HI have fished seriously since I was about 20.
Predominantly off rocks or out of boats.
After getting married to a very avid fisherwoman, I started fishing rivers and lakes, her preferred.

Recently her brother, an even more avid fisherman, started using lures and was getting some brilliant catches.
That go me thinking.
I have never been successful with any lure, but my brother in law spent an entire afternoon going over the finer details of lure fishing.
And, suprise , suprise, I was doing it all wrong.

So off the the bait Shop
I bought a nice new Calcutta overhead, I like overheads and have several.
I purchased some good braid.
I purchased some of the brother in law's suggested lures and some insertable rattles.
And I bought myself a nice new, lure friendly 7 foot rod to match the Calcutta reel.

Several hundred dollars later I was ready to fish.
For the initiated, braid does not behave the same as monofilament line ( news to me)
Overheads are notoriously fickle things and will give you a Birdsnest with the slightest provocation.
Needless to say, even with careful tuning of my reel and lure combo, I nearly had several Birdsnests on my first outing.
It turned into an exercise of becoming familiar with my new rig, braid and lures, more than actual fishing.

Subsequent outings have been.........less than successful, with lures.
I get the occasional nibble, have decimated several lures, but catching a fish still eludes me.
I have never been the successful fisher that my wife or any of her family are, but I have caught and do catch fish competently with bait.

Lure fishing interests me.
But I can't seem to make it work.

Do any of you guys use lures?
Do you catch fish?
What's the trick?

Leroy wrote on Apr 6^th, 2026 at 2:19pm:


I have tried fast and slow, with easy and quick jerks.
I let the lure sink and then give it a juggle up.
I watched my brother in law and he makes it look so easy.

But they don't like me or my lure.
I have had quite a few inquisitive nibbles, and one nearly bite, but still nothing.

I guess I just have to practice, practice, practice.
The best bite I have had so far was when I did a short cast and was winding in fast to do another longer cast.
He latched on but somehow got off.

He tells me he changes lures until he gets some bites.
I only have 4 types of lures at the moment, all soft plastics, so I might need some more variety.

I mostly fish from kayak in river estuary and tidal lakes always on change of tide and preferably sunset/sunrise using soft body minnow either casting or trolling about 20m behind kayak. Works for me.

ODnarever wrote on Apr 6^th, 2026 at 7:47pm:


The little woman and I put the kayaks into Red Rock river on the north coast last year.
Wevdrifted from the mouth back into the river aided by the tide.
We must have just had one of those days, using fresh saught yabgies.
We caught about 20 each over the 4 hours fee were there.
All catch and release.

People fishing from the beach were catching nothing atcall.
This lead me to think that the movement across thevriver bed attracted the flathead.

We tend to use free bait where possible, but when we cantvwe use steak or chicken.
Prawns are great, but these are getting expensive.
This is another reason I am moving to lures.

Black or purple lures are best for after dark fishing.

Something like these

Some fishos soak lures in tuna oil or make paste and smear it on hard bodies but did not work for me.

[quote author=tallowood link=1775444029/10#10 date=1776059952]Some fishos soak lures in tuna oil or make paste and smear it on hard bodies but did not work for me.[/quote]

In the interest of actually catching a fish.
I purchased some "fish attractant" along with my new lures.

I did find that there was more interest in my lure for the first few minutes after application of said attractant.
However, not long after it was back to occasional nibbles.

It could be that I'm just not a good fisherman.

Example.
I was invited to to fishing with my wife's "male" family to go beach fishing as the whiting were biting.
She was excluded because she was female....each, I don't get it either.
I stood shoulder to shoulder with the other family members who were dragging whiting out of the surf one after another.
My bait remained untouched.
It was close to 40 minutes before I caught my first fish, which wasn't even a whiting.

We were all using the same bait, beach worms picked that morning. ( Something else I'm not good at)
We were all fishing into the exact same hole, all using the same style and size hooks and leader line.

When fishing off our boat, it was always my wife that caught the first fish, caught more and generally bigger ones.
I thought I had it made one day, catching an 80cm flathead (catch and release)
But less than 5 minutes later she pulled in an 82cm flathead ( catch and release)

The only type of fishing I am truely successful in is spear fishing.
I have pulled in some huge fish with my spear;
Line fishing is just not my forte.

But I am determined to catch fish with lures.
I will succeed.
...........I hope

freediver wrote on Apr 14^th, 2026 at 2:28pm:


Or take an orange (non Trump related).