WHY LURES

      When I sat down to write this piece, I made some notes; clean, quick, easy, interesting, challenging, mobile, cheap and so on. I was going to put fun in bold letters and talk about tackle and lures and swims; but when I started pulling out the photos, I found myself picking pictures of my friends. Sure the take is what excites me as far as the fishing goes; like this chub on the left that nearly had the rod out of Sharkey’s hand, but looking through the pictures, it is the friends that I have made since I started lure fishing that put it leagues ahead of all the other branches of the sport that I have tried.

     So straight away, I will start with some apologies. I am sorry that I haven’t put up pictures of all the other guys in the Lure Angling Society that have been so generous with their knowledge and their time to help me catch more fish. I am sorry that this page is going to have to serve as an intro to the title rather than the finished article. I am sorry but I thought it only fair to put my picture (above) first if only so that other anglers who see me on the bank have a chance to run away, before I talk their ears off - and that’s it, I’m done with apologising.

     Just take the time now to look at the variety of species that we have caught on lures. I have shown a few here, but I could also have put up shots of brown trout, rainbow trout, cod, bass, mullet, twaite shad, bream, carp, etc etc. I love the thought that the next fish could be a different species and that is what makes lure angling more interesting than  my previous life as a  reservoir trout fisherman. 

 

     It doesn’t matter what size the next fish is either; it is that heart-stopping pull on the line, especially when nothing has happened for a while, that keeps me going back. That sudden revelation of life in the steely-grey water on a winter’s day when it scarcely seems possible. The spectacular cart-wheeling takes on surface lures in the summer or the subtle pluck of an autumn zander mouthing the lure all add variety to the excitement.

     Above all for somebody whose soul lives out of doors, the wonderful places that I have take my lure rod over the years are worthy of mention. The sea, the lakes, the rivers , pits, reservoirs, streams and canals bring endless challenges.

     Different techniques, tackle and fish mean fresh puzzles to solve every day. That only leaves the weather and that can be - well - the icing on the cake at times. There is always something new to enjoy. How anybody can sit week in and week out ten yards from the next guy hauling out 3 lb pasties is the only unsolved mystery left in the angling universe that I’m not interested in.