tools available to deliver a slightly different presentation to match the changed conditions. It’s these slight variations in depth, colour, profile, action, buoyancy etc that make it necessary for the massive range of lures that are available to the Aussie angler in well stocked, usually independent tackle shops.
Being able to differentiate between media hype, creditable engineering and appealing presentation, paid endorsements, straight out bullshit social media claims etc can make it tough for the average angler who just wants a lure ‘does the job’. Durability or longevity especially with the more expensive hard body designs also has to be considered. If a lure all of a sudden cracks and takes on water, snaps a bib off, becomes out of tune after every capture, is fitted with trebles that are constantly being replaced and so on, it can be an expensive, frustrating, disheartening and futile purchase.
Silver sides with red stripes and black back. A deadly combination with the Halco TB80. It works on barra and jacks, in clear and dirty water.
Some anglers go-to lure is an old faithful battle scarred model that has bugger all paint left on it due to the many captures over its hectic lifespan, sometimes it only takes a day or two to become so battle scarred that it’s hard to recognise the original colour scheme, yet it still catches fish, no matter how little it resembles the original unpacking date. So does that mean that colour scheme is the least of a lures specific characteristics to be considered when sorting through the available choices off the shelf? Colour schemes are one of the most hotly debated lure topics you hear anglers talking about, and often the catch rate of one angler is almost identical to the other but personally, I have a few favourites that are very consistent in a variety of scenario’s.
Basic colour choices for me.
If water is extremely clear, then I’m a fan of translucent (see through) colour schemes and also reflective or chrome type finishes. After all, if sunlight isn’t penetrating deep enough to reflect off a chrome body, then what’s the point, as chrome blends more into the overall tone of water colour, or is simply reflecting its surroundings. In the clearer environments though, it flashes and reflects light with every shimmy and twitch of the lure. Some lures with flatter sides offer more affective distribution of reflection than others, and if you add in the suspending characteristic of some of the most affective and productive lures, an angler can make a lure sit without travelling very far at all, and flash its chrome or gold beams through the water column with subtle twitches, drawing fish from further away. Some smart lure manufacturers have incorporated UV active accents on their chrome models that makes them still visible in dirty water where the chrome has little appeal, but the UV does. Add in a couple of contrasting stripes and it makes it a very versatile colour. This colour in the Halco Range is called Psychedelic Pink Head, and is pretty unique to them. As a barramundi and mangrove jack colour it’s a winner, but many other species willingly attack it as well. Another ‘go to’ for us is the Bassday Sudar Deep in the colour FL-387, and is a sort of Baby Bass colour where there are around 7 orange UV dots of varying size that run the length of the body. A suspending lure that has many captures under its belt for us.
Note the greenish tinge to the water, helping me to decide a colour choice for that particular day. This Bassday Sugar Deep almost completely suspends in freshwater and slowly floats in the salty stuff.
A general rule of thumb for choosing a colour to start off a day is to look at the water colour, and while I’m definitely no scientist, there are some ‘loose’ guidelines that we take note of to start a day off. For example if the water has reasonable visibility but has a green tinge to it, we often use a lure that has greenish colour schemes, if the water is more brownish, then gold and brown is a starting point. If more tannin stained, then purples and blacks come into play. Then there are those days when the water is dirty and fluoro is the go in all shades.
A similar approach is taken with our surface presentations for the jacks, where on clear calm days when fish are more flighty, we use long casts with subtle actions like a walk the dog style lure like the Bassday Sugar Penn or Atomic K9. If the water is more dirty like what happens on huge tidal runs then we often use noisier lures like the Halco Rooster Popper and the Bills Bug Fizzers. How aggressively you retrieve a lure will also have to be experimented with to find what’s working the best on any given day. Sometimes a surface lure needs to stopped after only a meter or so and let sit for up to 4 or 5 seconds before another meter is manipulated. Other times, if you pause the lure’s momentum, you’ll only have swirls and boils and a constant retrieve with no pauses will produce much better.
I have to admit that our colour selection for surface lures is a bit different to many people where they choose blacks or close to blacks for the silhouette. For us, the lime green or chartreuse is a go-to in the dirty water. As they say, each to their own and if you have a selection regime that works for you then don’t change it. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.
On calm clear mornings, the more translucent colours like this Halco Caviar Rooster Popper 60mm work extremely well. Subtle bloops are all that’s needed over shallow snags to get the bite.
Soft plastics are no different.
Yes, I know that soft plastic paddling frog imitations are all the go at present, though it seems to be slowing down a bit due to its sometimes ordinary hook-up ratio. In all honesty though, there isn’t much more exciting a bite than a surface bite, whether that be on a softy or hard body. While not big frog chuckers, we do throw a surface presentation that works on the exact same principal, but seems to deliver a better hook-up ratio for us. The Halco Paddle Prawn is made from RST material which happens to be buoyant, and when rigged on a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG unweighted hook, creates a bubble trail and sounds similar to a small fizzer, when worked with the rod tip upwards.
We have skipped these things into some of the nastiest mangrove root piles over years and caught some nice jacks and barra’s doing it. A variation on this rigging technique that my son came up with is to squeeze the very nose of the plastic and trim it with the scissors as the plastic bulges out. When you release the pressure it cups back inside itself to create a popper type nose and can be popped and fizzed in surges with great results, and hook-up ratio.
Experimenting with colours is just a habit we’ve gotten into. This day the Bassday Sugarpen Deep 90 won hands down for most bites.
I suppose the reason I wanted to write this article is because there are some people who just look for any way to over complicate lure fishing, and really all it is, is an imitation of a live bait. If it looks a little injured, it’ll often be more appealing. We have colour choices that work for us, but even if you go completely against what I’ve outlined in these paragraphs, and you are fishing in similar areas, you’re going to catch fish.
Just last weekend while flicking lures with my boy, it was obvious that the Radioactive Rooster Atomic Prong 4” was doing very well, so why change? Because I wanted to prove to ‘myself’ not anyone else, that our choice of colours was working for us. I tried an Electric Chicken with similar results and got a few fish on them, the decided to try a Motor Oil Gold Fleck, which is another favourite, but not in the water colour for that day. Long story short, I barely got a bite for an hour, but the minute I went back to what we knew was working, the rods bent again, concreting our confidence once more, that our system works…..FOR US.
Good luck and stay safe. Hodgie.
