How do you choose a winning lure for fishing?
The question of “will this lure catch fish?” is always something we are constantly asking ourselves. There are many lure manufactures to choose from and new companies are starting up every year. Over the last couple years, we have found and bought many different lures to try for kokanee fishing. We have also been sent some lures by various lure companies to try and are still trying our best to fish them all.
Can you have too much tackle? While the simple answer might be yes, the truth is that it all works at one time or another.
I often find my self buying new lures that are packaged well or look “fishy.” My family also seems to have taken on my lure collection hobby and they also pick a “winning” lure while we are at a store, which gets everyone excited to see if their choice of lure selection was a good one.
This past weekend proved to be another fun time for everyone choosing a winning lure. Sarah and I have been having a little friendly competition over the years every time we go fishing to see who can catch the first fish, the quickest limit and the biggest fish (sometimes the smallest fish wins too). Our boys have also been having fun collecting their own tackle and fishing how they choose to see if their gear can catch fish.
The first day proved to be a win for those of us who like jigging for kokanee in our family. We arrived at the lake and Sarah was excited to try her new Spitfire Fishing Products hoochies that she picked up in Kamloops this year at Casting Loops Fly & Tackle. Unfortunately, while setting up the boat I realized something was missing. I forgot the downriggers at home, not on purpose, but luckily this meant we would have to do some jigging for kokanee on the calm lake that waited for us.
Austin managed to get the first kokanee, while Ethan caught one on a jig he made out of a new buzz bomb he had and a new UV clear hoochie. I was excited to fish and be successful with Kokanee Slammers that were sent to me to try by Stan this spring. I’ll be buying more of these when I need more. These jigs are made in the Kootenays and work well. If you need some, message Stan and he will mail you a great product that might even work well thru the ice (I’m looking forward to try them during ice fishing season).
Today was even better than yesterday. We all chose our lures for trolling and had our jigs on standby in case the wind died down.
While trolling is fun, jigging is a “new to me” method of fishing for kokanee on open water. I was hopeful that the wind would die down and we would get another chance to jig.
Our starting line ups were a clear wedding band Sarah got from Russ Wardell at Moosehaven Resort on Hathaway Lake paired with a 6 inch white sling blade she picked at Lone Butte Sporting Goods Ltd on one rod. The other rod had Sarah’s pink/chartreuse sparkle Spitfire hoochie paired with a 4 inch Luhr Jensen Canada skateboard dodger. We used pink anise corn on both lures. While both setups were getting hit constantly, more times than we could count on both our fingers and toes, we were not able to keep fish on for too long and only ended up with 2 fish in the cooler from trolling. I was even debating on trying a rubber snubber paired with our kokanee rods to see if it would make a difference.
I believe our issue was boat speed today while trolling. My stubbornness and hesitation on deciding on a secondary trolling motor has left us with only our oars as a back up means of movement (I have had the boat up to 1.4mph using them). I was able to get our boat speed down to 1.8mph at times, but our average speed was 2.10mph. Normally, I prefer to do throttle bumps (speed up) and then slow down my speed. Today I had to go the other way and slow down then speed up which I hypothesize is not the best way to entice a bite. I’ll be testing this theory out a few more times this year unless I decide on a kicker motor.
As the winds died down, my eagerness to try jigging was becoming more apparent. As the boys re-tied lures I quickly jigged off the side of the boat, but without success. Then, as if a switch was turned off, the lake went calm and we were able to pin point a few locations with decent sized fish hanging out in 50ft of water on the bottom and up to 30ft off the bottom at times.
We caught kokanee on chartreuse, orange and pink Kokanee Slammers, an ice fishing setup and Ethan’s new Buzz bomb/hoochie jig except with a twist. Ethan turned the hoochie upside down and tried fishing it tipped with corn. I was amazed at how well that jig produced today.
One fun idea I’ve had after this weekend was a lure sharing program of some sort. I’m not sure what this will look like, but I’d love to start something to help others get into fishing, continue fishing by trying new things or simply something we can do as group members to help keep our kokanee fishing adventures interesting. We have a few group geocaches at a few lakes here in British Columbia as well. Be sure to search #geocache in our group for some of the lakes that have one. Places to look are; Horse, Sulphurous, Deka, Hathaway to name a few.
What lures will work next time? It all depends on what the kokanee want and what lures we choose to fish from our collection of lures. I have a few more “tricks” up my sleeve to try next time Sarah and I go fishing. While there was no competition between Sarah and I this weekend (she doesn’t like jigging….yet), Ethan proved to be a worthy opponent to try and see who’s lure can catch the first fish, the quickest limit and the biggest fish. Maybe a friendly competition is in order to help keep our adventures fun on the water and give us something to look forward to. A “secret” weapon challenge!