MirrOlures

[summersoff]

T o be honest, MirrOlures are one lure I just don’t have a handle on. Heck, I don’t even know if I pronounce them properly. What’s with the capital ‘O’?
Anyways, I have a couple but I have never hooked up with them, and I have no confidence in them, but every southerner has at least five of them in their tackle box.
Are you guys using them? Are these just trollers or are you casting them? What numbers because there are bazillion different kinds.
Any help appreciated.

[Jim McFalls]

Yes, I use them almost exclusively for topwater fishing here in the bay waters, and in NC. I caught my largest stripers from the Hobie this summer using a She Dog. Also caught a couple of slot reds and scores of specks on that plug in the OBX. I also use suspended jerkbaits for stripers and specks in the surf. I swear by them. The She Dog makes a lot of noise on the surface, and larger fish seem to dig that.

Try one.

Good luck!

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[Redfish12]

Toadfinger has them pretty dialed in. I am not very good with them as I am too ADD to fish them as slow as required...

[summersoff]

Yes, I use them almost exclusively for topwater fishing here in the bay waters, and in NC. I caught my largest stripers from the Hobie this summer using a She Dog. Also caught a couple of slot reds and scores of specks on that plug in the OBX. I also use suspended jerkbaits for stripers and specks in the surf. I swear by them. The She Dog makes a lot of noise on the surface, and larger fish seem to dig that.



Good luck!

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Sorry, should have been more specific - yeah, have used the their spooks a ton, which are great for reds, drum and stripers. It’s the various ##M’s that have me scratching my head.

[Slobber Bob]

I feel the exact same way. I like Mirrolure top water lures, but I struggle to catch with the sinking, swimbait models I have (52M & 22MR). I carry the few that I've collected over the years in my tackle box, but they usually get bypassed whenever I open it up because I have such low confidence in them.

http://www.snaggedline.com/showthrea...ight=mirrolure

[summersoff]

I feel the exact same way. I like Mirrolure top water lures, but I struggle to catch with the sinking, swimbait models I have (52M & 22MR). I carry the few that I've collected over the years in my tackle box, but they usually get bypassed whenever I open it up because I have such low confidence in them.

http://www.snaggedline.com/showthrea...ight=mirrolure

Thanks for the link - good to know I’m not alone. They apppear to be so popular down south, and even in the Hampton’s area, but every time I put them on, I feel like I’m just doing a twenty minute sacrifice to the southern gods. Read your thread, maybe it’s just as well, they would be a royal pain to unhook a fish and swapping out the hook to a single would disrupt the action on such a small lure.
Thank again

[J.A. Veil]

My go-to popper is a MirrOlure C-Eye Poppa Mullet. I used to use a Stillwater Smack-It but caught more fish with the MirrOlure. When fishing with my kayak guide in Tampa, he sets me up with one of these with the two trebles still in place.

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I caught lots of specks (including two at once), ladyfish, and snook on that lure.

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I brought several of these poppers home with me and removed both trebles and added a bucktailed J hook on the back end.

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I had several years in which this lure did great on shallow water stripers in Eastern Bay.

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In June 2019, I was throwing it in the Keys and caught a 41" barracuda.
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While in Tampa, I also threw a Mirrodine. It is quite popular there but when I brought it back home, I did not catch well.

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Here is one with the trebles replaced by inline J hooks that I used locally for several months without too much success.

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[captmikestarrett]

I have caught monster snook on them and some big bluefish as well. Also many jacks too. My box had about 10 of them. They where all the older style like this.

Both sinking and floating. The newer ones I have thrown till my arm falls off and maybe a speckled trout here and there. They look great in the water but I have very little luck with them.
More of a southern thing as I used them in Florida as a kid.

Capt Mike

[J.A. Veil]

T o be honest, MirrOlures are one lure I just don’t have a handle on. Heck, I don’t even know if I pronounce them properly. What’s with the capital ‘O’?

MirrOlure is a trademarked name and relates to their use of mirrored finish foils ("mirrO") inside a clear plastic body. I have no knowledge of why the O is capitalized. I visited the MirrOlure factory in Largo, FL twice. The first time was in June 2016, and the company president (a friend of my Tampa kayak guide) gave me a tour. On the second later visit, Mark Bange and John Rentch came along for a tour by a plant supervisor.

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They make the plastic components there and ship them to Central America for assembly. The finished lures are returned to Florida for packing and distribution.

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[Mark]

MirrOlure baits have been produced in FL since the early 1950s.

I only know this because someone gave me an antique jointed wooden minnow fishing lure that they had found in a flea market. I did some research and found out that the wooden minnow was made by L&S Bait Company in the 1940s. L&S was located in the mid-west at that time. It began producing producing lures in the 1930s. In 1951 the company moved to FL. Even today, if you look up MirrOlure online, the company refers to itself as the L&S Bait Company of Largo, FL.

The plant tour that John referred to was very interesting. It's not a big production operation that you might expect for a nationally known company. We saw a relatively few number of employees operating specialized machines that stamped out the plastic components of lures. Some of the machines had been in use for decades according to our guide. Equipment maintenance was critical because in some cases their machines are one of a kind. The most square footage on site was devoted not to the manufacturing area but to the warehouse where the lure components made in FL are shipped offshore, and finished products are returned and then packaged for distribution to retailers.

[toadfinger]

Great lures and very well suited for locating specks by slooow trolling. Casting them requires being stationary as any drag from current or drift affects their position in the water column. I mostly use the 52MR sinking lures, which enable slow, deep trolling early and late in the season. But those trebles are trouble and not friendly to fish you want to release. However, L&S is expanding their line of Heavydine 18MR series, which are a sinking bait with a peanut bunker profile that can be very effective when specks are keyed in on small baitfish. The trebles on the 18MR can be swapped for single hooks, so I'm shifting over to these. One can also achieve the same slow, almost "levitating" presentation of the MirrOlures using light jigheads and neutrally buoyant soft plastics. The 4" D.O.A. C.A.L. split tail shads are something I use a lot, particularly the black with silver flake and the rainbow trout patterns. They are often as effective as MirrOlures and you only have to deal with a single hook. I frequently get a steady by-catch of stripers on the MirrOlures but there are more effective baits for them if that's what you are after.