Hello Surfcasters,
The focus of this newsletter is on tuning your BigWaterLures…and to let you know I now have available a special offering of plugs for website subscribers. Due to popular demand, I have painted a limited number of my traditional pikes in the new SLIM colors.
Tuning Your Big Water Lures
Many successful fishermen recommend becoming familiar with a couple of fishing spots during all tides and as many water conditions as possible rather than running all over the place. Well, I recommend the same for your BigWaterLures. Take a couple of your pikes out during the day and swim them – don’t fish them — in all kinds of water conditions. Learn how they react to different retrieves so that when you are fishing at night, you will know exactly how they are responding.
I am not that concerned with depth when fishing my pikes because I carry a Surface, Medium Diver, and Deep Diver in both Slim and Giant Pike – which absolutely covers the water column. I am more concerned about the action of the plugs. The standard for adjusting depth is to bend the line tie (the loop in the front of your Pike where you tie your line) downward to get the plug to swim higher in the water. Bend the line tie upward to get it to swim deeper.
I want to feel my plug swimming. I want the rod thumping with the action of the plug. If there is a good tide running that is what you will get with my plugs. My only job then is to fish the plug and vary the retrieve. If there is not a good current and the water is pretty flat, I may need to add some extra action to the plug. I do this by bending the swim lip down to a 45 degree angle. This will cause the plug to ride higher in the water and have less roll, but it will give the plug more side to side action, and that is what I am after.
I know most plug manufacturers don’t want you messing with the lip, but that is not the case here. I encourage it! I hand-make my lips out of thicker stainless steel so they can stand up to the bending. I want you to tune the Pike to your liking.
I build my Surface Pikes to have good action on a slow retrieve. My Divers, because of the weight needed to get them to dive, have a slower action – which can be good for strong currents and breachways.
So, to recap…tune your plugs to your liking and/or to suit the water conditions:
1. Bend the line tie down to get the plug swim higher; bend the line tie up to swim deeper.
2. Bend the lip down for more side-to-side action (though it will ride higher in the water)
Good luck – it will soon be time to get out there and catch some fish!
And again, since there are many newcomers to my list, I use www.AtlasMikes.com scented gel in Bunker/Menhaden on my Pikes. I put some in both hook holes and on the tied tail. Besides attracting fish, this keeps your hooks from rusting.
Spring is coming!
Gary
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