A Ton Of Tackle Or A Few Good Lures?

[Mitch f]

Mitch, for some reason that I can't really pinpoint, jigs have become my murky water bottom bait, tubes my clear water bottom bait. If the water has four feet or less visibility I'm going to have on a jig and chunk. My favorite chunk, in this case, is the smaller Zoom Super Chunk (or something like that, can't remember for sure whether that's the name). It has a small "head" and big flappy tails. In big water or very murky water, I'll use that trailer as is, but if the water is smaller and a little clearer, I'll cut the flaps down to about half their size with a diagonal cut.

Funny how I've gotten all this down to where I don't have to make much of a decision...big water or water with some color--jig and chunk, with the color chosen to match the color of the bottom of the river as close as I can. Water that is really murky--black jig and chunk. Water that is about four feet of visibility--tube, and if it's a dark day, the color will be black. Water that's clearer than that--tube in a color to match the bottom of the river. Are those always the best choices? Of course not, but they work good enough and I finally got tired of carrying a ton of soft plastics and not having confidence in any of them. This keeps things simple and keeps me from switching colors and lures all the time.

I even have similar "systems" for choosing other lures. For instance, I simply won't use crankbaits in water with more than five feet of visibility in the summer, but with four feet or less visibility I'll ALWAYS have on a crankbait on one rod. And in colors of buzzbaits and spinnerbaits, I only have white, chartreuse, white and chartreuse combination, brown, and black. Clear water and bright day, it'll be chartreuse. Clear water and dark day, white or white-chartreuse. Murkier water I'll try brown. Murky water and dark day, it'll be black.

Of course, sometimes I'll get out of my comfort zone and experiment. I've even been known to try my homemade crankbait in clear water! But mostly that's my system and I stick to it.

Very informative. I never really considered matching the color of the river bottom. I kind of always just used more natural colors in clear water. Ive always had good luck on bigger fish by having a jig of one color and a trailer of another color. Not sure if the contrast makes it easier to spot or what but it might help it to stand out a little against the background. Two schools of thought I guess.

[Al Agnew]

Except for the cave crawdad, they are all pretty much brown ain't they???

But you do bring up a thought I had yesterday. I have caught fish on some pretty wild, totally un-natural colors while tossing a crankbait. But they seem to be a little more finiky when it comes to bottom crawlers. Colors may be worthy of another topic for discussion.

Actually, although I love brown as a crankbait color, very few species of crawdads are really brown. The most common species over much of the Ozarks, the golden crayfish, is light yellowish olive with dark brownish olive bands and red highlights. Another common species is a grayish olive. However, in looking through the MDC book on crayfish, I noticed that of the three other species that appear to be most common in the Neosho river system streams in your part of the state, the Neosho midget crayfish is somewhat brownish and the northern crayfish can be either reddish brown or olive brown. But most of the species in the book are variations of tan and olive.

[Al Agnew]

I would say 98% of the smallies I have caught have been on a rebel crawdad crankbait. I keep various sizes and colors and experiment. I keep a few rooster tails n small tube baits in my pack but they the rebel craws have produced the most.

Could that be because you throw Rebel Crawdads 98% of the time?

The thing about lures is, when you have confidence in one, you fish it a lot and you have learned to fish it well, and you expect to catch fish on it so you stay more alert while you're fishing it. The question that could make me crazy if I let it is, no matter how well I'm doing, could I be using something else and doing better? If you let that question bother you, though, you'll end up switching lures all the time instead of fishing.

However, I could not limit myself to one lure such a great percentage of the time, for several reasons. One is, I've proven to my own satisfaction that certain lures do not produce well very often under certain water conditions. Two, some lures work better in stronger current, some work better in woody cover, etc. Part of the reason I always carry five rods rigged with different lures is that as I float down the river, each type of water and cover I come to seems to call for a different type of lure. If the fish are really piling on a particular lure, I'll fish it even in water that it's not "designed for", but I know that I'm not fishing it very well in that kind of water.

Here's a "for instance"--Walk the dog topwaters. I use them all the time, and many days during the summer the fish eat them all day long, and I love that topwater explosion. So on the good days I'll fish a WTD lure all day, practically to the exclusion of everything else. But these lures simply don't act right in fast current, especially in complex current. Cast it to a little eddy in a riffle, and you get one or two twitches before your line is bowed downstream and pulling the lure out of the pocket, making it very difficult to make it walk or keep it in the strike zone. Another lure would work better in that situation. In fact, most days even when the fish are on that WTD lure, when I come to fast water areas I'll pick up another rod, usually a buzzbait or my homemade twin spin, and hit those little pockets with it rather than struggling with the WTD. Another instance is soft jerkbaits. I fish them on spinning tackle, and many days the only time I'll throw one is when I come to a place with overhanging limbs, where I can skip that lure under the obstruction while most other lures won't skip as well. And when I come to a nice rootwad that I just KNOW holds fish, even if I've been catching fish on topwater or spinnerbaits or crankbaits, I might pick up a tube or jig to be able to get down right into that cover. Or when I come to a big slick log that's right on the surface, even if I've been catching fish on WTD lures or crankbaits, I might pick up the rod with the twin spin because I know I can cast it on the back side of that log and it'll come right over the log without hanging up.

What I think we are seeing here, and what I've been convinced of for a long time, is that most of the time river smallies will hit a LOT of different lures, and no one lure is pure magic that particular day. But lures are tools, and some tools are better for some "projects" than others. You don't use a wrench to drive a nail even though it's possible to do so, so maybe you don't use a crankbait to fish deep in woody cover, for instance.

[Chief Grey Bear]

But most of the species in the book are variations of tan and olive.

I would venture to say that tan is a variation of brown.

I have the same publication and yeah if you sit and study the colors in the close up pictures that are presented, you could disern slight variations. Now have Mary hold it about 3 feet away and tell me what color they look like. And yes you may use your glasses.

[Sharps4590]

I wade fish 95% of the time and am also something of a minimalist. Everything I've ever needed can be carried in two fly boxes.

[Craig C]

Could that be because you throw Rebel Crawdads 98% of the time?

The thing about lures is, when you have confidence in one, you fish it a lot and you have learned to fish it well, and you expect to catch fish on it so you stay more alert while you're fishing it. The question that could make me crazy if I let it is, no matter how well I'm doing, could I be using something else and doing better? If you let that question bother you, though, you'll end up switching lures all the time instead of fishing.

However, I could not limit myself to one lure such a great percentage of the time, for several reasons. One is, I've proven to my own satisfaction that certain lures do not produce well very often under certain water conditions. Two, some lures work better in stronger current, some work better in woody cover, etc. Part of the reason I always carry five rods rigged with different lures is that as I float down the river, each type of water and cover I come to seems to call for a different type of lure. If the fish are really piling on a particular lure, I'll fish it even in water that it's not "designed for", but I know that I'm not fishing it very well in that kind of water.

Here's a "for instance"--Walk the dog topwaters. I use them all the time, and many days during the summer the fish eat them all day long, and I love that topwater explosion. So on the good days I'll fish a WTD lure all day, practically to the exclusion of everything else. But these lures simply don't act right in fast current, especially in complex current. Cast it to a little eddy in a riffle, and you get one or two twitches before your line is bowed downstream and pulling the lure out of the pocket, making it very difficult to make it walk or keep it in the strike zone. Another lure would work better in that situation. In fact, most days even when the fish are on that WTD lure, when I come to fast water areas I'll pick up another rod, usually a buzzbait or my homemade twin spin, and hit those little pockets with it rather than struggling with the WTD. Another instance is soft jerkbaits. I fish them on spinning tackle, and many days the only time I'll throw one is when I come to a place with overhanging limbs, where I can skip that lure under the obstruction while most other lures won't skip as well. And when I come to a nice rootwad that I just KNOW holds fish, even if I've been catching fish on topwater or spinnerbaits or crankbaits, I might pick up a tube or jig to be able to get down right into that cover. Or when I come to a big slick log that's right on the surface, even if I've been catching fish on WTD lures or crankbaits, I might pick up the rod with the twin spin because I know I can cast it on the back side of that log and it'll come right over the log without hanging up.

What I think we are seeing here, and what I've been convinced of for a long time, is that most of the time river smallies will hit a LOT of different lures, and no one lure is pure magic that particular day. But lures are tools, and some tools are better for some "projects" than others. You don't use a wrench to drive a nail even though it's possible to do so, so maybe you don't use a crankbait to fish deep in woody cover, for instance.

While I do mostly use the rebel craw now, for years I tryed just about everything I could throw at em. the crankbait was what happened to work for me. I would say it after thinking about it I am probably just lucky in that I use that lure in a way thats more enticing and while I have used others I was not as skillled with them. if that makes sense.

[Gavin]

Lots of folks hate on the Wee Craw, others swear by it. Others fish plastic almost exclusively and do well. I like to fish baits that require me to manipulate the lure and I love to see the strike...So I tend to toss topwater, flukes, and jerkbaits until the fish tell me they want a jig. There is no right or wrong way...its just about having fun with what works for you.

[Jerry Rapp]

lots of great discussion. Thanks folks. I am becoming more and more of a KISS person. I used to be a lure junkie delux and had to have everything, with duplicates of all. But after 45 years of serious fishing I have finally come to realize that I just use a few baits 95% of the time. So that's what I carry with me now. Even the bass boat only has five, one sided plano boxes, and about 10 bags of plastics, a few of my fav spinnerbaits and that's about it. When I go fish now with someone else, I usually don't take more than one plastic one sided box with the lures I think I might use and a bag with plastics, jigs, and hooks/sinkers, etc. It sure makes it easier and in the last two years I really think I have caught more than the previous 20 combined.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I guess if you like using the same thing over and over all day. I like to mix it up a little and see how many different lures I can catch them on. Another game I play sometimes is once you put it on your rod, you can't change until you catch a fish. That can get pretty frustrating some days. Then at the end of the year, take a look back and see how many lures you caught fish on.

[Jack Jones]

All good wisdom no doubt.....So.....with all of that said, if I were to take $25 with me to either Walmart or Bass Pro to outfit a one sided plastic box with the tackle to fish from my kayak.....how would you all spend it?