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As in many other aspects of life, size does matter when it comes to lures. Both fishing trips described here were made from my Scout center console, but I posted it here on the main board as a piece of information rather than a specific fishing report.
When I fished on Monday, I tossed a variety of soft plastics into breaking bluefish. The smaller lures were hit on most casts. The one longer lure I threw was ignored until I tore 2" off the end and reused it. Then it got hit.
This morning I had a similar experience. I rarely throw hard plastic plugs and poppers, but decided to spend some time on each trip this month practicing. I came out of Sandy Point and headed south. I tried throwing a popper at several shallow points, but had no luck. Then I spotted a few birds whirling around at a location with 15-20 ft water depth. I rode over there and saw plenty of breaking fish. I first threw out a jighead with soft plastic to see whether these fish were rockfish or blues. It turned out it was a mixed group. After having one soft plastic tail bitten off, I attached my smallest popper. With the light chop on the water, I could not really pop it very well. Instead, I cranked it back at varying speeds such that it made a surface commotion and threw out spray. On the second cast, I hooked a strong fish that ran about 180 degrees around the boat. When I got it to the boat I saw it was a bluefish of 17" -- my largest blue of the year. I continued casting the popper and caught several smaller bluefish and several rockfish.
I wanted to try some of the other poppers in my tray, and put one on that was about an inch longer and fatter around. I cast it right into the middle of breaking fish time and again and caught only one fish in 25 casts. As soon as I put the first smaller popper back on, I began getting hits on every cast and hooked a few more fish.
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The difference in size was not too dramatic, but it must have looked or sounded different to the fish.
When I fished on Monday, I tossed a variety of soft plastics into breaking bluefish. The smaller lures were hit on most casts. The one longer lure I threw was ignored until I tore 2" off the end and reused it. Then it got hit.
This morning I had a similar experience. I rarely throw hard plastic plugs and poppers, but decided to spend some time on each trip this month practicing. I came out of Sandy Point and headed south. I tried throwing a popper at several shallow points, but had no luck. Then I spotted a few birds whirling around at a location with 15-20 ft water depth. I rode over there and saw plenty of breaking fish. I first threw out a jighead with soft plastic to see whether these fish were rockfish or blues. It turned out it was a mixed group. After having one soft plastic tail bitten off, I attached my smallest popper. With the light chop on the water, I could not really pop it very well. Instead, I cranked it back at varying speeds such that it made a surface commotion and threw out spray. On the second cast, I hooked a strong fish that ran about 180 degrees around the boat. When I got it to the boat I saw it was a bluefish of 17" -- my largest blue of the year. I continued casting the popper and caught several smaller bluefish and several rockfish.
I wanted to try some of the other poppers in my tray, and put one on that was about an inch longer and fatter around. I cast it right into the middle of breaking fish time and again and caught only one fish in 25 casts. As soon as I put the first smaller popper back on, I began getting hits on every cast and hooked a few more fish.
003.jpg
The difference in size was not too dramatic, but it must have looked or sounded different to the fish.
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