LURE

What is fishing with lures ?

Fishing with lures is an active, sporty technique allowing you to attract all kinds of carnivorous fish. The principle is quite simple: You present a carnivorous fish with an imitation of their prey, such as an animated minnow crankbait or a spinning spoon to incite the attack.
Fishing with lures requires learning rather particular techniques in the animation of lures and requires the angler to make a relevant choice from his equipment.

Which equipment to use ?

Rods

Casting or spinning ?

Two major categories of rods are distinguished: Traditional casting rods (spinning) and casting rods

• The traditional rods known as spinning
  These are the rods that we currently know with rings placed under the blank.
  The length of the rods varies from 1.8m and 3m. If the long rods allow you to reach greater distances in casting, the short rods are used more and more by anglers with lures because they are a lot lighter, more manageable and allow much more precise animation
  
• Casting rods
  These rods from the United States are distinguished by the positioning of the reel and their simplicity: They are used with spinning-spool reels held in place, like with rings, on the top.
  Generally comprising 1.8m to 2.1m, these rods have the advantage of being extremely manageable and light.
  

Reels

For traditional rods, the angler with lures will use a fixed-spool reel.
No matter the size of the reel and the rod, it’s the balance between the rod/reel set that is primordial. This balance should be located just in front of the reel.

In the choice of his reel, the reel angler should be particularly attentive to :

• The quality of the bearings used,
• the brake, which should be reliable and progressive but equally micrometric for more precise adjustment
• the compatibility of the braid and the reel

The casting rods themselves should be equipped with spinning-spool reels. These reels will require a small adaptation time from the angler in order to avoid the traditional freakouts of rod and reel anglers. Extremely precise braking will be essential in learning casting and during combat with carnivorous fish.

Lures

Today there a multitude of lures available.
5 main categories can be distinguished:

• Minnow crankbaits
  Each of these lures will have specific swim action according to the animation that the angler gives it, and a particular swim depth linked notably to the inclination and size of its lips.
  
  There are several surface minnow crankbaits (which, as their name indicates, go to the surface of the water), floating minnow crankbaits (they sink when animated thanks to their lips but rise again when stationary), suspending (because they have the same density as the water, they remain at the depth you make them dive), sinking (denser than the water, they sink when stationary)
  
• Flexible lures
  These are the lures made of flexible plastic material which can be in various shapes. The most common are: Twists, herring, imitation frogs or crayfish, worms.
  

• Spinnerbait
  This is a hybrid lure from the U.S. A spinnerbait is composed of a V-shaped frame with an upper level with one or several spinning blades and a leadhead, a simple hook and a skirt of coloured filaments.
  

• Spinning spoons
  This is the classic archetypal lure. A blade spins around an axis, while emitting vibrations and visual signals.
  There are 2 main kinds of blades: The Colorado (rounded blade ideal in calm water) and the willow leaf (elongated for fishing in the current)
  

• Undulating spoons
  The undulating spoon is a slightly curved metal sheet which undulates when the angler slowly leads and sinks it in “dead leaf” when relaxed while sending out luminous sparkles.