Lure more than just hooks

Several readers have reminded me that I haven’t mentioned either weights or floats in this series of columns on fishing equipment suitable for newcomers to the sport.  

One gentleman asserted that “sinkers and bobbers are almost as necessary as hooks.”  He’s exaggerating to make his point, but, he’s not that far off the mark.

Weights come in a multitude of situation-specific shapes and sizes, but no casual angler needs to have some of each one in his or her tackle box.  

A package of assorted split shot and another of assorted bullet weights will suffice.  

Bullet- or egg-shaped sinkers weighing from one to two ounces are useful when fishing for catfish in streams.

Sometimes baits are more attractive when they’re suspended at a precise depth.  That’s where floats — bobbers or strike indicators — come into play.  

Based on physics, the ubiquitous red and white plastic bobber is a poor choice, because a fish must exert a relatively large amount of force to pull it under the water’s surface.  

Fishermen have been using them for decades and still buy millions of them every year.  Have several sizes available and use the smallest one that’s practical for the given situation.

Now for the fun part!  

Bait is the top choice for catfish, but far more often than not, an artificial lure will attract more attention from crappie, walleye, trout, bluegill, white bass or black bass.  

Maybe that explains why fishermen of every level of expertise are so easily  hooked by every fake bait they see.  

My several lure-stuffed tackle boxes provide ample proof of that last statement.  

The number of different lures I actually use 99 percent of the time is even more dramatic proof that assembling a workable arsenal of artificial lures needn’t require winning a lottery.

Like almost every other veteran freshwater or inshore saltwater angler I know, the first lure out of my tackle box is usually a jig.  

At first glance, jigs appear to be an odd choice for mainstay status. The most widely used type of jig is nothing more than a blob of lead molded around the shank of a hook with a right angle bend just behind its eye, which is then tipped with soft plastic, marabou feather or hair tail.

Don’t be misled by a jig’s seeming simplicity.  Jigs are available in weights ranging from  1/100 of an ounce to several ounces.

If the angler chooses to use soft plastic tails, a jig’s overall shape and action can be altered as needed.  

Jigs can be cast and retrieved, suspended beneath a  float or jigged vertically.  

All of this versatility costs only pennies per lure, which is something that can’t be said of any other artificial lure or most live baits.

There are two distinct types of spinnerbaits every angler should have in his or her tackle box.  

The spinner blade of an in-line spinnerbait rotates around a straight wire shaft.  The shaft of most in-line spinnerbaits is weighted between the spinner blade and a treble or single hook — usually dressed with hair — located at the back end of the lure.  

In-line baits are most popular with trout and bluegill anglers, but they’ll catch just about anything that swims.

Safety-pin spinnerbaits got their name because their wire shafts are bent into a shape resembling an open safety pin.  
All safety-pin spinnerbaits have a lead-weighted hook at the end of one arm and a spinner blade at the end of the other arm.  

Some of these lures add a second blade that rotates around the arm tipped with a blade.  

Safety-pin lures are most popular with black bass anglers, but they come in small enough sizes to attract trout, crappie and bluegill.

I wouldn’t want to be without a few crankbaits, a class of lures named for the fact that they’re effective when cast and retrieved.  

Most crankbaits are hard plastic and are shaped like minnows, crayfish or imaginary creatures.  

A few models are lipless, but most have plastic bills of various lengths (the longer the bill, the deeper the lure will dive.)  

Rainbows are jealous of the number of colors that can be found on crankbaits.  Begin with crankbaits with black or blue backs and chrome sides and add a few chartreuse baits as soon as the sticker shock from buying the first ones subsides.

We’ve discussed more than enough equipment to get anyone started fishing and to sustain his or her fishing fever for a lifetime.  If you want or need an even more basic approach follow the advice of the old song that goes, “You get a line, and I’ll get a pole...”