Fishing with Rubber Lures

Perhaps there's no more exciting way of fishing for perch than by using rubber lures close to obvious structures in the water. 

Choose your fishing position carefully — you want to be close to the landing stage, the boathouse, that sunken boat, those flooded pilings... anything that is going to attract a shoal of perch. 

You don't want to have to cast a long way but simply flick the rubber lure out, let it sink down to the bottom, and then twitch it Lip and down, backwards and forwards until you get some sort of indication. Do your twitching — or jigging as it's commonly called — intelligently. -lust like working and lure, it doesn't pay to be mechanical. Try to inject as much life into your rubber as you possibly can!

Try different rubber shapes, colors, and sizes. If a worm doesn't work, try a lizard or even a little squid. Perch are great investigators, and you'll often find that they'll come close and study a lure for several minutes before making a decision. Often, changing the lure just a fraction in terms of shape, size or color will trigger an immediate response.

Sometimes you will find that the rubbers are just nipped a little or tugged. In these circumstances, it pays perhaps to trim a little bit off the tail. Do this in tiny fractions so the action isn't overly compromised. Or, you might try nicking a small worm on the hook to give that added sense of realism, and perhaps an increased odour.

See what I mean about lure fishing being for the intelligent, thinking angler? It's all about deception, and fish are very frequently less easily deceived than you would initially believe.

A dawn in the summer time. A nice warm clear morning, and just the time to try a floating lure. Choose something that really gurgles as you pull it back. Perhaps it will be a propeller blade, fore or aft, that throws off the commotion. Look for shallow water, preferably near sunken weed beds. The chances are that pike, zander, or other predators have come in during the hours of darkness to search for small shoal fish. Cast far, let the ripples spread, and then work the lure intelligently. Don't just pull it back at a steady 3 or 4 miles an hour — vary the retrieve. Stop the retrieve altogether for 3 or 4 seconds, let the lure just hang motionless in the water, and you will find that a lot of pike take at this moment. Look for any surface activity of small fish being chased — a dead give-away that a big predator is on the prowl. A surface lure cast over an area of commotion is likely to be taken at once — and ferociously. Prepare for fireworks.