Elvis knew how to use shock and gyration (and sound -- I’ll
get to that) to attract attention. You can too……to attract Largemouth and Striped
Bass. And, yes that’s not really Elvis. Seems there are no free pictures of
him.
If you ever fished for Largemouth Bass you are probably
familiar with spinner baits and buzz baits, or Mepps spoons for that matter.
They all use a rotating blade to reflect light, and more importantly, to make
noise and vibrate. Think of a mini explosion under water. Water transmits sound
approximately five times better than air. Sound and vibrations are just
different frequency “signals” passing through the water. Think of them as AM
and FM radio channels and the fish as the radio. Noise is a lot “louder”
underwater and the “signals” travel much further than they do in air. I’m not going
to go into a lot of detail here but fish can both “hear” and “feel” sound and
vibration and use it to navigate their environment and locate food. That’s why
buzz and spinner baits work. They attract the fish’s attention and ultimately evoke
a reaction strike, not because they look like any naturally occurring bait
fish. They don’t.
Striped Bass are the ultimate God-made radio receiver, or
one hell of a sophisticated result of Darwinian evolution, depending on your point
of view. Their lateral lines are actually an array of sensors culminating in
the fish’s ear that the bass use to sense sound, vibration, and water pressure.
Imagine you could use most of our body to hear, not just your ear -- a Striped Bass
can.
I’m ultimately going to get to how to fish with a new line
of Striped Bass fly fishing products I’m
helping to design, but for now let’s stick to a common technique used around
Cape Cod and New England to catch bass: wire line jigging. Do you really think
that a pink parachute jig looks like a squid? I’ve never seen a squid wearing a
pink skirt. That is an oversimplification, and yes they do have the right
profile and if you jig them right, they “swim” like a squid……………but probably more
importantly the wire line acts like a piano wire in the water (it makes sound)
and the jig sets off a shock wave when you jerk it through the water……….and by
the way, most tackle shops rig wire line reels with long monofilament leaders
because tying a leader to wire line using an Albright knot is not easy for the
average fisherman. Long leaders are convenient because changing lures typically
necessitates shortening the leader. A long leader will last a while before you
need a new one. But you are perhaps shooting yourself in the foot if you use
one. Mono stretches by nature and every time you catch a fish it weakens a
bit, and, long leaders stretch more than short leaders. This results in less “snap”
in the jig and correspondingly less of a shock wave. Think of a dinner bell with an attenuated ring.
You might not be able to hear it and thereby miss dinner. In my next blog post I’ll discuss how to avoid
that.
P.S. Big Striped Bass are all females. Hence the “attracting
females” references in the blog post title.
