Thursday, July 20, 2017

How To with Big Dave's land based lessons. How to get tight!

We may have covered this before but I feel it bears repeating. When most folks fish with lures, they rarely consider how the fish they were targeting was hooked. It all boils down to types of strikes, a predation strike and a reaction strike. Understanding the differences between these types of attacks can help you improve your catch rate with lures of all types.
By definition, a predation strike is what happens when the fish has actually tried to eat your lure. This means that you successfully fooled the fish into thinking your lure was actually a prey item. A predation strike is most often made obvious by the fact that your lure has either mostly or completely been engulfed by the fish. Fish like snook or trout are famous for utterly inhaling lures. When your lure is deep inside the fish's mouth, its hard to deny that it was truly trying to eat it.
A reaction strike is what happens when you have either triggered a fishes aggression or curiosity. An aggressive reaction strike is hard to miss. These are hard, often savage strikes leading to excited squeals of joy from the angler. A reaction strike stemming from simple curiosity is often far more subtle. Barely a light tap on the line or unmistakable heaviness on the retrieve when there should be none. Reaction strikes are often signified by the fish being hooked on the lips or even just outside the mouth.
Lures such as swimming plugs or top water poppers in bright, flashy and unnatural colors are designed to achieve a reaction strike. Soft plastic shrimp, jerk baits and suspending twitch baits or buck tails in natural colors are designed to imitate natural prey items.
Generally, when the fishing is tough such as when the water is clear and calm, you'll want to choose natural colors to trigger a predation strike. When fish are in stained or rough water, flashy or noisy lures often prove to be the better choice to trigger a reaction strike.
Tight lines friends!

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