The Lure of Fishing Lures

The only entity on earth more gullible than a fish is a fisherman. We prove it relentlessly because we believe that if you have the perfect bits of fur, feathers, plastic, or metal tied to your fishing line, you will instantly fill your kreel with trophy-sized fish. This lucrative psychosis is good for the economy but rarely turns out as expected for the angler. 

In childhood, my standard approach to fishing was a snelled hook and a worm. I grew up on a North Idaho ranch with a mile of pristine trout water on our land. I rarely remember coming home from the creek with less than my limit. Mom finally had to put a moratorium on fishing because our freezer was so full of fish that we could never eat them all. I was like the kid in my favorite Norman Rockwell painting carrying a stick pole and dragging a giant fish in front of three puzzled, envious, fully equipped fishermen. But now I’m one of those puzzled and envious fully equipped fishermen. How did that happen?

To answer this crucial existential question, we have to return to the summer of my eleventh year. My transition from practical to practitioner fishing started with a trip to our favorite retail location, the White Elephant on Division in Spokane, Washington. To this day, my brothers and I speak of the sacred White Elephant in hushed tones. It’s still there, but it’s not the same. There are no more actual WWII army surplus or oddities from fire sales around the US. It still has reasonable prices but nothing worth the treasure hunt fever that used to grip us boys as we roamed its crowded holy aisles. I picked up a fly fishing rod that fell well within my meager budget on the occasion in question. With the help of a clerk, I soon added a fly fishing reel, line, and a small box of dry flies that only required a small loan from my father. Suddenly, I was no longer a simple fisherman; I had joined an elite class. I was a fly fisherman, and there would be no looking back unless it was at that old Norman Rockwell painting.

I was soon hiking over our hay field on my way to the creek to become a fly fishing phenom. I’m ashamed to admit that I caught most of my fish on snelled hooks with worms tied to the leader of my new fly fishing rig. Still, I gamely whipped artificial flies up and down the creek; however, I mostly caught trophy-sized bushes with my classy outfit.   

During this early period of fly fishing development, the book, “Trout,” by Ray Bergman fueled my imagination. I spent many hours reading and rereading this classic, and I quickly learned that it was much easier to catch world-class trout in my imagination than on the creek. The best fly fishing I did in those early days happened on the hay field long before I reached the creek. That’s when I’d tie a bit of yarn to my leader without a hook and practice the long looping casts and backcasts that Bergman described. Then, I hit upon the compromise that led to my long-term enjoyment of the sport. My only goal in fly fishing is to lay that fly gently and precisely on the water’s ideal trout location. If I fail to hook the next candidate for my kreel, it’s the fish’s fault for not biting correctly. You’d be surprised what peace of mind that shift in responsibility brings.

The White Elephant and Ray Bergman may have started me down the path of artificial lures, but I have to admit that I have sampled the addictive powers of many ways of trying to fool fish. The outcome of all that foolery was to create more space in my wallet. I remember buying a small silver Rappala that caught my first two smallmouth bass. I think the sporting goods store planted those fish and aimed them in my direction. As it turned out, I was the poor sucker that got hooked on Rapalas. I bought them in a wide variety of sizes and colors. However, as time passed, it got harder and harder to find Rapalas among the burgeoning displays of plugs, spinners, and crankbaits that currently filled the racks. Although Rapalas were the gateway drug to my piscatorial lure addiction, I have recently found such an extensive proliferation of sparkles and bangles in my tackle box that mental blackouts are the only reasonable explanation.

Our recent winter migrations to Georgia have expanded the scope of possibilities for this fishing lure junky. With over 500,000 acres of lakes and 12,000 miles of warm water streams, I was fascinated by the Peach State’s potential for fishing. Most fishing in Georgia orbits around the ten recognized species of bass. Up to this point, bass fishing had not competed effectively against my trout fetish, but I decided that when in Georgia, I would do as the Georgians do. I soon watched every YouTube video produced by Flukemaster, a professional bass fisherman wearing a Georgia Bulldogs cap. How could I go wrong with that? I created a massive list of essential fishing equipment for bass fishing and broke the bank at Walmart and Dick’s. A bass fishing I went, armed to the teeth with every flashy and squishy item required by the well-equipped Georgia angler. To put a point on it, I caught one bass. The ROI of that fish was exponential for the sporting goods industry. The experience taught me a valuable lesson. Bass fishing in Georgia requires a boat. However, I am way too clever to get hooked by the lure of buying another boat just for fishing in Georgia. Besides, my wife said no.

As we prepared for our trip to Georgia the following year, I researched what kind of fishing in Georgia worked well from the bank. To my delight, I discovered the wonders of fishing for catfish. A kid with a long stick, line, and hook could easily fish for those whiskered buggers in Georgia. Of course, my stick needed to be at least ten feet long and made of graphite. The new size 4000 spinning reel didn’t hurt either. It was fascinating to learn all the different catfish riggings named after nearly every state in the Union, and it would have been unpatriotic to leave any of them out of my gear. However, finding out that the simple art of catfishing soon required yet another tackle box was a little disconcerting. To be fair, the catfish craze has carried me into the second year of our migration to Georgia. And my wife is happy because I have not been any more successful catching catfish than I was at catching bass.

I still love that old Norman Rockwell painting with the kid and the three fishermen. In a way, it tells the whole story of my life as a fisherman. I don’t plan to return to the stick, line, and hook, but I like to tell myself that I could if I had to. Over time, the ratio of accumulated tackle to actual fish caught has shifted in favor of the fish. Still, I have logged many happy recreational hours through my fishing activities. Some of those hours have been while I was on the water, but even more have been in the aisles of those lovely sporting goods stores.