WHY SHOULD YOU USE A CERTAIN PLUG FOR DIFFERENT SITUATIONS?I will explain the different styles and characteristics of plugbaits here, this should help you pick the right lure for your current location. They are a hugely popular type of lure worldwide. The term plug covers a whole range of lures in this category. Some examples are; Jerkbaits Almost no two are designed the same. Some are short and fat, long and skinny, big nose and little body. Most diving plugs have a lip on their nose that “hooks” the water and pulls the lure down. The most famous would be those made by Heddon or Rapala. They build hundreds of different styles and work great. My tackle box is full of them. There are surface, shallow diving, and deep diving plugs. Some of these lures suspend in the water column some float and others sink. Each style of lure has its own advantages and disadvantages for fishing certain types of cover and structure. Most plugs are made of plastic or wood and include a metal or plastic lip on the nose, sometimes jointed in the center with additional hardware. There is an eyelet fastened to the front to attach your line and one to five treble hooks grace the underside of the lure. The lures are finished to look like a fish. Sometimes they are ultra realistic, others somewhat outrageous but most of the lures on the market will catch fish when the fish are biting. The size of plugs is also very diverse; I have plugs as small as ¾ of an inch for Trout and Perch and 15 inch Cranks for large Northern Pike and Musky. I have caught 6 inch pike on a 12 inch minnow. Quite a sight when you pill that out of the water. It just shows how much of a predator the Pike is.
Most plugs will rise to the surface when let still in the water but dive as soon as the retrieve starts again. Once they dive they produce a side to side swimming motion that looks like an actual bait fish swimming through the water. The lure will also produce some flash and vibration as it moves which also triggers fish to strike at a lure. This action is the action that the lure manufacturer designed the lure to have. Any good fisherman can trigger strikes by varying the retrieval speed, using a stop and go method, a jerk method or just the occasional twitch or the rod tip. SURFACE LURES Surface lures are sometimes called stick baits or top water baits. These lures do not dive at all. These lures typically have no built in action; the action is left up to the fisherman to create. Top water lures sometimes have a spinner blade or propeller blade that spins when the lure is retrieved. Many also create noise when retrieved. Surface plugs are retrieved with a “pop and stop” type of retrieve most of the time. A constant retrieve often doesn’t trigger fish strikes as much as a stop and go retrieve does. SHALLOW DIVING LURES Shallow diving tackle is used when fish are suspended in the water or the water is shallow. When retrieved, these lures will not dive past a depth predetermined by the manufacturer. If you are casting into 7 feet of water you would want bait that will not dive deeper than 6 feet or so. The type of line you use, the length of line behind the boat if trolling, and the speed of the retrieve all affect the depth that a lure will dive. DEEP DIVING LURES Deep diving style lures are used when the fish are deeper in the water and you want a realistic looking bait to get down there. The deep diving versions of these lures are basically the same as the shallow versions but dive to deeper depths. THe depth of deep diving lures is also predetermined by the manufacturer. DIFFERENT LURE CHARACTERISTICS SUSPENDING Suspending Baits do just that. When the retrieve stops they suspend where they stop. Most baits do not suspend indefinitely but only for a few seconds before they rise or fall. This keeps the lure in the fish’s strike zone for a small amount of time and often can be the difference between a good day and a bad one. FLOATING There are a number of reasons to use a floating bait. I use a floating jerkbait when I am casting into submerged structure like logs. A person can retrieve the lure like normal, then by pausing the retrieve before the lure hits the structure the bait, because of its floating characteristics will rise up until the lure is shallow enough to be retrieved past the structure. SINKING I use the sinking style on a very regular basis. A lot of the water that I fish has some deep narrow channels and I can cast the lure out, and let I sink into the zone I want it in before I start the retrieve. It lets me get the hook into the strike zone before it gets to the fish.
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