Giving Your Lure Lots Of Action

One thing that many anglers need to give more attention to is how they work their lures.  Its a well known fact that hardly anything in nature will move in a straight line.  Mimicking that behavior when working your lure can increase your strike ratio drastically.  After casting your lure out, begin with a start – stop retrieve.  Pull the lure, and let it stop for a second or two, then pull again.  When working your lure back towards you, pull your rod to the left and right at varying speeds.  This will cause the lure to dart back and forth at different speeds, mimicking an injured baitfish that is trying desperately to get away from predators, and it also gives your lure a more life like appearance.  Bass and Pike in particular respond well to this type of lure retrieve.  Sometimes these species will strike at the lure two or three times before they inhale the lure.  When muskie fishing, be sure to do a few figure eights at the boatside at the end of your retrieve.  Its stunning how many musky are hooked up right beside the boat when finishing your retrieve with figure 8s at the side of the boat.

Giving Your Lure Less Action

There are times when you need to take the “do nothing” approach when working your lure or bait while mimicking bait fish.  Baitfish don’t tend to sit on the bottom of a lake or river shaking, quivering and otherwise drawing attention to themselves.  Many anglers fail to allow their lures and baits to simply sit still, instead delivering too much action to the lure when its just not needed.  This is especially important when you are fishing tough, pressured waters.  A good thing to try is to simply “set it and forget it”.  By that I mean toss your bait or lure out, and just let it sit there, and impart minimal movement to the lure.