I Just Keep Pluggin’ Away

Something from the tackle box:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light:  and there was light  (Genesis 1:1-3 KJV)

a nice pike taken on a "Lucky 13" this summer

nolan and grandma feeding the camels

       I went to the zoo with my three grandchildren last week.  It is one of those zoos where you can feed some of the animals from your hands, carrots to the giraffes, leaves of lettuce to the camels, tiny seeds to the parakeets.  I think the grandparents enjoyed this as much, or maybe even more, than the children did. 

       At the end of the outing, near the exit to the park, we came to the koi pond.  It wasn’t that exciting of an exhibit to look at.  The water was rather murky, and even though you could see the shadowy forms of a few fish meandering back and forth below the surface, it all looked pretty drab.  But then I saw the dispenser for the fish-food pellets.  I knew that for twenty-five cents you could bring those shadowy and lazy swimmers to the surface in a bright orange, snow white and jet black blotched feeding frenzy.  Koi can be beautiful when you get a good look at them near the surface and I figured it would be well worth the price of one slim quarter to delight the now tired grandkids.  That it did, and I had well over a dollar’s worth of quarters poked into that pellet dispenser before we could get the oldest to make the final exit through the gift shop and out to the car.  Beautiful fish roiling on the surface of the water are fun to watch.

       I am primarily a fly-fisherman, and a dry-fly fisherman at that.  The reason is simple; just like feeding the koi fish-food pellets at the zoo, there is something magical about actually watching with your own eyes as a fish rises to the surface of the water and strikes your well placed feather and hair fly with a splashing lunge.  It is an experience that is just not available when fishing with baits that ride below that plane where the air meets the water.  A fish may come up to splash around after it takes a bait below the surface, and that is certainly fun to watch when it happens, but that initial excitement of the strike is experienced differently, and to my mind less excellently, by those who must rely on the feel of a tug or the sight of a disappearing bobber to know when to set the hook on a fish.  And so I am primarily a dry-fly-fisherman, but not exclusively, as there is another method to bring fish to the top for a strike.

a tray from my box

       When I am out in a boat with my spinning rods, fishing for perch and bluegills that are hanging out in deeper water, I always pack along a few surface plugs in my tackle box.  It is not all that unusual to be out quietly jigging deep for pan-fish only to have your peace disturbed (quite pleasantly) by some larger game-fish busting the surface around your boat as it feeds on insects and minnow near the top.  This is especially likely to happen in the gathering light of dawn or the lowering light of dusk.  When something bigger starts advertising its hungry presence in this way I swap out a jig-head for a surface plug and test the hungry splasher’s interest in what I might have to offer. 

       I have caught some mighty fine fish this way, bass that are both large and small of mouth, as well as pike.  The largest Smallmouth Bass that I’ve ever caught in my whole life was taken in this fashion.  You can read about it in the post, My Week of Big Smallies, found under February of last year in the Blog Archive.  As I made plain in that story, it is just an absolute blast to catch fish this way!  

the plug is just right of his head

       Not only is it a lot of fun to catch a fish on a surface plug, the lures themselves are veritable works of art in comparison to most other sub-surface fishing lures.  Many people collect old fishing lures and the old hand carved wooden surface plugs are almost always among the most interesting and desirable items to aficionados of that hobby.  While I am not willing to pay the high prices that some of those old lures can bring, especially if they are like new in their original packaging, I have managed to pick up a dozen or so old wooden plugs at yard sales and second hand shops over the years.  Displayed in an old tackle box they are very beautiful indeed.  But I don’t just look at them, I fish with them too, as watching a big old fish take an old wooden plug adds even more to the fun! 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Any honest fisherman, even those who love fishing on the surface like I do, will tell you that you are going to catch far fewer fish working the top of the water with a plug than you will going down underneath with a rubber worm, beetle-spin, or some other well proven submarine crank-bait.  And it’s the truth, I’ve caught quite a few nice Northern Pike in my fishing days, but only a handful of them have come to the surface to take a top-water plug compared to the numbers that I’ve hauled up from the deep on a jig-head and minnow rig.  It’s the same with bass.  If it were the numbers I was most concerned with in fishing I’d probably have a tackle-box stuffed with nothing but purple rubber worms.  But, when it comes to catching fish, numbers are not my main concern.