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Lure contrasts provide effectiveness
Frank Manuele - I've been fishing since
I was 8 years old and began fishing artificials 25 years ago
with Cotton Cordell's Big O crankbait and Bill Norman's Snatrix
plastic worm. I've read hundreds of articles that gave reasons
that fish attack lures, but my experience tells me that there
are abstract qualities in a lure that cause it to be seen, tracked
and bit. Anyone who believes that fish bite because of traditional
reasons, (i.e. 'match-the-hatch' or simulate-the-forage), may
be completely right based on their experiences and confidence
in lures that support those concepts. But, there are too many
lures that resemble nothing in nature and that catch fish when
the forage looks like something else. The fish-catching characteristics
of a lure that I want to relate to you, concern lure 'contrast-
qualities' that account for it's year-after-year success.
A lure has basic physical qualities that appeal
to a fish. Vibration is key when distance is a factor; visual
is key when a lure moves close, especially in murky water. Fish
biologists have confirmed that fish can track a living thing
in the water by its lateral line even with eyes blinded. In nature,
fish with cataracts have lived to healthy old ages via lateral
line tracking. Lateral line tracking works because of a still
object's reflected vibration, not inherent vibration. A bell
is heard when rang. A submerged bell can be 'felt' by the lateral
line's, nerve receptors that pick up sonar-like reflections off
of its surfaces. Fish 'feel' the size, direction of movement
and swimming characteristics of a living creature within a fish's
detection range of many yards. Color in clear water supports
what the lateral line 'knows' and stimulates a response similar
to a hungry person looking at a steaming steak through a restaurant
window. Keeping this in mind, I believe that the simple, elementary,
physical characteristics of light (color or flash) and sound
vibrations (inherent and reflected) make a lure effective.
Lures that look like the real thing may contain
those characteristics, but unrealistic, looking lures that display
abstract qualities of one or more of those characteristics will
at times do as well or better. Color contrast, (not a specific
realistic hue), is what gets their interest and provokes a bite.
A drab colored (i.e. black) lure in drab colored water is drab,
period, but it is the object's reflective surfaces, that indicate
size and motion, that cause a 'contrast stimulus', and which
causes it to stand out from other edible objects that may be
near. The flash of tiny, silver flakes, a florescent color combo,
a sound chamber, or a jerk-jerk-pause retrieve, may provide the
needed 'contrast' to provoke a predatory strike. Again, I'm not
talking about color, although color confirms shape, contrasts
with the background and which is very important at dawn and dusk
and in stained water. I've used many colors to catch fish in
one day such a sapphire blue, ruby red, florescent colors, silver,
grape, purple and black. The color didn't matter as long as the
lure did! I use Fish Formula on my soft plastics because an oily
surface reflects light better than a flat, dull surface. (I also
like to smell anise on my hands.)
Realism applies to people, not fish. Some anglers
fall for a realistic finish and spend big bucks for it. They
want to believe that a fish is interpreting the visual image
the same way a human does. HooDaddy worms don't represent any
living thing, that can be proven, but they work superbly in all
colors and sizes due to moving surfaces that enhance reflectivity
and color and that are felt by a fish's lateral line. Try working
a no-weight, Texas rigged, 6" Hoo across matted weed or
pads. The fish will target the 6" lure without seeing it
and will repeatedly hit that lure until it 'kills' it. Note,
it can't see it, but it feels its bulk and creature-characteristics,
(kind of like when you 'get the creeps'). Compare the hackles
of a dog that go up when it see something it doesn't like but
would like to kill or attack and fish's dorsal fin as it goes
up just before it attacks.
'Contrast' characteristics in a lure, are what
I look for before buying it. If it looks like the real thing,
great, but it must reflect light and color a certain way that
is enhanced by the lure's action and inherent or reflected sound
. A Rapala that swims in a steady retrieve is not natural or
realistic. Fish do not 'wobble'. A twitch or jerk-and-pause retrieve
simulates a dying minnow being attacked. The Raplala's 'realism'
is in its flashes of reflected light and the water dimpling as
it floats to the surface and not what the lure looks like physically.
What the lure and angler causes to happen, namely realistic light-flashes
and water disturbances, provoke the fish's bully response. The
gliding action of a small Fin S Fish on a 1/16 oz. jig head,
is exactly the way a minnow looks gliding or darting through
the water. My point is that both lures and many types of retrieves
applied to those lures will catch fish, and for the same basic
reasons.
The major point I'm trying to get across is that
a successful angler can find 'triggering contrasts' that will
provoke strikes. Total realism cannot be exactly achieved, but
an abstraction of life, (like a painting), can be, artificially,
and exaggeration through light, sound, and motion combine to
compel a fish to bite even if hunger is not a key reason.
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