'Snack' Lures

After getting reports from Jeffroman that the estuary was firing, I took a trip up with Jeffroman to pay a visit. If the fish were feeding on micro-lures, that's what we'll give em! We brought along a few Rapala Countdown 3cms with us on this trip. These were like super small bean-like lures that you'd probably "pooh-pooh" off at your tackle store but sometimes, fish like to snack too!

When using micro-lures, its best to go as light as you possibly can. A setup not more than 4-8lb would be best to maximize the fun and castability. Keep the tackle as light as possible and its best to tie the line directly to the lure with the Rapala knot. The action on the lure comes out better especially using those 'beans'. But being lazy buggers, Jeff & I didnt bother as you can see from the pics - we just clipped them onto our snap swivels (again, its not recommended - we were just lazy...and lucky!)

Pesky little things were everywhere

But they do give a nice pull

Micro-lures are good snacks


This Silver Grunter was slightly bigger and gulped down the entire 'bean'

Say ahhhh....

The chrome Skitter Pop 5cm

Jeffroman in action

Senangin @ Threadfin

Microlures!

(photos courtesy of Jeffroman @ minnow)

Jeffroman sent me a catch report on Storm Minnowstick a few days back.... 

He took his cousin Nic to a estuary retention pond to see if he could catch some fishies. Clipping on a minnowstick, Nic was soon in action! Bet he is hooked onto lure fishing now. Perhaps the fish were not interested in larger offerings, preferring to go for light 'snacks' instead. Storm works! :)

Snack time! 

Nice mangrove jack

Start them lure fishing when young

The BlueFox Herring Story - Part 2

Fast forward 1 year later...

By now the Bluefox Herring craze in Malaysia started to take off - they were pretty reasonable priced and people we snatching them up. Meanwhile, the folks that we regularly fish with began using them and found them also extremely effective on species like Tenggiri (Spanish Mackerel), Senangin (Threadfin), GTs, Queenfish, Barracuda and many others.

Often, I found the sizes 70gm-100gm the most ideal to work with a PE1-3 rod at that time (I think I can try to go lighter with new rod technology these days!).

Some of the catch pics over the years on Bluefox Herring jigs:

The Bluefox Herring Story - Part 1

Flashback to 2005... 

Light jigging had taken off for a while but I was just catching up with my own fun of light tackle jigging. Back then, light tackle meant rods of PE1-3, which is considered medium tackle these days for the kind of fish we used to target. These days, we've got PE0.8-2 and even less! 

I remember vividly the day when SL passed me a few pieces of BlueFox Herring in the 50 & 75gram range to try. At that time, we had just found a nice patch that was consistently producing Threadfin (Senangin) by bottom fishing. And with the 'introduction' to BlueFox Herrings, we eventually left the bait box at home! Word quickly spread around the local fishos as they scored their own catches on it and pretty soon (with the help of mags), BlueFoxes were seen in most jiggers' tackleboxes on little part of the country. Ever since, its also been my faithful companion in my jigging trips, producing all sorts of species.

In my opinion, the winning formula to a killer jig (or lure for that matter) that sells is:

1. It's gotta work!

2. It's gotta look good

3. It's gotta be affordable

Get all 3 in alignment and you've got a lure that not only is a hot cake in the market but also will eventually market itself as more and more folks use it and talk about it. I'm not sure how much the Herring currently sells for but back about a year ago it was hovering around RM8-10 a piece? Compare that with the more generic brands out there that costs around RM20-30 for a piece of lead. Doesn't take a mathematician to tell you which one you'd pick if you're a cheapskate like me. I mean, again the principles 1-3 above, if its catches you fish consistently, why pay more for something else?

As I muse and pen down my thoughts this early Saturday morning, I suddenly relish the feeling of jigging for Threadfin again... it's been close to 2 years since. Lets see if we can get back into some Threadfin action this December.