Distinctive
Profiles Lure Predators
“I’ve seen it make all the
difference in the world. Not every time, but fish definitely
show a preference for certain shapes on a lot of days.”
-- Hank Steele, longtime Rapala
Club Administrator
All of us at least pretend to
know something about the business of getting a fish to bite. We
plug our past experiences into the computer, look at the water
conditions, thrust a wet index finger into the air and grab a
lure.
Then we cast it out there, or
put it at the end of a trolling setup, and see if it works.
There
are countless variables in fishing, so anything you can do to
put the odds in your favor has to help. Dick Sternberg, a Rapala
pro staffer and former fisheries biologist, has an interesting
theory that guides his lure selection depending on what species
he’s targeting.
“It’s not anything scientific,”
he warns, sounding like the biologist he was. “It’s more common
sense than anything else.”
Here it is:
By paying attention to the
feeding tendencies of the fish you want to catch, you might be
able to choose a bait ‘tailor made’ for catching it.
It works something like this:
Short, compact predators such as largemouth bass tend to favor
prey such as sunfish—short, fat items. Predators like walleyes,
northern pike and muskies tend to favor relatively longer,
slimmer prey items such as smelt, perch, shad, smaller walleyes
and the like.
Long,
thin minnowbaits like this original floating Rapala is an ideal
shape for targeting long-bodied predators like this walleye, and
muskies, pike, and the like. There is much crossover, but it can
also make sense to target bass with relatively shorter, fatter
crankbaits like the Fat Rap and new DT series.
“Fish will eat what they have
to eat,” says Sternberg. “If a hungry northern has nothing but
bluegills in front of him, he’s going to eat bluegills. But in
waters where they have a choice, they definitely will select for
certain types of food over others. Food preference studies show
this.”
Okay, you say, what does this
have to do with my fishing? It has to do with putting the odds
in your favor. Assuming certain types of fish tend to select
certain shaped prey, you can select lures of those shapes to
represent them. After all, the science of catching fish is all
about putting something natural looking in front of the fish,
something the fish is used to looking for.
In other words, it’s no
coincidence that short, flat lures like the Fat Rap and Rapala
DT crankbaits have a reputation for taking largemouth bass. And
that longer, slimmer minnow plugs like the original floating
Rapala, Husky Jerk and Tail Dancer are known walleye killers.
Their general shapes tend to appeal to the predatory instincts
of different fish.
“That doesn’t rule out the
chance of catching walleyes on fat crankbaits,” says Sternberg,
“or of catching bass on a Husky Jerk. We all know it happens all
the time. You can’t make any rules about it, but there does seem
to be this general pattern.”
This tendency has developed in
these fish. It no doubt has something to do with different
shaped prey giving off different sets of vibrations. A predator
learns to key in on the vibrations of its favored prey. A lure
shaped like that prey probably gives off a similar set of vibes,
triggering an uninhibited feeding reaction. In situations where
the fish can use its eyesight, the shape likely looks ‘right’ if
it’s like that fish’s ‘normal’ prey.
It’s also possible that
‘like-shaped’ fishes are ideally suited for tracking each other
down. In other words, perhaps a bass, with its football-shaped
body of similar physique to a small sunfish, is able to more
easily match the sharp turning movements of a sunfish, making
the bass a more efficient predator of sunfish-shaped prey than,
say, a pike, with its elongated body. The longer-bodied fishes
may be better suited for tracking down like-bodied prey, with
lightning-fast bursts of speed, minus the need for hairpin turns
during the pursuit.
It’s not a law, but how many
immutable fishing laws do you know? A lot of times, it pays to
listen to the experiences of top fishermen like Sternberg.
Sometimes, by doing something as simple as selecting a certain
shaped lure, you can actually influence the odds of catching the
fish you want.
Note: This article was crafted
by the Rapala Pro Staff. For more fishing insights, go to
www.rapala.com.
