Lure Fishing: Revealing Tactics & Tackle for The “New”(?!) Game in Town

Everywhere you look at the moment lure fishing seems to be exploding in popularity. The exciting thing is that this boom isn’t confined to the old dogs – there’s a whole army of younger generation coming into angling through lures.

At the same time, fishing with artificial lures of one kind or another is incredibly ancient – so it’s not as if this style only just got invented. However, there are a few cool things coming together at this time that might just have kick-started a rise in popularity.

Our Lure Content Hub contains a selection of articles & Videos covering some of the wide range of experiences available to the lure angler.

Before looking at some techniques that you might find interesting and useful, here's a table of contents so you can click on any heading below and go right to the sections that interest you:

Lure Fishing on YouTube

A big, big part of increased popularity is likely to be due to anglers finding YouTubers that they identify with – and seeing them go out and have great days of sport with a roving, mobile approach. As well as the fishing action – there is also a lot of really cool gear, lures and tactics being showcased in online video content all the time.

Lure fishing isn’t just confined to remote, countryside waters either– urban lure fishing is huge too. It includes ponds, lakes, canals and rivers. In fact, pretty much anywhere that is wet and might just hold a fish or two – you could find a lure angler. For instance, the popularity of the many street fishing contests has been captured in the Fox Rage Street Fighters series:

Probably another big factor in the exploding popularity, which you also see through YouTube, is the extensive and rapid trickle-down of battle-tested tactics, lures and rigs from the big money/high-budget Pro lure-fishing tournaments. When it became obvious that the tactics developed for bass tournaments in the USA worked just as well for a range of species all around the world – then global “hobby” lure angling took a big leap forward. 

It’s all a long way from chucking a Mepps spinner down and across the current and mindlessly winding it back…

Whether you enjoy the super-technical performance-boosts from Tactical Bassin’; the chilled out life-affirming exploits of the NDYakAngler; urban/bike-and-train-based and self-deprecating perch hunting with Perch Jesus, throwing big swimbaits with DB Fishing – or even the cry of “HHHHWWWONE-DAY!!” as Marling Baits gets to work on another 1-day build-to-catch episode – there’s cool stuff waiting for you on YouTube.

That’s not even touching on saltwater lure fishing. Again, on YouTube you’ll find saltwater lure fishing for for micro species, species-hunting (where you tick as many species as possible), Light Rock Fishing, Heavy Rock Fishing with venues and species from around the globe. Plus there’s the boom in BFS (Bait Finesse System) fishing in both cold-water/trout and warm-water predator (perch, bass, crappie, snakehead etc.) venues.

...Spoiled for choice you might say!

Here I’ll do my best to give a good run-down for anyone wanting to give modern lure fishing a go.

The Basic Idea of Lure Fishing

This might sound stupid, but I think it’s really important to understand what we’re trying to do here. Namely:

The layers of the water that predators hunt in vary with species and conditions (particularly temperature). Similarly, how willing a fish will be to actively chase a bait is related strongly to temperature (and to a degree, species too).
As in all fishing, the most important things to get right are:

Along with not spooking fish, location and depth are the main things that will determine success or failure...

Universal Guidelines for Fish Location

Predatory fish broadly fall into three categories of feeding tactics (and some species switch between those tactics depending on the conditions or season):

Of course there are specific examples that lie a bit outside those broad categories (e.g. largemouth bass removing “intruders” from their breeding bed sites) – but the above three situations will get you a long way down the road.

Recognising features is a huge advantage and there are a handful of ideas to learn that can really help you gain that advantage. For instance, if you know you’re fishing for ambush predators; you’ll be looking for great ambush points. 

These include:

For both the roving/herding feeders and the bottom-browsing feeding modes – anything that concentrates prey into higher densities will be the most important factors. In open water – rotating water currents can concentrate the tiny plankton that bait-fish feed on (my inner biology geek forces me to mention Langmuir Vortices at this point...).

Fish Finders for Lure Fishing

Whether it is locating the drop-offs, shoals of bait-fish or even your target fish species - for certain venues fish-finder electronics could be an important part of your lure fishing gear. A highly rated example is the Lowrance HOOK2, available with three different screen sizes.

The Amazon affiliates link below pays a commission to us for purchases made (without altering the item's cost to you). It's an important way of supporting our content creation - so thank you if you do use our link.

Of course, if you'd rather prevent Amazon sending us their payment - please feel free to navigate to that item directly.

Alternatively, there are now even fish finders that hook up to your smart phone via wifi (Amazon affiliate link for the Deeper PRO+ below):

By the way, did you know you can view a current list of search results for "Fish Finders rated 4 stars and above" on Amazon by  Clicking My Affiliate Link? The button below also shows you the same list:

Feeding Depth: An All-important Factor for Lure Fishing

With likely locations identified, covering the most promising feeding depth is next on the list of priorities. This is a chance to simplify your choice of baits from the bewildering range available to buy. 

Some sinking baits will have deliberate action built in – either whole-body fluttering in hard baits, or tail-working soft baits as the lure sinks through the water to reach the fishing depth. This means it is "fishing" through many different depths - even before the retrieve begins. Counting down that sinking phase can help identify the feeding depth - if you start getting hits at a certain point during the countdown.

Obviously, top-water baits are specifically for surface feeding fish and specialised bottom-fishing rigs are designed to get down quickly – and have the ability to be fished either statically or as part of an active retrieve along the bottom. Drop shot rigs can be set either fairly hard to the bottom or at any desired depth in the water column (but generally in the lower half to lower third).
Keeping the importance of feeding depth in mind, let’s look at some of the core types of lures

Quick (!!) Guide to Lures

As well as size, there are many other categories you can sort lures out into. Within each of those categories, you can also find examples of floating, sinking and suspension (approximately neutral buoyancy) baits. Whether they are soft or hard, bladed or swim baits; there’s a never-ending series of options.

Probably the best way to find your way through this maze is to fish with a few basic types (and to consult some of the funky rigging options that work for bass and perch). 

Doing this, you may get to a point where you’re thinking “This presentation is working OK, but I wish I had a bait that did “X”…”. As soon as you catch yourself with that thought – you know you can search the market for baits that do exactly what you want.
In other words, knowing what effect you want to achieve lets you work backwards to find the bait that gives you what you need.
Here are some basic starting points:

Soft plastic Swim Baits

Very versatile and may be cheaper to replace than equivalent hard baits.

These can be fished on a jig hook, cheb weight and offset hook, cheb-weight and "stinger" single barbless hook or dead-sticked/crawled along on a drop-shot rig. You can even add them as a “trailer” on bladed or simple skirted jigs.

Then as well as the "paddle tail" lures shown so far in this section, there are also curly "grub-tail" soft plastic swim baits which (along with a tail-swimming motion) tend to have a nice body-roll action when twitched. These tails have a much more fluttery action compared to paddle-tails.

There’s a nearly endless choice of colour, action, size and shape for these baits – so try to find out what the fish in your target venue are eating and then imitate/exaggerate those prey forms with your lures.

Creature Baits (Soft) in Modern Lure Fishing

Any multi-legged bug, crawfish/crayfish or even salamander moulded soft plastic designed to be fished on the bottom would probably qualify as a creature bait. Basically, stuff that is neither a fish nor a worm imitation is very likely to be a creature bait.

 Often the plastic used for these lures is buoyant – so that the bait sits straight up off the bottom when allowed to rest. Again, you can see many examples of how to rig creature baits by clicking here.

Soft Plastic worms

These can be just plain mimics of earthworms (with little to no swimming action when retrieved; but a lot of twitching and wriggling action when dead-sticked).

See my drop shotting article for a detailed description of dead sticking. You will also find grub tailed (or even bulbous tailed) worm baits which do have their own fluttering/swimming action when retrieved or fished on the drop. The roboworms (above) are a sinking bait (ideal for drop-shotting). In contrast, lures like the Nine Seven Tungsten "Fat Ass" worms (below) are highly buoyant and can be fished in a wide variety of ways - whether midwater or bumbled along the bottom to dead-sticked.

OK, What is a Stickbait? (Lure Fishing Pop Quiz)

This one can be really confusing – because the answer can be different depending on where you are from and what type of water you fish. For bass fishing in the USA, stick baits tend to be parallel-sided, cylindrical soft plastics (the classic example being a Senko worm). There are now lots of competing versions of this bait (e.g. the Z-man TRD shown below):

On the other hand, if you’re lure fishing around Australasia (especially in saltwater); a stick bait could be a type of lipless hard-bait designed to be jerked in a violent zig-zag retrieve.

There's more on lipless crank baits below…. To confuse things a bit more, hard stickbaits tend to be sinking baits – where a similar topwater bait would be called a “walk-the-dog” lure...

People spend a lot of time dreaming up new lures, so it's not surprising there are so many types available.

Hard Crankbaits: What is a Crankbait Exactly?

The simplest definition is a fish-shaped hard lure that wobbles from side to side when reeled through the water. Back in the day you might have called these “plugs”; but the choice of actions, sink-rates and diving depths now offers something for nearly every occasion when it comes to imitating bait fish. They come in two main varieties:

Lipless Crankbaits

These rely completely on the shaping of the lure body to create their wobble. Giving an angle to surfaces on the lure that are un-streamlined relative to the direction of pull, it is possible to create a wobbling, wriggling action. They are generally sinking or suspension baits – since it can be more difficult to get floating baits to dive in the absence of a lip. Here's Marling Baits showing the intricate care and design needed to get the surfaces of the lure body to get the bait to work properly in the water.

Probably the majority of crankbaits are not made in a lipless design...

Billed (Lipped) Crankbaits

The lip at the front of these lures creates action and can also control the diving depth of a hard bait. Lips that are set closer to perpendicular to the lure body tend to create a more level swimming action (and don’t dive deep).

The larger the lip and the shallower the angle to the lure body (as long as it is below horizontal); the deeper a crank bait will dive.
As well as the fairly tight wiggling swimming action of a classic crank bait; you will also find things called jerk baits on the market. Finding a good definition on how crank and jerk baits differ (that everyone agrees with) is not an easy thing to do. No wonder it gets confusing.

What’s the Difference between a Crankbait and a Jerk bait?

Some factors that tend to separate out crankbaits from jerkbaits include the generally shorter/fatter bodies of crank baits (vs. long, slender jerk bait bodies) and the often smaller lips (bills) of jerkbaits.

While jerkbaits usually will wiggle plenty when reeled in on a continuous rolling retrieve – they tend to be more prone to kicking out sideways when jerked hard and then allowed to pause. Presenting the flank profile of a bait fish to a chasing predator catches many, many fish.

Now the differences get a bit murky because although some crankbaits are designed to dive really deeply (even though they might float when paused) – you also get jerkbaits with various sink-rates which makes it easy to fish them at greater depth too. On the other hand, square-billed, floating crankbaits will fish close to the surface.

This all makes it quite difficult to separate out jerk from crank on the basis of fishing depth.

Crankbaits can do this too – but their strong suit is really a more continual roll or burn back through the water (perhaps bouncing the bill off some of rocks as it bumbles along).

Glide Baits

Often, but by no means always, jointed lures, these hard baits are designed to swim along in graceful, exaggerated “s” shaped gliding curves. When paused they will do a very exaggerated and slow broad-side presentation of their flank to any following predator.

Sometimes, when reeled in quickly in a “fast burn” style they will have a much tighter wiggle action (as the ICBM does above). A great trick can be to steadily reel a glide bait (so it is swinging rhythmically left and right at its natural cadence - and then give a couple of twitches (or a long pull) with the rod tip. The fish can lock onto (and often follow) the steady S-shaped swimming motion - and then the sudden wriggling kick forwards with a turn out sideways triggers the hit.

Standard Metal Bladed Baits

Spoons - a Lure Fishing Classic

Very much what they sound like... Whether a more of an elongated bar/fish profile or shorter tear-drop shape, these metal baits have a convex and concave side. The hooks are attached at one end of that metal and the line-tie at the other.

 These baits tend to cast well (due to their density) and flutter nicely while sinking - while giving an enticing wobble on the retrieve. Simple is sometimes best.

In-line Spinners

Depending on what type of fishing you mainly do (and when you started); these type of spinners might be the first - and perhaps only - thing that you picture in your mind's eye when someone mentions lure fishing. They have the advantage of working well simply by being cast out and then retrieved at a pace where you can feel the blade working.

Again, in particular situations they can be incredibly effective - it may just be worth thinking carefully about the most suitable hooks to mount on them to match your target species (and whether you're fishing Catch & Release or not). For example, certainly for trout's mouths, even de-barbed treble hooks might be well worth switching out for barbless single hooks. 

Spinnerbaits

I remember an early 1990's TV programme about pike fishing where a Scandanavian angler was introduced to an American bass-fishing spinnerbait. His response was "It's not for pike-fishing??!!". The crazy combination of v-shaped wire arms, jig-head and skirt plus offset flashing blades certainly look pretty wild.

Whenever you need to create water displacement, flash and a sizeable profile (without needing to throw a super heavy swim-bait), then it's worth trying a buzz bait. Although they sink, they can be fished pretty much anywhere in the water column from just on the surface, throught midwater right down to creeping along near the bottom.

The skirt material creates quite a large profile - without adding a ton of weight. It is also a good idea to add a soft plastic trailer of your choice to the jig hook. This could be a soft swimbait with a heavy paddletail, a creature bait with multiple appendages or even just a desirable profile with little inherent swimming action - depending on the effect you are going for.

The design with the offset wire arms is similar to what are known as buzzbaits. On a buzzbait, though, the blade will be a kind of propeller style - and these are fished right in the surface. The idea is that the propeller churns up the water surface and creates a huge wake (and lots of vibrations) to attract the fish during a steady/fast roll retrieve.

Speaking of fishing on the surface...

Topwater: Lure fishing Baits for Adrenaline Junkies

One of the most exciting things you can do when fishing with rod and line is to fish a surface lure and trigger that classic Topwater blowup as a good fish smashes into your bait in a shower of spray. Everything from frogs to ducklings, even snakes, mice and rats feature as imitative topwater baits.

As well as the buzzbaits mentioned in the previous section, there are some different mechanical actions to look out for including:

Poppers

These topwater lures have concave faces designed to create a popping sound when tugged through the water surface.

 You can fish these quickly and pop them back in a straight line retrieve or - for very cool effects, tug and release the slack line with your rod tip to create a "walk-the-dog" zig-zagging retrieve. Alternatively, you can even dead-stick these on the surface as we've discussed for sunk drop-shotting baits.

Whopper Ploppers (River 2 Sea)

There is a really distinctive "plip-plip-plip-plip-plip" sound when you retrieve a whopper plopper at the right pace. You need to find out the exact speed so that it makes that sound and pretty much spits up a single droplet of water with each rotation of the tail-piece.

For these you have the choice of a start/stop type retrieve or just a single-paced rolling retrieve. Matt Nelson of NDYakAngler on YouTube catches no end of chunk smallmouth bass on this lure.

Bait Finesse System Lures

Although, as with many sections in this article, there's a whole post's worth (and more) to share about BFS lures, here's a little cross section to give a flavour:

Hard baits for BFS

The flat-sided minnow in floating, suspension (roughly neutral buoyancy) and various sink-rates is the classic bait for mountain trout stream BFS fishing in Japan. Many designs include the parr-marks suggestive of yamame (Japanese trout) or the silver/grey/olive baitfish shades with a yellow patch behind the gill covers of the ayu (small, migratory Japanese fish that enters rivers in spring/summer; pictured below).

Soft Baits for BFS

Several of these have been included above already - basically, anything that matches BFS tackle in terms of lure-weight is being thrown on Bait Finesse gear. Including soft swimbaits:

Buoyant, soft creature baits presented on Ned rigs are a great option for targeting perch, bass, chub, trout and more in more lowland settings, lakes, canals etc. These are exceptionally great fun to throw on BFS gear - as well as spinning gear.

Lure Fishing Rods – Overview

Let's take a look at another essential component in lure fishing...

Rather than get super specific, it’s helpful to cover some basics. First of all, longer casts tend to be easier with longer rods – so understanding the fishing distance can help you make your choice. Similarly, if you need to reach out over plants and weed-beds growing at the edge of the water – a longer rod is very helpful.

On the other hand, shorter rods are much more convenient for fitting in underneath tight cover when fishing small streams. They are also easier to flip-cast without dumping your lure or rod tip into the water (or undergrowth) at your feet.

Secondly, lure rods come with a suggested lure-weight rating that they are designed to be able to cast (which makes it easy to match rod to tactics and lures).

Solid tips to rods are more flexible and can be used to create sensitivity to bites - e.g. in Drop shotting rods (or the ability to cast lighter lures in BFS rods) while still having enough backbone to set hooks and land fish. This is a good place to introduce rod-action:

Those different rod actions can suit particular casting applications – as well as just personal preference. With tip/fast actioned rods, the flex and then recovery or elastic rebound of the tip-sections of that blank happens in a shorter time than the time it takes for a rod of the same length to bend through to the butt and then recover.

So, slow actioned rods, with a slightly slower recovery can be an advantage if you are trying to carefully time the release point (i.e. when to let your lure fly) when using casting styles that rely mainly on the rod acting as an elastic spring or catapult.

Or, if you are looking for maximum range – and are able to load a fast-actioned rod hard enough to bend the stiffer sections of the blank – then you may gain some distance that way.

With the action and recovery of rods introduced, it’s worth mentioning that lure fishing rods come in two main categories:

Casting (or Baitcasting) Rods for Lure Fishing

These are designed to be used with baitcasting (or what, traditionally, have been called “multiplier”) reels. The rods for baitcasting reels typically have a trigger to help you grip the rod comfortably with the reel sat on the upper side of the handle.

That gives you access to the spool-release (and also direct thumb-control of the spool). For this reason, the line guides on a baitcasting rod are fished uppermost. The relatively direct angle of line peeling off the reel through the guides when casting means that there is no need to stand the butt guide a long way off the blank – or to make that guide in an especially large diameter.

Spinning Rods

Spinning rods don’t have the trigger grip, since the reel is fished hanging below the rod – and the reel foot fits comfortably between the fingers of your rod hand.

Similarly, the line guides are fished on the lower side of the rod blank (since the reel hangs below the rod, rather than sitting on top).

When casting a fixed spool reel, the line peels from a fixed spool reel fairly wide coils. Because of that, the friction of the line as those coils rub through the first guide (before they become a narrower, straighter line) might harm your casting distance. That friction is reduced by having a larger diameter butt ring – and setting the ring much further out from the blank on longer supporting legs.

Lure Fishing Reels

There are some choices to be made between the two main types of reel used for most lure fishing:

Fixed spool (spinning) reels

The fixed spool has the advantage that, with a properly filled spool, it can easily cast very light lures over a considerable distance. There are also many highly affordable fixed spool reels on the market.

 It is possible to teach a beginner to cast a fixed spool reel in a pretty short time. Even if the drag is relatively poor quality, you can play a large fish by using the backwind. In other words, nearly all fixed spool reels have a switch that allows you to disengage the anti-reverse. That allows you to reel in to bring a fish towards you and keep the line tight – or to very accurately wind in reverse to pay out line to a running fish.

Baitcasting reels almost never have what you would call a backwind feature...

Even the early models of baitcaster that do not have a free spool mode (where the reel handle spins in reverse during casting) are difficult to use for back-winding. This is due to the crank arm being generally so short that the actual handle knobs spin so fast as to become a complete blur when a fish runs and takes line.

You’d really struggle to backwind fast enough to keep up in that situation!

Baitcasting reels

Baitcasting reels have a number of things going for them when it comes to a variety of lure fishing applications:

They do not introduce any line twist – even if you wind in while the drag is slipping. If you try that with a fixed spool reel, it can create so much line twist you may end up with an impossibly furled knot of nylon, fluorocarbon or braid.

For casting larger lures, on spinning reels you can get the painful ripping of the reel line pulling free from where you’ve trapped it against the rod handle for casting (while the bail arm is open). In contrast your thumb pressure on the spool is the only thing that is released during the cast when fishing with a baitcaster.

You have more control over the lure and the line while the cast is flying towards its target. Whether by magnetic or centrifugal brakes (or simply from light thumbing of the spool during the cast), that very slight resistance helps to cushion the lure’s splashdown.

On side-arm casts, adding a little extra braking can let you curve the lure to the left or right (depending on which arm you cast with – and whether your arm is going out to the side vs. a cross-body arm position).

The technology for building baitcasting reels is now allowing lighter and lighter lures to be cast on specialised “Bait Finesse System” baitcasters.

These need to have exceptionally light, shallow spools, strong – but highly adjustable - braking systems and ultra low inertia bearings. This is all necessary so that the inertia of the spool can be overcome by even a light lure – without having to throw it so hard it creates an uncontrollable, wildly-spinning spool.

Whether you have a spinning reel or baitcaster - you'll need to know how to correctly add line to your reel.

Lure Fishing Lines

As with lures, there is an overwhelming range of lines to choose from when it comes to loading your lure fishing reel. The most obvious categories to divide these into are braided lines and monofilament lines (of BOTH fluorocarbon and nylon/copolymer). I know that these days “mono” is used to refer to nylon rather than “fluoro” (fluorocarbon) – but technically it just means “one-strand”. Originally, saying mono was meant to tell you that the line wasn’t a multi-strand, braided line.
The main characteristics of these three types of line are:

Braid

Braid tends to have less coil memory, be smaller diameter for the same breaking stream, have almost no stretch, be good at resisting line twist, be very bad at resisting abrasion and come in a huge range of colours (from hi-viz to stealth).

Fluorocarbon

Fluorocarbon usually has less stretch than nylon – but more stretch than braid. It is difficult and expensive to dye, has pretty poor abrasion resistance in breaking strains below about 30lb, is often a little stiffer/more wiry than both braid and nylon and is denser/faster sinking than either braid or nylon.

Nylon

Nylon/nylon copolymer fishing lines tend to be the most elastic of the three types – while diameters can be comparable to fluorocarbon for a similar breaking-strain, they are thicker than braid. Nylon lines are much easier to dye than fluorocarbon and the wide range of different formulations can create a surprising range of textures from supple to stiff.

Bite-Proof Traces

Look, if you're going to fish for toothy predators like pike (or where there are a lot of pike present - even if you're targeting other fish); you'll need some kind of bite-proof trace (sharks are another good example!). In some sea fishing (and increasingly in pike fishing) very thick fluorocarbon is being used with some success (in the 50lb to 100lb breaking strain region.

However, if you're looking at wire traces (and are perhaps worried about losing the action of an especially wriggly bait) - then trying out braided titanium wire traces might be a way forward for you. Here's John with a great tutorial on how to make wire traces:

N.B - as pointed out by Jorvik Angler in the YouTube comments; stiff single strand titanium can potentially be good for glide baits and inline spinners - where it supports rather than hinders the action. Lure fishing, as with anything, benefits from choosing horses for courses!

Which Overall style of Lure Fishing Line Should I Choose?

Again, the best approach is to understand the application and effect you’re aiming for – and then work backwards to the best combination of reel and line type. Hopefully, using the information above on line materials and their characteristics can help you with that process.

Lure Fishing Retrieve Types

Although covering this subject could be a life-long project, it is definitely possible to get some foundations in place pretty quickly and easily. At the risk of repeating myself in this article, one of the most important things to consider is the depth your lure is covering. Your retrieve style - coupled with lure choice - is a big factor in controlling presentation depth. Taking the Fishing Discoveries cross-training approach, it is easy to see how these same mechanics also play a huge role in fly fishing for stillwater trout.

For instance, in that article linked above, pay special attention to the diagram/guidance related to counting down your lures and covering different depths (diagram from that article shown below for convenience):

Dividing retrieves up into three categories can help simplify choices on the water:

"Static" Lure Fishing Retrieves

Typical examples of this include using any of the buoyant soft plastic baits with additional weight to fish hard on the bottom (e.g. Ned rig, Neko rig, cheb-head and offset hook/weedless floating worm/stick/creature baits)- as well as drop-shotting or wacky-rigging sinking soft baits.

A combination of fishing "on the drop" (i.e. allowing the bait to sink gracefully through the water) and then long pauses with the weight or bait resting on the bottom forms the basis of this type of presentation. 

Soft baits presented in this way can be brought to life by twitching the rod tip - either vertically or from side to side - in order to create an attractive wriggling action. When line is not retrieved while doing this - it is known as "dead-sticking" (another tactic covered in our drop-shotting article). The strength of this presentation is to create a lot of enticing wriggling - while keeping the bait in the hot zone and maybe irritating reluctant fish into a strike (when they'd never muster up the energy to chase down a swimming lure).

"Level" Lure Fishing Retrieves

Simple Roll

These are the retrieves where you cast out and either wind straight back - or allow your lure to sink for a while before winding back. To help describe what has been working for you to your fishing buddy, it can be helpful to split the pace of those retrieves into "Slow Roll", "Medium Roll" and "Fast Burn" speed settings. Think of those as going up through the gears to match the fish's aggression levels (with the fastest retrieve being for the most aggressive fish with the most energy to chase).

Intermittent Jerks

Depending on the action (and diving behaviour) of the lure you're using - adding in extra twitches and jerks with the rod tip while you continue to retrieve can create side-to-side motion without having too much effect on the depth that the lure is swimming. In other words, adding in that extra "jerk-bait" action can still apply to level retrieve styles where you are keeping your bait in one depth band through most of your retrieve.

Continual Lateral Zig-Zags

Whether "walking the dog" for surface lures or doing the same at depth with a hard, sinking (lipless) stickbait - the clever use of hard sweeps of the rod tip; AND THEN FEEDING SOME OF THE SLACK to the lure on the pause can get a bait to walk from side to side as it comes back to you. For this to work you'll need to zip the lure along with a brisk rod tip pull and reel-handle crank; but almost as soon as you start the hard sweep you need to back off the winding and then start feeding the rod-tip back towards the lure. 

It can actually end up that you are more working the slack bow in the line than directly pulling on the lure. If there is no slack bow - there is no opportunity for the lure to turn and kite out diagonally

Undulating Lure Fishing Retrieves

One of the ultimate search tactics (as well as giving fish a different "look" at your lure) is to have strong up and down actions to your lure's retrieve path. This could be achieved by allowing a sinking lure to dip/flutter/swim downwards under light tension while pausing your retrieve (and then winding to have it loop up in the water). This is another application of a stop/start retrieve - only this time it has a radically different effect compared to what happens with a suspension jerk bait.

Interestingly, you also have strong vertical action (and coverage across multiple depths) when using that "stop-start" style of retrieve with a deep-diving/floating crankbait. Winding aggressively will cause the bait to dive down to its running depth - while pausing will allow the bait to rise up towards the surface. The exactly opposite effect of the pause on sinking vs. floating baits, creates a different look to present to the fish. 

Lure Fishing Round Up

Right - that wraps it up for this one. Although this is only just scratching the surface of the wide world of lure fishing - I hope it might give you some inspiration to target fish or venues that you've overlooked before.

If you've read this far and are hungry for more - I myself enjoyed reading Dom Garnett and Andy Mytton's "Hooked on Lure Fishing Hardback Book" - again for our mutual benefit I've made Amazon affiliate links to that book in this article:

The great thing about cross-training the different fishing disciplines is that it opens up so many more places for you to have fishing adventures. The mobility of fishing with a lure rod,  a handful of baits and a portable net is a fantastic way to explore.

There's great fun to be had either modifying or just maintaining your reels - and you can even get into making your own soft and hard baits if you want to.

Watch this space for us adding more on the various topics of lure fishing - either in this article or in the relevant links out to different topic areas. Also, let us know if you want to see more lure content on our YouTube episodes.

Paul