When I started lure fishing, around 10 years ago, I started with a selection bought from the then Harris Angling Company. One or two of them caught fish. One or two of them didn't. And the rest ended up festooning trees, lost on snags, or sold on eBay.
I pressed on all the same, graduating to better rods, getting better at using multipliers and learning the actions of different baits. My collection grew in leaps and bounds, until I gradually tired of wandering the banks, slinging lures for a succession of jacks and the odd double.
After a season or two when I've hardly ever used them, I've decided to dust off a few and give the method a second chance.Rummaging around the house, I'm surprised to find how many of the things I actually own.
Losing count at over 100, I wonder what ever possessed me to buy them all. I must have fished with most of them at some point, but less than a tenth of them probably ever caught anything.
Most reliable of all were Rapala Shad Raps and J13s, closely followed by spoons. One or two of the jerkbaits I bought, during a brief flirtation with jerkbaits, caught. Another dozen or so didn't.
I also found boxes of soft plastics, of different shapes and sizes. I must have been really into them at some point too. Yet most failed spectacularly to deliver much apart from the odd jack.
They say the bad workman blames his tools. I can't deny an element of this when it comes to lure fishing. As I lost faith in it, I returned to baits and occasionally caught the bigger fish which had eluded my efforts with lures.
So why go back..? Because it's different, it's a change and there's an obvious box which needs to be ticked, having never caught a twenty on a lure. If I prune my collection down, add a couple of new hopefuls to the old favourites, who knows.
If I can shake off my hoodoo, it'll be the hardest-earned twenty I've caught in several seasons. That's reason enough to give it another go.
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