The
ability to work your lures at precise depths is crucial to consistent lure fishing
success. By feeling your way around a swim as I have described previously you
get the mental image that is the starting point for depth control, or if you are
afloat you can use the fish finder to add more detail to the picture. Even if
the image is not exact, once you get a take you should log in your brain the precise
point where it came, both in relation to the features present and the depth being
fished.
With sinking lures this
will be done by counting the lure down before commencing the retrieve, and gauging
the exact speed and pattern of retrieve. Duplicate the successful formula and,
provided there is more than one pike present, the chances are you will see more
action. Very often the taking depth will be consistent from spot to spot on any
given day. So, by replicating a retrieve depth that worked in one spot when you
get to a similar place you are stacking the odds in your favour.
One
thing that is well worth remembering is that the taking depth can vary from session
to session. This was brought home to me on a recent session when Nige Grassby
and I were on one of our favourite spots where previous trips had produced to
deeply worked baits. However, the water had warmed considerably and the pike had
spawned. Unusually, I was four to two up when I heard Nige say "You're not
letting it sink, are you?" The look on his face when I turned round was a
picture and all I could say was, "Am I not?" I had also sussed out the
spot to cast to and the speed of retrieve that allowed the lure to work down the
slope and come away from it at the depth that seemed to provoke the pike to come
after the lure. The fish weren't hitting the lure close to the slope but between
it and the boat, some requiring a trigger to make them hit. The trigger would
either be a speeding up, or a pause to allow the lure to fall. Two of the best
triggers going.
Another thing that I was doing in order to replicate
my retrieve was not only to ensure that I cast to a precise spot, but that I cast
from a set distance to it. It is not widely realised that the length of a cast
has a significant bearing on how the lure fishes. Floaters and sinkers are both
affected by the cast length. On this particular day we were starting our drifts
well off the mark, but I had quickly sussed that only two, or maybe three, casts
per drift were getting action. So I was sitting it out until we were close enough
for a long cast to reach the spot, judging the distance to cast from by watching
the bottom coming up on the finder. Odds on it would be the second cast from my
starting point that would do the business
This shorter cast was putting
the lure at just the right depth, while the longer one was bringing it in a little
deeper. We returned to this spot later on, having decided to rest it. When my
lure reached the boat, as we got just close enough to the spot on our first drift,
a nice fish turned away on a deep follow. I reckon the pike had dropped down the
slope following our hammering of the spot earlier on, and the longer, deeper running,
cast had pulled that fish. By my reasoning from what had gone on earlier in the
day it should have shown up on the following cast! Sadly the pounding we had given
the place in the morning had put the fish off and nothing else showed itself.
To
replicate a retrieve depth with a floating lure you have to remember how you got
it down in the first place, and cast length plays its part in this (long casts
will get lures deeper than short ones) as do other factors. Was it a steady crank,
or were you using a fast retrieve to work it deep then slowing it down to maintain
a depth. Or perhaps you were fishing a floating jerkbait like a Suick and used
a particular series of jerks to get the bait down. Some floating baits can be
made to run deeper by a series of hard, rapid twitches or jerks before commencing
a more steady retrieve. Many minnow baits can be fished a couple of feet deeper
than their standard running depth by this process. Same goes for some jerkbaits.
Three or four staccato jerks might be needed to get the depth before slowing the
retrieve to that which the pike are showing an interest in.
This subject
brings to mind a particular hobby horse of mine! I have little time for the obsession
that some people seem to have for making many of their lures suspend. They get
so intense about this that they have to balance their baits to a standard trace
which must never vary in weight unless it should affect the way their lures hang.
Now, I am not trying to take away from the concept of extended hang times. Keeping
a lure in a follower's face for longer is a good idea as is the capability for
a lure to work really slowly at times, but I do think that some people take it
to extremes. I prefer my baits to either sink or rise when they are paused. The
hit usually comes a split second after the lure's forward motion ceases anyway.
Besides which, floating or sinking lures give you more control. Look at it
this way. You are trying to work a bait over the top of weed that comes to three
feet of the surface, feeling your way around again. If the lure suspends or sinks
then every time it hits weed the cast is wasted as a twitch or pull on the line
will drive it deeper into the weed. A floating bait, on the other hand, will back
up and come clear allowing the cast to be fished out.
In
another scenario you might be casting on to a shallow shelf and wanting the lure
to work down the drop-off, as in the case described earlier. Here a sinking lure
will fall as you slow it up or stop it, hugging the contour. A suspending bait
would just do nothing, and a floating lure would require speeding up in order
to get it to dive deeper. As you see, depth control and speed control frequently
go hand in hand. For this reason I like to have lures which sink quickly along
with lures which sink slowly, and ones which have the buoyancy of a cork plus
some slow risers. I find these far more useful for giving me precise depth (and
speed) control than critically balanced suspending lures. The slow risers and
sinkers are my suspending baits.
When it comes to gliding jerkbaits,
a particular favourite for the suspending fanatics, I want a range of lures that
will work at different depths. This is most easily achieved by adding lead so
they sink at different rates. There is no way you will get a glider that comes
in six or eight feet down to suspend. That is the end of the rant. The point I
am trying to make is that efficient, all round, depth control demands lures which
either float or sink.
Basically a long
cast with a floating crankbait will result in it attaining the greatest depth
for any given speed. The same goes for a sinking bait like a spinnerbait, or even
a sinking jerkbait. The difference comes when you speed these lures up, or slow
them down. Speed up a crankbait and it will dig deeper, while the spinnerbait
will rise up. Slow either of them down and the reverse happens. The crankbait
runs shallower and the spinnerbait deeper.
Don't
forget the effect that line thickness has on running depth too. This can play
a big part in maintaining bottom contact in deep water, if that is a situation
you find yourself in. Switching to a rod rigged with finer braid will make this
much easier, as you won't have to work your baits so slowly. Remember, too, that
you can also alter a lure's running depth by raising and lowering the rod tip.
This is a handy trick when trying to bring lures in over or through weed, or up
over gravel bars and so on. I also frequently give a minnow bait a couple of initial
twitches with upward flicks of the rod top in order to make it dance just below
the surface, before lowering the rod tip and twitching it deeper. Particularly
useful when casting to far shelves on drains and canals, I find. You can always
throw in these upward flicks in the middle of a retrieve to keep a lure at a certain
depth, or even throughout the retrieve to make a lure work shallower than it normally
would. it does throw a lot of slack line into the situation, and dealing with
becomes more problematic than normal.
Knowing
where your lures are and what they are doing is one of the major factors which
sets apart the really successful lure anglers from the rest of the crowd. In fact,
it is probably the most important factor, especially when presentation is depth
critical as it can be at certain times of the year or on certain venues. If you
ever spot me changing lures on every cast, odds on I am searching for one that
will work the depth band I want to cover at the speed I deem crucial. It can be
that getting an extra foot of running depth makes the difference between success
and failure. I firmly believe that in many instances when a particular lure is
proving successful, when apparently the wrong colour, it is because it is hitting
the critical depth band. Same thing goes for those lures that always seem to outfish
other similar baits, they maybe get a little deeper. I know I have more than one
lure that does just that.
Fishing some
burgeoning weed beds the other week, it seemed to me that lures had to be fished
not over the top, but about a foot down from the top of the tallest strands. Kind
of tickling the weed and picking up a strand or two in the denser pockets. There
was no doubt that the pike were in the weed, but they weren't prepared to come
right out of it to hit lures. Making occasional weed contact seemed to do the
trick though.
All this was in less than
fifteen feet of water, but even on deeper waters where pike could be anywhere
from one to thirty feet (or deeper) precise depth control can also be critical.
Sometimes pike will be high in the water column, or prepared to come up off the
bottom. At other times they will ignore any lure that is more than a foot from
the lake bed. Only by knowing precisely where your lure is, and by having lures
that work a range of depths, can you come to terms with these preferences and
work out where the pike are willing to hit your lures - and then duplicate the
presentation. Depth control really can be considered the essential technique.
(This
article first appeared in Pike and Predators issue 34)