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Trolling lures, the basics 1

Nick Drakes 01 January, 2006 03:25:00

Nick Drakes, a Trolling Lure manufacturer and owner of Sekard Technology starts a new two part series on the basics of rigging Big Game Trolling Lures.

Any angler who has ever set foot on a big game fishing boat cannot have failed to be fascinated by the variety of lures they carry and the meticulous attention the crew pay to the preparation and deployment of these fish enticing wonders.

Trolling lures come in a bewildering range of shapes, sizes and colours. Every lure manufacturer extols the virtues of their particular product and seasoned game boat crews often guard their particular choice of lures and fishing methods as if they were state secrets. Rarely will the crew have the lures and rigs out on deck when the boat leaves the dock in the morning and they will all be packed away out of site before they return at the end of the day.

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There is a great mystique surrounding the art of lure trolling. This mystique is often generated and perpetuated by lure manufacturers and by those who work in the game fishing industry and it can be quite intimidating to the less experienced angler or would-be deckhand. It is easy to be left bewildered by the task of choosing the right lures and deploying them effectively in the spread behind the boat.

Now I will lay my cards on the table. I make my living by manufacturing Big Game Trolling Lures and I feel there is a lot of quite misleading information spoken and written about lures and lure trolling. Selecting an effective spread of trolling lures is not as difficult as some would have us believe and I hope to illustrate some of the basic factors that are fundamentally important in getting it right. Not surprisingly, much of this boils down to common sense and keeping everything simple.

THE BASICS
Let's look at the nuts and bolts of a trolling lure. These lures have been around for decades and the basic features have not really changed since the early days of lure fishing. A trolling lure comprises a head, which is moulded in a rigid or semi-rigid plastic or resin, and a trailing skirt that is formed so as to create a ring of flexible tentacles of soft plastic or rubber. The head of the lure is its engine. This dictates how it will swim and behave in the water and the shape and bulk of the head will create noise and disturbance as it is pulled along at trolling speed. The skirt acts to stabilise the head and also adds colour and bulk so as to create a strong silhouette in the water. The skirt should really do more than this, but most don't - more of this later!

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DOES SIZE MATTER?
Go into a Big Game Tackle Store or browse one of the on-line internet retailers and you will soon realise that trolling lures come in all sizes from tiny little 3 inch babies up to enormous 18 inch monsters.

What size lure do we use? This is where common sense first comes into play. For example, if you are targeting large Blue Marlin and they are feeding on skipjack tuna then you probably need to use some pretty large lures (12 inch +). Conversely, if Dorado are your game and they are smashing into 4 inch sardines then you need to think about lures from the smaller end of the scale. It&ain why this works, but it is a proven fact that if you run small lures close to the boat and large ones further back the strike rate will suffer. The large lures seem to act as barriers that discourage fish from following the lure spread toward the boat.

There are a few interesting things that are worth remembering. Firstly, the biggest lure in your spread is always the boat itself! Large and aggressive predators like Blue Marlin are undoubtedly first attracted by the boat's noise, disturbance and silhouette. It is only when they realise that they cannot actually eat the boat that they turn their attention to the lures!!! Hence, it is very important that the lures create plenty of noise and disturbance themselves.

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Secondly, please don't get too carried away with lure size. They can be too large, even when targeting giant fish. Some will scoff at this and comment that a 1000lb + Blue Marlin is quite capable of consuming a 100lb Yellowfin Tuna and a tuna that size is much larger than any lure in existence. True, but we must not confuse what a fish is capable of eating with what a fish can eat easily and readily. If we are to get good consistent hook-ups it is important that our target fish can eat our lure without difficulty; it mustn't even have to think about it (not that Marlin think much in my opinion!). Imagine this; you have a single M&M and a whole regular size candy bar in front of you. If you really wanted to you could probably eat that whole candy bar in one mouth full. It would be a struggle and you may choke a little, but it is possible. On the other hand, you can toss that M&M in and swallow it without a second thought and then look around for another one. Think of the fish you are trying to catch in the same way. I am not saying that you should use nothing but tiny lures, but don't go to the other extreme either - common sense again! It is worth noting that the most successful lures in the world, the ones that have numerous world records to their credit and have won millions in tournament prize money, are not generally particularly huge lures, sometimes quite large, but nothing like some of the monsters you will see in many big marlin destinations. There is a lot of machismo and excess testosterone in the big game fishing world and, unfortunately, this sometimes spills over into lure selection!

Finally, don't forget Murphy's Law, i.e. the biggest fish of your trip will inevitably take the smallest lure! Take care when choosing to run really light tackle on that small lure in the shotgun position - don't forget elephants do eat peanuts!

If you'd like to raise any questions or seek clarification on any points within this article, feel free to contact me at on the Sekard Technology website at www.sekard.com