A friend and I were discussing various ways to fish with soft plastic baits a few weeks ago. As I described how they could be modified to present a different ‘look’ he asked incredulously, “Do you do all that to your baits?”
“Oh yes,” I responded, “each year, about 700 tournaments are held on Lake of the Ozarks. No month escapes and with that many anglers pounding the water, how does a bass escape the gauntlet of crankbaits, soft plastics and spinnerbaits cast their way? More importantly, why should it be fooled by your lure instead of one of the tournament angler’s?”
The pros use tricks to make their lures stand apart from the crowd because they believe fish become conditioned to lure shape, color, action and speed in the water.
Some pros have their own idiosyncrasies. For instance, David Fritz once confessed to storing new lures on the dashboard of his pickup to dull their finish, believing the satin appearance was more desirable to bass in the fall.
Anglers perform a number of modifications to hard plastic lures. The most common is to tune each lure to ensure it runs perfectly straight before fishing with it. Only perfectly tuned lures achieve the design vibrations and depths; unfortunately very few crankbaits run straight and true directly from the factory.
Tune them by casting and reeling the lure in at its nominal speed. If the lure veers even slightly to one side or the other, it needs to be tuned by adjusting the eye where the line is tied. If the lure runs left, use needle nose pliers to bend it VERY SLIGHTLY to the right. If it veers to the right, bend it VERY SLIGHTLY to the left.
Another modification is to replace the black or silver front treble hook with a red one. There are conflicting theories on why red hooks catch more fish – or if they do, but last year while using a small minnow shaped lure for crappie, over half of the fish were poorly hooked by the rear treble allowing most to escape. When I replaced the silver-colored front treble with a red one, eight of 10 fish were solidly caught on the front hook.
Daiichi offers red (Bleeding Bait) treble hooks in popular sizes for most lures. See them at www.ttiblakemore.com.
Most lures have round split rings attached to their nose which can contribute to line breakage if the line contacts the sharp ends of the ring. Replacing the round split ring with an oval style ensures the line never contacts those sharp points. Oval split rings are available at www.basspro.com; however you will need split ring pliers to facilitate the replacement.
Anglers can modify their crankbaits or minnow-shaped lures to create a different ‘look’ by adding lead tape to the lure’s belly between the front hook and the bill. Most hard plastic and balsa wood lures are very buoyant, rising quickly anytime the retrieve is paused – but if the lure suspends it’s a new ‘look’.
Add just enough lead tape to make the lure neutral buoyant or cause it to sink VERY slowly. Lead tape is available at most golf pro shops, or Storm’s SuspenDots and SuspenStrips work just as well. See them at www.basspro.com.
Soft plastic worms, tubes, lizards and other critters can also be modified for a different ‘look’.
Usually, the bullet weight on a Texas-rigged plastic worm is allowed to slide up and down the line. Unfortunately, allowing the sinker to slide can contribute snags in dock brush or the fish becoming unhooked.
To eliminate these problems, anglers can ‘peg’ the weight by sliding a rubber Sinker/Bobber Stop onto the line first, followed by the bullet weight, followed by a 1/8- to 3/16-inch diameter red bead, and then they tie on a 3/0 or 5/0 red Daiichi offset shank hook. Slide the rubber stop down the line until it touches the bullet weight – viola, the weight is ‘pegged’ and cannot move.
To keep the worm from slipping down the hook shank, wrap an orthodontist’s rubber band around the worm about 1/4-inch from the head end. Rig the worm onto the hook and insert a 3mm glass rattle in the sex band. Now the worm will rattle as it bumps across rocks and brush; it’s a little different ‘look’ that won’t be in most other anglers’ worms.
The last improvement is to add a contrasting color to the bait. A common color to add is chartreuse which works best with soft plastic colors like watermelon green or motor oil. After the soft plastic is rigged onto the hook, dip its tail about one inch into a bottle of chartreuse colored Spike-It Dip-n-Glo and now you’re ready to fish.
You can peg the weight plus add a rattle and Dip-n-Glo to most soft plastic baits like worms, critter baits, tubes, swimbaits and even small crappie jigs – to give them a different ‘look’.
These tips can also help increase and angler’s confidence, and a confident angler is a more successful anglers.
Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. —
