Ranking Aspects of Lure Choice and Presentation

All anglers dedicated to fishing exclusively with artificial lures recognize the importance of selecting the right lure for the moment and presenting it in an effective manner. Most of the time, both lure choice and presentation style exert influence on how many bites anglers earn. Some situations render these two decisions irrelevant, in both positive and negative contexts.

When the targeted fish become most active and feed frenetically, many different types of lures worked many different ways will work to catch them. Conversely, when fish become extremely inactive and their appetites ebb to the lowest point, catching them can become nearly impossible on any lure worked in any way. Importantly, these extremes constitute a relatively small percentage of fishing situations.

Acknowledging these facts, accomplished anglers rely on observations made on the water and on established principles when deciding which lure to use at a given time. Changes in various components in the angling situation either elevate or diminish the potential productivity for each type of lure. These components include the amount of light in the sky, wind speed, strength of currents and the depth, clarity and temperature of the water.

When choosing a lure, Texas saltwater anglers rely on principles related to these environmental elements to select a basic type of lure, mostly meaning a topwater, twitch bait, spoon or soft plastic. When deciding which specific one of them to tie on the end of the line, the same anglers consider various traits of the lures, including their size, shape, color, noise production capabilities, scent and the depth at which they work most effectively. Of these, scent can become the most important, when manufacturers add enough natural ingredients to make lures smell like they're real, not man-made.

At some point, lures with enough scent-enhancement evolve out of the lure category and into the bait category, eliminating the need for inclusion of scent on the list of important aspects of lures. Disregarding scent, the most important trait of a lure, most of the time, is the depth at which it most effectively works. Some lures work at more constant depths than others.

Floating plugs without lips remain on the surface at all times, while some twitchbaits can be worked at the surface, then allowed to slowly sink when they're paused. Some crankbaits float, until they're retrieved, then their lips drive them down some distance into the water column, but they float back toward the surface when paused. Soft plastics can be worked at various depths, depending on the size jighead used with them and the speed at which they're retrieved by the angler; most of them work best closer to the bottom.

In some specific situations, size and shape of a lure can rise to prominence on the scale of its most important traits. When fish become fanatically focused on targeting either tiny or relatively giant forage species, or species with unique shapes, the need for the angler to match the hatch can become paramount. In these same situations, when the number of individual members of these forage species runs high enough, an angler might find a need to select a lure which looks wildly dissimilar to the abundantly available food source in order to attract the attention of the hyper-focused predators.

Similarly, the ability of a lure to displace water and create noise can exert strong influence on its potential for productivity. Generally, noisy lures which create lots of commotion and splashing sounds work best when the targeted fish prowl actively in murky water and when the forage species themselves produce noises, while silent lures work better in situations when fish become spooky, such as when they're found in shallow, clear water with plenty of light in the sky. So, all physical aspects of a lure can and do impact its potential productivity, but none more often or more significantly than the ones which determine the depth at which it's best deployed.

The previous statement relates to the second part of the puzzle all lure chunkers attempt to solve at all times―figuring out the optimal presentation style for the moment. Importantly, presentation styles include two main aspects: depth and movement pattern. Of these two, depth is the more important, at a basic level. A few simple statements prove this.

An angler targeting a flounder sitting on the bottom of the ocean in sixty feet of water will have no chance of catching the fish if they tie a floating plug on the end of the line. Similarly, an angler attempting to catch a wahoo actively hunting flying-fish or ballyhoo at the surface will not catch the predator on a heavy jig dragged along the bottom. Few absolutes exist in the angling world, but one comes into play here―a fish must be aware of a lure in order to strike it.

This relates to the previous discussion about which aspects of the design of a lure rank at the top of the list of its most important traits. The depth at which a lure works best affects whether it will work better than others to produce strikes in many situations. When active, predators like speckled trout tend to rise in the water column, moving around and attacking their prey close to or on the surface, while inactive ones tend to move toward or onto the bottom, sometimes casting their eyes downward as well. In most situations, a lure must pass through a relatively small cone of influence in order to garner the attention of a targeted fish and trigger it to strike. This cone normally extends out slightly above and in front of the eyes of the fish.

Of course, simply causing a lure to pass through the cone of influence does not guarantee the fish will strike. In order to maximize the number of strikes earned, an angler must figure out the optimal movement pattern for the moment. Doing so involves more guesswork and experimentation, on average, than does selecting the right type of lure, despite the existence of some established principles related to the effectiveness of various types of presentations.

The elements combining to generate the movement pattern of a lure include the speed, intensity and rhythm of the presentation. In general, faster, more intense and erratic presentations work better in warmer water, while slower, less intense, steadier presentations work better in colder water. Similarly, more speed, intensity and noise production work better in windier weather and murky water, while slower, more subtle and quiet presentations work better in calmer weather and clear water. While these generalizations bear truth, they aren't as reliable as the principles related to lure choice.

On some days, even the very best anglers find themselves experimenting with movement patterns, attempting to find some optimal one for the day, in response to a slower than expected bite rate. This experimentation might also become necessary within a given day, after a hot bite wanes. For instance, on many summer mornings, full-sized topwaters worked in a generic, rhythmic manner often produce plenty of blow ups for the first couple hours after daybreak, then the action slows. When this happens, anglers who switch to smaller topwaters and work them with more speed bursts and pauses often continue earning blow ups, sometimes for the duration of the outing.

What most elite anglers don't often do is fret about the color of the lure they're using when trying to maximize the bite rate. In most situations, the importance of the movement pattern of the lure bears more significance than does its color. At the most basic level, this truth certainly rings true. Fish feeding well on a black worm dragged on the bottom in cold water won't often rise to strike a black topwater worked slowly on the water's surface. The color of a lure often becomes basically irrelevant, once the angler chooses a lure of an appropriate type, meaning one which works effectively at the right depth and has an appealing size and shape for the moment.

My own experiences in many days spent on the water working with beginners, novices and other experts lead me to these conclusions about the relative importance of depth of presentation, movement pattern and color. In countless situations, I witnessed the veracity of the assertions I make here. Mostly, these situations involved me trying to convince someone in the group that my superior bite rate at a given time did not involve the color of the lures we were using. In many of those cases, I could see the movement patterns we were executing varied enough to make the difference. In some instances, I switched the color of my lure to match the customer's, or gave them the lure I was using to prove the point, almost invariably succeeding in catching at a higher rate than they did when we had the same lure on the end of the line, or when I deployed the one they said wouldn't work because of its color.

This is not to say the color of a lure never matters. Sometimes, color does matter, most frequently in water that's either extremely clear or extra murky. In relatively isolated instances, anglers can certainly justify experimenting with color to enhance productivity, if only to buoy their own level of confidence and elevate an already decent bite rate.

Most of the time, however, the most complicated, subtle and difficult aspect of solving the ever evolving lure choice/presentation puzzle has little or nothing to do with color selection. Most anglers can fairly easily learn to select the proper type of lure for the moment, basing their decisions on accepted principles. Beyond the choice of basic type, many can also figure out how to pick an appropriate topwater, twitchbait, spoon or soft plastic, considering the vagaries specific to the situation. A select few talented and skilled anglers will solve the puzzle more often than others, by mastering the art of the end game and consistently matching the movement patterns of their presentations with the feeding mood of the fish.