Plastic lures....trying something new..

Earlier this week while I was helping hubby get his boat out of the water there was the cutest elderly man getting ready to fish. Now I was a bit surprised because this location has never given me "that feeling" of a good fishing spot for various reasons (mainly it's right beside a swimming area and it's quite shallow in spots). So I was flabbergasted when this adorable man pulled in a HUGE large mouth in on his first cast (he was so excited..said it was the biggest fish he'd ever caught). After he got the fish landed...(he seemed delighted that there were some other people there to see his BIG catch) he started showing us what he caught it with....a PINK plastic worm lure (appropriately called BUBBLEGUM). This older gentleman said he'd seen another younger gentleman using these lures a couple nights before and catching stuff (and this other fisherman apparently swore it's all he ever used to catch large mouth). Got me thinking!

I'm not a huge fan of plastics...maybe cause I'm old school...maybe cause they just seem SOOOO fake (let me say thou for quite awhile when I started fishing I was convinced that lures couldn't possibly work either....fish couldn't be that stupid....worm and bobber was the only way to go..until I tried my first jointed lure and caught some big stuff and I was converted). My tackle box has a few packets of various plastics...but they frankly never get used....but watching this man catch this fish with them renewed my interest...so out I went to Canadian Tire to purchase some BUBBLEGUM Pink Plastic Worm Lures (which by chance were on SALE this week..yippie). Took these new pink worms out for a test run the following night with no avail (but I think this had more to do with location....as the side of the river I was on is more known for small mouth then large mouth bass). I did however have quite a few people comment on the colour and that they'd never seen such PINK lures :) Then came today when I ventured out to the Mississippi River split off by my house for some late afternoon fishing. After trudging through the MUCK of mud and water to get to my spot..I open up my container of worms from the previous day to realize that there are only 2 worms in there (I think my youngest had a little too much fun on the dock the night before with his worm friends and may have let some go :)...so I used those 2 worms up quick and decide to cut one of my Pink Plastic Worm Lure in half and play worm make believe. Shockingly, it worked....the small mouth started biting at my bright pink "worm" and I had a quite a few landed Small Mouth bass. The only thing that I found frustrating was that there were a lot of fish that got on the line that I couldn't land....not sure why that was....but I'll have to do some more research on it...most likely they were bitting the lure and not getting the hook (I was using a wacky rig)! All in all....long story short...I'll be using plastics a bit more often...not 100% converted though...that may take some time!