What's Best?

Trying to choose a lure nowadays is like walking down the cereal aisle in the grocery store. Too many colors, names, sizes and flavors. Whatever happened to a straightforward choice between a Kastmaster and a Hopkins? Or an Atom and a Gibbs? How do you pronounce Yo-Zuri anyway?
In the end, you buy up a selection of spoons and poppers and plugs and jigs and fill up a good sized tackle box with your armory of lures. This twenty pound monster gets lugged around until the hinges rust away or you get the idea of a smaller, lighter tackle bag.
Great! Now you can choose a few of your best lures and throw the bag on your shoulder for a walk down the beach or a quick run out to look for breaking fish. This is much easier than carrying around the big box.
But which lures are your best? Think about it. If you knew this years ago, you wouldn't have all those other sticks and tins in the big box.
This is a question on a par with who you would want to spend the rest of your life with on a desert island. But much more important, of course. More comparable to perhaps, "should I call or raise on two pair when he has jacks showing?"
My thinking is this. We have only so much time on the water to figure out what lures work best and the best way to work them. Few of us have enough chances at fish when they are there and biting to play around with different lures and techniques.
If we could bring our lure choices down to, say, half a dozen then we could actually learn to get the best from each lure. We could carry spares for each and still have enough room left in the bag for all the other stuff we might need.
So this is the challenge, take a hard look at your big box and shoulder bag, if you have one, and be honest about what you actually use. Lay them out in front of you. Of these dozen or more, try to narrow your choices down to just six lure types. Think about how to cover most of your usual fishing possibilities using those six lures.
Take into consideration the different waters you fish. Do you use mostly topwaters? Are plugs the backbone of your success? Do you rely on jigs when the going gets tough?
Next, refine your selection to the weight and color of each that works best for you. Sure, its nice to have choices but you probably use and catch on one combo more than all the rest combined.
If you do this, I think you'll find that you really do most of your catching (not fishing, mind you, but catching) on just a handful of lures from your box.
By narrowing the field, you will give yourself the opportunity to concentrate on the refinements of technique for each lure. How many ways do you know to work that plug that you know is the right size and color for stripers in the spring? Is your spoon choice suitable for ripping the surface, swimming in mid-depths and jigging deeper water? Can you cast, troll and jig your leadheads? Is there one lure you own and know so well that you use it almost exclusively as your search lure because of it's success rate in most waters?
Now you've made your choices, commit to using them for a month or so. This shouldn't be a hardship if you've chosen with forethought.
By narrowing the field and concentrating on just a handful of lures you give yourself the opportunity to become the master of those approaches. You more quickly reach a higher level of expertise that allows you to fall back on the "sure thing" of these lures when you are done experimenting with other tackle. And you can more determine with more confidence that the fish "just aren't there" and move on more quickly.
You will also discover more satisfaction in your fishing once you break away from the constant lure changing and searching for what's "right". Now when you use something else, you have a yardstick to hold it up against.

If your big box is small and you don't have any idea where to start in making your lure choices, here are the short lists from a few of the Cape locals. These are the core lures of their fishing success. I figure this information is the rough equivalent in value to spending ten years on the water.

Cooper Gilkes, owner of Coop's Bait and Tackle on the Vineyard spends more than a bit of time surf casting, boating and guiding for the best fishing to be found. His lure selection reflects years of refining what works most often to yield the biggest fish.
Coop uses thirty pound test line to handle the heaviness and size of these lures. His selection is matched to the excellent availability of big stripers, bluefish and bonito found around Martha's Vineyard.
1) Danny Plug, 3 1/2 oz., white, swimmer. This plug is for stripers and meant to match the early herring runs of the year.
2) Darter, 2 1/2 oz., white. Use this in the heavy rips and big tidal areas along shore. Surfcasting for stripers and blues, best at night, fished very slow, barely moving.
3) (Coop's) Needlefish, 1 3/4 oz., white. Cast for stripers in rocky water.
4) Atom Striper Swiper, 3 oz., blue-silver. Cast and pop around rocky areas.
5) Rebel Fast Track, J30, mackerel pattern. Mid-depth trolling for bonito.
6) Kastmaster, 3 oz., blue-silver. For bluefish and stripers in the surf and rips.

Andy Little is the fishing manager at the Powderhorn in Hyannis and guides on Nantucket Sound. His lure selection reflects the wider range of fish size and diversity of fishing grounds he encounters in the Sound and along the south shore of the Cape. His selection is also the most forward thinking of the three offered here, demonstrated by the inclusion of lures only recently made available in the area. He fishes 15 pound test line.
1) Heddon Excaliber Spit'N Image, saltwater, hickory shad, F7 with a Finstrike bucktail single hook 3/0 trailer added. For striped bass and bluefish this is a topwater "commotion" lure.
2) Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow, DS, floating, 5 1/4", 3/4 oz This is an inshore lure for schoolie stripers in bays, channels and around grass in water up to 15'.
3) B2 Squid, white head, pink body, 1 oz. Use this lure in 10' to 20' of water with current, bottom jigging for stripers and blues.
4) Deadly Dick, 2 oz. long, blue. Long cast and swim this lure along the surface or top 5' of the water column for bluefish and stripers. Excellent scouting lure.
5) Yo-Zuri Metallic Sardine, 1 3/8 oz. For stripers, this is a long cast lure that works the top 20' of the water with plenty of action and flash. Can be jigged in deep holes and along dropoffs.
6) Gibbs Pencil Popper, 2 oz., mackerel. Bass and bluefish on the surface. Use as a search lure in the rips or inshore. It can be fished both fast and slow.

The final short list of lures is my own. I fish and guide on Pleasant Bay and along both sides of Monomoy from the flats to Pollock Rip. Fish in this area may range from 10" schoolies to 44" cows and up to 16 pound blues. I fish 14 pound test line and set a light drag.

1) Acme Fiord Spoon, 5/8 oz., chrome/blue. This is my search lure for stripers fished near grass and in channels from the surface to the bottom, swimming or jigging. Wobbles at very slow speed.
2) Deadly Dick, 1 oz. long, green. My other search lure but for bluefish in more open water and the Atlantic. A sand eel imitator it fishes from the surface to 50' deep. Long cast.
3) Crippled Herring, 1 1/2 oz., chrome-blue. A herring fry imitator for the ocean and up to 50' of water, swimming and jigging. Long cast.
4) Atom Swingin' Swiper, 1 1/4 oz., blue-white. Striper and blues popper. Single hook limits grass fouling.
5) Gibbs Pencil Popper, 1 1/2 oz., yellow. Bluefish popper and attractor. Effective over any depth water.
6) Bomber Long-A Mag, 1 3/4 oz., black. A great night swimmer for stripers. Retrieved slowly just under the surface.

The obvious omissions to all of these lists are the true jigs rather than jigging spoons and also the plastic baits.
Both are obviously very effective lures, sometimes the only thing that will work! But in narrowing a selection, the spoons do such clear double duty that they remain a very attractive alternative.
As for the plastics, their only drawback may be their light weight and thus shorter casting distance. A quick look at all of the lists above suggests that casting distance is a significant criteria for choice.
If you have already narrowed your lure selection from experience or are giving the idea a try as a result of this article, consider sharing your choices with the rest of us. Just drop us a line specifying your six best lures; when and how you use them. I'll collect what you write and report back for all of us in the spring on the most successful lures for Cape Cod.
Of course you may want to keep your hard won information to yourself. No one could fault you there, it takes hundreds of hours to figure out the very best. But if you are feeling generous, we'll all benefit from your experience.
Send your list to: Michael Eichenseer % CCO, Box 591, N. Chatham, MA 02650. Or Email it to me at michael@capecodoutdoors.com.
I'll get back to y'all in the spring.

I hope you enjoyed the article. My "Six Best Lures" as listed above are available as the "Chatham Pack" by mail. See the Chatham Pack page for more details. mge

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