GIVE LURES A SPIN

If at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up on lure fishing

You began your angling life by beach-casting, and that’s how you’ve continued. Now, you are a good caster and can pitch a 200g weight as far as most. When it comes to wishbones, pulleys, flappers, and the like, you are well versed in the technology, and you always fish with the best lugworm, ragworm, crab, mackerel or squid baits that you can obtain.

Many is the night when you have sat under a million stars, on the beach, chatting with your mates and catching whiting, cod, smoothhounds, bass or conger eels. There were those memorable times when, after a lengthy struggle, the glistening flank of a real beauty showed itself in the foaming surf and, in great excitement, you were able to beach a personal best. It’s a wonderful sport!

To keep up with the latest trends, you always buy Sea Angler so that you can read about what’s new in the way of gear and tactics, and brush up on what’s hot in your area.

Of course, the stuff you want to know about can still be found in the glossy pages, but there seems to have been more and more written about what you’ve always thought of as trendy, gimmicky tactics; spinning with short, light rods and braided lines seems to be increasingly popular. Many of the advertisements now show images of plugs, jigs, poppers, soft plastics and even flies – what’s that about?

Of course, in summer, you’ve always done a bit of feathering for mackerel, but could there be something in this modern, light-tackle stuff? Certainly, you often see shots of grinning anglers holding spinning rods and hefty bass – so are you missing out?

ALWAYS A THRILL

You don’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud, so you decide to splash the cash and give it a go. It’s always a thrill when you remove your new rod from its tube, or handle that shiny unused reel, to add to the basic set of lures, lines, clips and other bits and pieces that you have already gathered together.

Having read one or two books and lots of magazine articles, you are sure you have the basic requirements. The only thing now is to set everything up, go to the coast and try it.

You spend an evening preparing things. With the new fixed-spool reel attached to the rod butt, and a spool of braid impaled on a pencil gripped between your feet, you wind the line on to the spool. Am I the only person who does it like that?.

As the tensioned braid runs through your fingers, it leaves a nasty green smear on your hands. You seem to have done a hell of a lot of winding, but the reel’s still almost empty, and the line slips round on the spool. So you grab an old multiplier and wind it all off again before putting on some nylon backing and replacing the braid once more – that’s better! It’s nearly up to the lip of the spool this time, and it’s not slipping.

Best tie on a short fluorocarbon or nylon trace – lots of lure anglers seem to like that. Eventually, you find a knot that doesn’t need six hands to tie it, which withstands all the tugging and pulling, and even looks pretty

neat. You go to bed and dream about the monsters you’ll catch tomorrow. The next morning, you dress, gobble down your cereal and drive to the coast. You’ve chosen a quiet bay with no one else about to mock your first efforts.

WAS THAT A BITE?

Which lure should you try? How about a small wedge? You flick it out to sea and it goes like a bullet before splashing down 70 metres out. Wow, this braid stuff is good!

You begin to retrieve – was that a bite? A solid resistance tells you that it wasn’t; the wedge has found a home on the seabed. You grab the line and pull, it slices neatly into the joint of your index finger – not good. You wrap a few turns around the sleeve of your jacket and pull again. A hard ‘ping’ tells you that your wedge has gone to Davy Jones’ locker. Never mind, it wasn’t too expensive.

Better try a different type of lure. How about a shallow-diving plug? That should avoid the seabed snags. You tie on a new trace and clip on an 11cm hard plastic. It has a moving weight, so it casts surprisingly well. Through the fine braid and sensitive rod, you can feel the plug wriggle as you retrieve, which is encouraging.

You cast again with a bit more effort, and there’s a click as the line flies out. What was that? You’ve wound in 30 metres before you see the tiny bunch of knitting coming back through the rings. You take hold of the braid on either side of the tangle and pull, and it tightens into a hard little knot. You cut off £5 worth of braid and tie on a new trace, now you’re motoring.

You walk along the rocky shore casting every so often and willing something (anything) to bite. Suddenly, the lure stops dead as it’s stuck fast into a kelp stem. You try wading out to retrieve it, but give up when your chesties fill with cold water. Snapping off again, that’s £18 worth of lure gone this time.

After four fishless, biteless hours, you pack in – cold, wet and a bit disheartened. If you’d dug some lugworms and gone to the beach, you would probably have had a cod or two and a bag of whiting. Still, you’re old enough and wise enough to know that one blank, even an expensive one, is not a real test.

The following weekend you give it another go, and you’re back on the same rocks just as it’s getting light. This time you decided to try one of the fancy, weedless, soft plastic shads with its huge hook masked by the lure. Hard to believe that it will hook anything, but at least it seems to avoid the snags.

TAIL-WAGGING LURE

For half-an-hour you cast and retrieve the wriggling, tail-wagging lure. It certainly looks good in the water, and the constant casting keeps you warm, despite the chill in the air.

You’ve just turned your head to admire the first light of dawn when the little rod curves around and the reel begins to screech. Hanging on tight, you see the fish splash on the surface and you use side strain to steer it away from a big rock.

Five minutes later you are setting up your camera for a selfie with your 5lb bass and a grin from ear to ear. Perhaps there’s something in this spinning after all.