This article will discuss the basic ways to work a fishing lure, otherwise known as an “artificial bait”. Believe it or not, I’ve met people during my fishing career that have fished for years using live and dead bait, but have never tried a lure, because they weren’t sure how to fish with it. Hopefully this article will help take away some of the mystery.
There are many sizes and styles of lures out there, yes, and each style will need to be worked a little differently. But you, as the fisherman, actually only have a few decisions to make when lure fishing. You can:
- Pop it (i.e., “pop” your rod tip; will discuss more later)
- Pause, and let it sink
- Reel it at a fast speed
- Reel it at a medium speed
- Reel it at a slow speed
Now, out of the above choices, knowing what to do when is where experience and the art comes in. But I assure you, you don’t need to get fancy when starting off. I’m going to show you a few basic retrieves with a few lures that I use all the time, starting with the easiest and working up to slightly more complicated. If you’re not familiar with the lures below, see my articles here and here which discusses them in detail.
The Swimbait
Lure Example:
Bass Assassin Sea Shad
The Retrieve:
Cast it, pause 1-2 seconds, straight retrieve at a medium speed
As you can see, this one is super simple. I have caught many, many fish just retrieving this lure at a medium speed. Typically they thump it hard while it’s moving, and immediately start peeling drag. They love it, and the retrieve isn’t anything fancy.
The reason for the pause is to allow the plastic bait (which has some buoyancy to it) to sink a bit into the water column. In deeper water, you may want to allow a 3-4 second pause. The power of a swimbait is its vibrating paddle tail. If you just reel it, the tail will do the work and draw them in.
The Shrimp Tail
Lure Example:
Kelly Wiggler Shrimp Tail
The Retrieve:
Cast it, let it sink to bottom, drag it slowly, pause, drag it slowly
I love dragging shrimp tails, because they mimic a shrimp crawling along the bottom. When I say “drag” it, I mean literally drag it along the bottom. The shimp tail will create it’s own minute action just from coming into contact with obstacles along the bottom, so you don’t have to do much. It will pick up some grass, and that’s OK. I’ve caught reds and trout without much trouble unless the grass is super thick. You can certainly add pops to you retrieve, but it’s not required.
The Gold Spoon
Lure Example:
Johnson Silver Minnow
The Retrieve:
Cast, reel at medium speed, pause 2 seconds, reel at medium speed
A spoon is unique to all other lures in that it has the ability to “flutter”. The reason for the pause in the retrieve is to allow the spoon to flutter down through the water column. Let’s illustrate with a real life example:
You’re reeling the spoon at a medium speed across a grass flat. You notice a pothole in the grass that’s right in the path of you spoon. As you get to the edge of the pothole, you pause your retrieve and the spoon flutters into the hole. As it’s falling, a big redfish swims up and inhales it!
The Fluke (and Twitchbaits)
Example:
Texas Trout Killer
The Retrieve:
Cast, wait 1-2 seconds, pop it, wait 1-2 seconds, pop it
When you pop a jerkworm, it “darts”. When you pop it again, it darts in a completely different direction. This is why I like to include lots of pops in my retrieve. Popping allows the jerkworm to dart unpredictably through the water column. Darting is the jerkworms specialty and it really attracts fish. Slow sinking twitchbaits (e.g., Corky, Catch 2000, Mirrodine, 52 MR) can be worked similar to the jerkworm, except that you will really have to experiment with the strength of the pops and the wait time between pops, as the optimum retrieve will be different for each type of bait.
Topwater Popper
Example:
Storm Chug Bug
The Retrieve:
Cast, wait 1-2 seconds, pop, wait, pop, pop, wait…
With poppers, it may seem like there isn’t much that you can vary, but this isn’t true. You can vary the time between pops, the amount of pops you do in sequence, and the power of your pops. What you choose will completely depend on the mood of the fish, so you will have to experiment. I’ve caught tailing redfish on small poppers, and the trick there was to carefully reel it in front of the fish and barely pop it. I’ve also done aggressive pops out on open flats to attract trout. Sometimes, long waits between pops is the ticket, but this will definitely test your patience.
Topwater Walker
Example:
Heddon Super Spook
The Retrieve:
Cast, wait 1-2 seconds, pop, pop, pop, pop…
Out of all the lures on this list, this walking topwaters might be the lures that require the most skill. This is simply because it takes some practice to get confident walking (i.e., zig-zagging) the lure, and the wind/chop will affect your ability to walk it well. But it’s not hard in the grand scheme of things and it is a skill that is worth practicing. I’ve caught some excellent reds and trout on these lures, and they are not as boring as poppers.
How to Do a Good Pop
Popping a lure takes a little bit of practice but it’s not hard. The two most important things are line tension and wrist action. Let’s start with wrist action. You always want to pop your rod tip by flicking you wrist towards you body. How hard and how fast you flick your wrist is a matter of feel, so you will have to experiment that on the water. The key however, is to “keep it in the wrist”. You never want to pop a lure using your forearm or entire arm.
For line tension, you basically want to make sure that the line between the lure and your rod top is not too loose or too tight; somewhere in the middle is good. If you line is too tight, then you will only end up pulling your lure through the water when you pop you rod tip, because there isn’t enough slack in your line for it to dart. If your line is too loose, then your line will have too much “belly” when you pop your rod tip; your line will move during the pop, but your lure won’t move much. So, aim for a medium tension and adjust from there.
The last thing that will help is an inshore rod with just a bit of tip flexibility. In other words, it’s hard to do a good pop of your rod is too stiff or too flexible in the tip. See my article on selecting an inshore bay rod , here.
Closing
This should give you a good selection of lures to start with, especially if you’ve never fished with lures before. If you fish with lures other than those mentioned in this article, the process is much the same…you’ve basically got the five options discussed at the beginning of this article, and you have to use those options in a way that best suits the specific lure. On any given day, you may have to vary the patterns slightly until you start getting bites.
Have a reel good day,
– The Simple Fisherman