How do I find lures? (2023)

How do you know what lures to use?

The manufacturer of a lure will generally tell you what kind of fish it's meant to target. However, you also need to consider your water conditions when you're choosing a lure. Heavy lures work best if you'll be fishing with strong currents and high winds. A light lure can work better when it's calm.

The Lure Love Podcast has crunched the numbers in its database and determined that jigs, by far, have caught the most record fish of any lure type among the nearly 20,000 records it has on file.

The most fundamental rule is to fish brightly colored baits in dingy or muddy water and light, subtle colors in clear water. The logic here is that a bass' visibility is hampered by silt, and colors like chartreuse, yellow and orange are easier to see than bone, pumpkinseed and smoke.

"In my experience, eyes on lures make a difference, particularly red eyes. To prove the point, I've alternated casts between a white crankbait with red eyes and white crankbait with black eyes. The red eye bait always outfishes the black eye crankbait.

There are many scents that fish absolutely love and there are many scents that fish can't stand. Here is a quick list of the attractive scents and the ones that repel fish. Attractants: salt, fish slime, fish guts, fish extracts, human saliva. Possible attractants: milk products like cheese, coffee, garlic.

Using a big jig or crankbait and dragging it is the most consistent way to catch big bass. The general rule of thumb, use a larger lure to catch larger fish. Big fish want to get a full meal if they are going to use their energy.

Giant Copper Haskell Minnow:

It's been a few years now but this one sold for over $100,000 at auction. It's the most expensive fishing lure in the world to ever be sold. Reportedly there is only one of these known to exist in this size. Haskell minnows in general are extremely rare and historic.

Weight adds distance

You can apply many of the ideas from the other points to get more distance, but at the end of the day, generally speaking, a heavier lure casts farther.

25-30 yards is the norm

Most anglers proficient at casting average 25-30 yards, depending on their tackle and wind conditions.

Do you put a sinker on with a lure?

There are several reasons why you might need to add weight to your lure or get your hands on a fishing sinker: Weights enhance your lure's anchoring ability. You can cast your line to greater distances with sinkers. It reinforces the sinking rate and ability of your lure and line.

The most effective scents found in fish attractants are garlic, natural fish oil, fish pheromones, anise oil, and amino acids. All of these scents make baits smell and taste like prey that fish would eat in nature.

Fish generally prefer early morning and evening sun to the bright midday rays. In midday, the surface temperature of the water is also hotter, forcing the fish to move deeper.

Despite the fact that red is the first color to disappear from the underwater spectrum, some research has shown that red elicits the strongest response from largemouth bass. Yellow was the next most important color for this species.

Use a Bright Color

My experience leads me to white or chartreuse as the best lure color for muddy water. Those are the colors that I reach for when it's apparent that fish are not going to be using their vision as the primary means of finding my lure.

In this manner, given enough angling pressure over the long term, populations can become more difficult to catch, even if overall population numbers remain static. So, yes, pressured fish can learn (or adapt) to avoid certain lures.

When it hits the bottom your line will go slack. Another way to test this is to let the lure drop right next to the boat and count how long it takes to hit the bottom. Then when you cast, let your lure fall for that many seconds and you should be at or near the bottom.

Bass apparently do see color. Their vision is strongest in the areas of medium-red to green. It fails rapidly moving into the blues and purples, as it does towards the far reds. If our picture of bass color vision is accurate, then color is meaningful to bass in some cases but not others.

On one end of the spectrum, reds and oranges are most readily absorbed in water, so these colors are most visible in shallow water. Darker blues and purples penetrate the deepest. Yellow and greens are in between.

According to some experiments done to see if this method actually works, apparently, WD-40 does not catch fish or attract them.

Which liquid attracts fish?

When it comes to choosing what size lure to use, the best strategy is to match the hatch. Typically in the winter and spring, baitfish are smallest, so we use 3-4″ lures. In late summer and fall, the baitfish are at their biggest, so we normally bump it up to a 4-5″ lure.

Jigs are probably the most versatile bass lure, making them a great place to start when unsure of which lure to use based on conditions. They can be used throughout the year in almost any temperature, whether 50 degrees or 90 degrees.

If you have too light of a lure, the rod will not load properly and result in a shorter cast. If you've got too heavy of a weight, the rod will load too much and have a sluggish cast. If you have the right weighted lure on, the rod will load properly and achieve optimal casting distance.

Short answer is lure color matters very little if you look at fishing from a scientific prospective. Water absorbs and blocks different wavelengths of light, effectively making colors disappear and light travels into the water column. Red lures disappear first, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue and finally black.