Take Ownership of Terminal Tackle

Customizing lures in both subtle and extravagant ways can make them appeal more to an angler's eye. The customization can include decoration, adornment with special hooks, split rings and other hardware and even giving lures pet names. These things can enhance confidence in plugs and translate into longer-lasting, more effective and focused efforts with them when they are tried. The eventual outcome might be more fish on the line.

Plugs, plastics and spoons may be enhanced by some widely-recognized means and in other, less common ways. All families of lures can be changed to make them better suited to a particular angler's wants and needs.

Topwaters and other hard-bodied plugs can be customized by several simple methods. I do some things to all lures like these, while other alterations are done sparingly.

First, I place a stainless-steel split ring on the nose of all such plugs, size fives on larger ones, size threes on smaller ones. This increases a lure's ability to wobble from side to side with less effort on the part of the angler, as does attaching them to the leader with a loop-knot. Tying a loop-knot onto a split ring makes it even easier to achieve lots of wobble.

Second, I replace the hooks that come on almost all of these lures with higher-quality ones having larger bights, sometimes opting for red hooks. I have more confidence in size one hooks on large lures, but prefer size two and size four hooks on smaller plugs. Removing all the hooks from a topwater except for the one closest to the head can allow one to use the plug in the presence of moderate amounts of floating grass, as can replacing trebles with single shank hooks.

Sometimes, I attach rubber or hairy skirts to these plugs; the addition of such trailers creates the impression of a tail when the lures come through the water. Red ones might hint at blood leaking from a wound.

Painting and marking on lures like these is something I do frequently. I have used nail polish, paint and permanent markers, all with good effect. I've even used highlighters on plugs with clear plastic sides.

Paint doesn't stick well to soft plugs like Corkies, though some permanent markers can be used to add a gill or "false eye" to them. The ink can also be rubbed into the soft plastic, making a white lure take on a pinkish glow, for instance. Normally, with the soft lures, I find other ways to give them a personal touch.

Inserting rattles into their bellies was one way I did so in the past, but now so many are available with rattles already in them that it seems unnecessary. I do sometimes add a size three split ring to the nose of these, and have tried trailers on them too.

It is possible to change the depth at which they work by adding small split shots onto the leader, or even by placing larger than normal hooks on them. Bending the tail up or down will change the way Corkies come through the water. I know anglers who bend the tail down into a sharp L, so that the lure will come in twirling like a helicopter, and have seen them catch fish by doing so.

Changing the depth at which a lure comes in can be done other ways with other lures. Filing down the lip of a crankbait will change the depth it runs, as can other, more time-consuming techniques. It is possible to drill a small hole in the front half of a floating-diving broken back plug and fill it with just the right amount of split shot so that it changes the distribution of weight and causes the lure to float and wobble without diving at all.

The depth at which sinking crank baits suspend can be manipulated through taping lead strips or dots to them, and by adding split shot to the leader. It is even possible to "Carolina rig" floater-divers and fish them right near the bottom, which can be a productive way to entice lethargic, bottom-hugging fish to strike.

Another way to make finicky fish take a bite is to make changes to soft plastics. Adding rattles to them in high winds and/or off-colored water can make a difference, as can dipping their tails in the paints specifically made and sold for that purpose. Placing spinner blades on jigheads adds flash to the soft-plastic package. Colorado blades tend to create lift when retrieved, whereas willow leaf blades add weight without the lift, making them better suited to rhythmic, swimming-style presentations probing lower in the water column.

Of course, the most important way to "customize" soft plastics is to pay attention to the types of hooks or jigheads they are placed on. Size is most critical here, as is the width of the bight of the hook. Different situations scream for different sizes and styles of hooks and heads. If an angler can think of a really good situation for a bright, heavy chartreuse head and a black worm dipped ever so lightly in white paint, then he should have some at the ready. Likewise, if a seven-inch Bass Assassin rigged weightless makes sense to someone; they are likely to use it effectively.

Soft-plastics rigged on worm hooks rather than jigheads can be made to sink slowly through the addition of small split shots on the leader. Varying the distance between the shot and the eye of the hook will change the way the lures move through the water.

Another way to make soft plastics appeal more to the fish on some days is, of course, to suspend them under corks. In some situations, bulky clicking corks over bright, stinky plastics make sense, while conditions on other days call for smaller, silent, clear corks suspending tiny, natural shadtails, imitation shrimp, spoons or even flies.

The addition of scents to soft-plastics and other plugs is productive when water clarity is poor and background noise is high, or anytime fish are not actively seeking food. Spraying menhaden scent on a shad-shaped bait like a Corky FatBoy or Catch 5 can help fish find them and motivate strikes. Baits with scents in them like the Berkley Gulp work well, but they don't make spray-on scents obsolete, since they are available only in a limited range of shapes, sizes and colors.

Spoons today are also available in a variety of shapes, styles and colors. One way to enhance them is to change the hooks on them and to add split rings to increase wiggle and flash. It is also possible to attach colored dots to the ever-popular gold and silver ones, to imitate a bait fish's eye.

Spinner baits also offer options in terms of the potential for personalizing them, mainly in the type and color of skirts or trailers used with them. Both natural and synthetic skirts can be used as can soft-plastics of any color or colors, with or without dipped tails, with or without rattles in them. Some skirts can be trimmed from their original size. Trailer hooks can be added, the types, sizes and colors of blades changed.

The idea behind all this dabbling is for anglers to make lures look and seem more attractive to their own eyes. If this is done simply through enhancing color, it's probably not going to matter much to the fish most of the time, but might make the angler more patient and confident. If it's done through the addition of hardware or some other alteration that changes the way a lure actually behaves in the water, it could be either wildly successful, or a total flop.

Anglers choosing to alter plugs must be careful not to change their original qualities in a way that makes them unattractive to the fish. Placing too much weight on the nose of a Corky, for instance, takes away the buoyancy and balance that make the lure effective in the first place.

But making other, more sensible changes can certainly make lures more appealing to the angler who alters them. If this gives greater faith in them, it will likely result in more bites and more caught fish.

Faith in a lure can even be improved if said lure is given a pet name. I've done this for years, ignoring the names given by manufacturers in favor of my own. I recently dubbed a bright yellow and orange Skitterwalk Jr. the "Lemon Longhorn", and have always referred to a pumpkinseed/chartreuse/white Trout Killer as the "Pistachio Almond". One of my favorite Super Spooks is the old blue and white one that was among the original four. I dubbed it "Old School", and it's produced as many big trout for me as any other lure.

Sometimes, giving a lure a name that lends itself to laughter and silly, contrived conclusions can be helpful. I call the white Super Spook Jr. with the hot pink head the "Hot Head." Soon after giving it this moniker, we began making jokes about how it "makes the fish mad" and "has an attitude", all as a way of convincing ourselves that it will work.

A plug with a cool name like the FatBoy doesn't need an invented one to make it cooler, of course. For years, I just made subtle changes to its name to make it more fun to mention, referring to it as "The Fat Guy" or "My Little Fat Friend". Some find these things ridiculous, even annoying. They can call me crazy for all I care; I don't ask them to participate.

I just know that for me, forging my faith in a lure through painting on it or giving it a goofy name can actually cause me to fish it with more verve and a heightened intensity. That tightly focused effort allows me to produce strikes more consistently.