Your old faithful...

[CaveClown]

I was going through my gear bags the other day and I noticed I am obsessed with jigs and soft plastics, combined with having to have two of everything I get just incase I lose one I will have a back up... Then I started to actually notice how many lures I have that I have used once, maybe twice and they just sit in my tackle bag, yet every time I go to a place that has lures I always spend way more time then I should looking over the stuff... even if 90% of what is there is what I have but just in a slightly different color.

I then started to think back to when I was a young kid and would go fish with my dad and then started going fishing by myself while out at the farm, and having a family that did not have much money, I always seemed to use soft plastic curly tailed jigs as I would have a few jig heads and a few bags of the super sale cheapy soft plastics my dad would toss my way. I can remember asking my dad if I could use any of the few (less then 8) lures he had, but he would say they cost a lot of money and he wasn't going to have me risk losing them, mind you he wouldn't use them either as he didn't want to risk not having them either lol.

Anyways when I am fishing now, I would say almost all the time I fish with soft plastics, and most of the time I still stick with the old school curly tailed ones I used as a kid, hell I still got some of the bags of old old plastics from companies long past with the 25 cent sticker sale price on them lol. I will from time to time fish with a spinner, a chatter, a diver or lipless crank... for about 5 minutes, then it seems I go right back to the curly tail soft plastic...

Maybe it is just all in my head, as I use them more often then not so it seems I do my best with them, but then I dunno, perhaps I just learnt to use them better then anything else. I love to look for new gear and tackle but I almost wonder if that is just that old the lure is more to catch the fisherman thing then anything else with me as I keep going back to, and lugging around 50 pounds of soft plastic anytime I fish. Are you similar? What is your go to? Was it something you started with young? Or have you changed over the years?

[58thecat]

5 of diamonds 00 size......salt water, fresh water, lakes, rivers etc....have caught so many types of fish with it....sometimes I add to the hooks a rubber tail, hunk of sucker belly etc

[Smoky buck]

I have my go to lures but it varies depending on the species. It’s more so styles of lure than an exact brand

They are rarely the classic go to lures for the species or area

[CaveClown]

5 of diamonds 00 size......salt water, fresh water, lakes, rivers etc....have caught so many types of fish with it....sometimes I add to the hooks a rubber tail, hunk of sucker belly etc

That was my dads "magic" lure, he swore by it, that or a red devil. He always had a special staff of those spoons for when the fishing was tough, I always knew he was getting serious when he opened up that plastic box he kept in his jacket pocket that contained those magic lures... And they never seemed to fail him. I can recall my first time buying my own lures, I made sure to get a bunch of red devils and 5 of diamonds in various sizes and could not wait to use them and hall in the fish.... long story short I ended up going back to jigs lol.

[58thecat]

That was my dads "magic" lure, he swore by it, that or a red devil. He always had a special staff of those spoons for when the fishing was tough, I always knew he was getting serious when he opened up that plastic box he kept in his jacket pocket that contained those magic lures... And they never seemed to fail him. I can recall my first time buying my own lures, I made sure to get a bunch of red devils and 5 of diamonds in various sizes and could not wait to use them and hall in the fish.... long story short I ended up going back to jigs lol.


Ohhh I jig them too with a strip of sucker belly attached…..ice fishing for lakers….works wonders!!!!

Did the same in Mexico, Cuba, DR fishing the reefs with a hunk of shrimp on….hang on as some of these reef fish are huge and some have sharp teeth too!

The warble of the spoon triggers an instinctive bite/chase etc

https://media1.giphy.com/media/wJt98DnjJHbJW46KsA/giphy.gif


It comes in a can too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jims83cj5]

I did/do the same thing, friends actually teased me sometimes because I have way too much gear all the time, until the bite goes cold or they break a rod then it’s, “do you mind if I borrow that or try this”,;sometimes we find something that works or just keeps someone going that would have had to quit because of no gear. Some stuff I buy may never catch a fish but it gives hope when nothing else is working lol. And yes I too always buy two if I lose one I’ll have another or if it does really work then I can let the person I’m with use the other. I’m fortunate enough that I can afford to do this now and when I retire and funds may be tighter I will have everything I desire to stay with the sport. Or, lol, to sell to someone like me, tight lines

[MyAlberta]

Yup, 5 of diamonds for me. I buy the canoe style for those extra casting yards, and equip all with an oversized single barbless hook.