Lure Retrieves; What are those guys talking about?

Often people look at me with a bit of confusion as I explain to them different styles of lure retrieves. I will be rambling on in my typical fashion when out of the blue I use terms like twitch, stop and go, jerk and rip. These are all fairly common terms to me and I use them naturally in conversation with other hardcore fishermen, friends, family and kids wanting tips at the lake.

In the past I seldom realized that most people were only guessing what I meant by these terms. They are terms that are commonly used in television, magazines and other media for different lure retrieves. They are fishing terminology that I have become accustomed to. My wife started reading some of the magazines that I subscribe to and seemed to have questions regarding what these words were actually referring to. I came to the realization that most people are not accustomed to the “industry” terms for many of the common lure retrieve techniques.

Most of these words are describing the action that you as the angler are giving to the lure retrieve. This is done by manipulating the fishing rod in your hands.

Here are some definitions for a few of the terms that one might want to know a little more about.



TWITCHING;

Twitching is really nothing more than using fast movements to give a lure a darting erratic pattern as you retrieve it through the water. You control how much you twitch is in the lure retrieve, how fast and so on. Twitching is most commonly used with jerkbaits, top water baits. I twitch safety pin style spinner baits as well, especially in shallow water on a hot day.

JERKING;

Jerking is most commonly use with the…….you guessed it, jerkbaits. Jerking requires a lot more rod movement than twitching. Typically you are moving the rod downward and to the side 25 – 45 degrees from your starting position. You then take up the slack line and repeat. When you are retrieving the slack line the lure will most often do one of three things, float, sink or suspend. The packaging on the lure will often tell you which one it will do. The motion of the jerking rod will make the lure dive deeper and/or change direction for a moment. The sudden change in speed and pause of the lure retrieve is often all it takes to trigger a hungry fish.

WALK THE DOG;

Walk the dog is a common term use when a top water lure is being thrown. On the retrieve you are twitching the rod, the lure will dart left or right. When you reel up the slack and twitch again the lure will go to he opposite side of the first twitch and so on until the retrieve is complete.

STOP and GO;

The stop and go retrieve is just as its name implies. I use stop and go retrieves all the time. When you are retrieving the bait a pause in the retrieve is the stop and the retrieving is the go. I use this method with great success in many types of lures. Suspending and floating plugs also with spoons. The trick with this method when casting spoons is not to let it hit bottom on the stop. Often a very quick pause is al it takes.

RIPPING;

Ripping is the term I use for retrieving bucktails and spoons right under the surface of the water at a high rate of speed. I rip bucktails over shallow dense weed beds for spectacular mid day pike action. I rip gold or silver spoons over shallow lake channels for great pike action. Sometimes ripping the lure through the water is just what its going to take. One place that I use ripping often is when I cast a spoon past a dense weed bed into weed less water. As soon as the spoon hits the water I crank it hard to get it to the surface and passing just over the weed tips. Aggressive pike can’t resist this method in the spring on some of my favorite reservoirs.

JIGGING;

Jigging is done vertically by dropping the jig into the water letting it hit the bottom then hopping it every so often. Vertical jigging is performed from a drifting boat, anchored boat or through the ice most often.

Another way to jig a lure is to cast the lure out, let it hit bottom then under a carefully controlled movements, hop the jig back to you. Jigging is often more of finesse retrieves than most others. Sometimes the least movement you can put on it the better, other times, hard and fast is the only way to go.

Now that you all know most of the common basic terms, hit the water and use that tackle the way it was meant to be used.

Custom Search