The Benefits of Lure Improvisation

 

The weather is cold, the water temperatures are flirting with the 30's, and the fishing is slow.  Oh, the joys of wintertime fishing.  For those of us who view fishing as a lifestyle rather than a mere weekend hobby, this time of year is unavoidable.  However, this is the perfect time of year to practice improvisation on the water.

All too often, anglers (myself included) are stubborn.  Whether it is lure size, lure color, lure presentation, or even line type, we have all been there.  We become so blinded by our confidence in a particular fishing style that we fail to use a large part of our bass fishing arsenal. 

I was fishing a qualifying tournament last weekend on Lake Jackson with my collegiate team, and the bite was terrible.  The water temperature was in the low 40's-high 30's, and the fish had lockjaw.  I knew the fish were on rocky points, and I knew that I could catch them cranking.  I threw almost every color of every crankbait I owned and couldn't get a bite.  I started getting slaps on a shad-colored Bomber Flat A 2DFA, but they wouldn't eat it.  After experimenting with various retrieve speeds, angles, and boat positions, I still couldn't make them eat. 

I finally decided to try a little improvisation.  The fish obviously liked something about this crankbait, and I wanted to give them a little something more to "zero in" on.  To my disadvantage, I didn't have a lot of my lure customization gear in the boat.  I did, however, have some of my trusty J.J.'s Magic, which is primarily meant for soft bait customization.  After some thinking, I devised a plan: To tightly roll up a piece of toilet paper, dip it in the dye, and more or less "paint" the lure (see above picture).

I faded the chartreuse into the underside of the bait, and for added color, painted the edges of the crankbait's bill.  To make a long story short, I caught one 3.4lber on this improvised crankbait and managed to finish third place in an extremely tough tournament.  

While lure improvisation helped me at least get the proverbial "skunk" out of the boat, one fish is not a large enough testament to the benefits of on-the-go customizing.  I've bitten trick worms in half, pulled appendages off of soft-plastic lizards,  added gigantic, outlandish trailers to spinnerbaits and chatterbaits, and dropshotted things that should never be dropshotted -- and have caught some of the biggest, most important fish of my life on them. 

Over time, I've learned that over-thinking is a bad thing.  It may work for some, but not me.  Sometimes the fish just want a Sammy instead of a Spook, a Bomber Flat A instead of a Bandit Flat Maxx -- the list could go on forever.  

Just take the hints the fish are giving you, and give them what they want!  Don't over-think things, and don't be afraid to try new things.  You never know -- your next lure improvisation could quickly turn into your new secret bait!