The Lure Of Lures
There was a time, and it was not too long ago, when a football match
was sacrosanct in this country. Now, by football I mean Rugby, not that
other game played in Australia by Kiwis. Times change, and now we have both codes on TV.
This may or may not be a forward step. But a definite backward
step has to be the intrusion of commercials into the game itself.
Every break in the action seems to produce another burst of advertising.
I have no gripe against advertising per se, however
I do start to bitch when it starts becoming intrusive.
Recently, watching football on the tele, has too
regularly been interrupted by an advertisement for a super duper,
whizz bang, sure fire, Bass lure. Seems this lure is so good,
it is patented. It is also so good that it can only be sold by
the phone-now system.
There are a couple of things about this lure that
are a genuine worry. First, I do not know too many spots around
NZ where Freshwater Bass can be found in any numbers. The population
of Bass is pretty reliably estimated to be just about exactly
zero.
Second, it is a fact, albeit not a well known fact,
that fishing lures cannot be patented. Seems that in the early
1900's through to the 1930's the Patent offices of Europe and
USA were inundated with devices and contraptions that were absolutely
guaranteed to catch fish. Patents were issued in droves. Things
soon came unstuck.
Simply put, for a patent to hold, it has to be demonstrated
that the invention is new. The invention cannot be a mere improvement
or adaptation of existing products. All the fishing lure patents
were subsequently challenged on the basis that they were derivative.
The Patent Offices, in high embarrassment, decided to duck for
cover. After lengthy investigation they decided that a fishing
lure, any fishing lure, was derived from a previous lure. For
fishing lures, it seems, nothing was new, nor could it be.
Even a cursory glance through books on the subject
of the origins of fishing, will lend weight to the decision made
by the Patent people. All manner of modern lures have their origins
in products turned out over hundreds and hundreds of years. In
Fiji, they have been using the central stem of a sago type palm
as a lure for open sea pelagics for hundreds of years. The core
of the palm is cut into 20cm lengths. A solid head of around 5cm
is left, and the tail section is flayed to produce a skirt. In
principle the lure is no different to modern skirted lures. The
old ones still work.
The ubiquitous plastic jig with it's double claw
hooks screwed into the back has been around for hundreds of years.
I have one made by early New Zealanders. It is at least 300 years
ago.
The metal jigs now popular in this country are all
based on what has gone before. These types of jigs have been in
use in most parts of the world for hundreds of years and longer.
Bibbed lures, surface popping lures, flies, flasher rigs, etc.,
all can be traced back centuries and more. If all lures are merely
variations on a few themes, why do we buy so many?
In the interests of accurate reporting, and to try
and shed some light on this riddle, I undertook a market research
program. Using totally random sampling techniques, I undertook
an in-depth tackle box contents survey, and opened my tackle boxes.
The results of this survey were very illuminating.
Not including big game lures, there were 103 lures
in the tackle boxes. Now this number, 103, is quite important
in what follows.
To try and get some sort of order into my research,
I split the lures into three broad categories; jigs, surface lures,
and minnow type. There were 47 jigs, 31 surface lures, and 25
minnows. To break the numbers down even further, I separated the
lures into those I regularly use, and those I don't.
25 of the 47 jigs had not been used for years if
ever. 19 of the 31 surface lures, and 18 of the 25 minnows had
rarely been wet. The mathematicians, and statisticians, amongst
you may find this interesting. 53% of jigs are never used, 61%
of surface lures are never used, 72% of minnows are never used.
As a tackle shop owner I seriously considered closing
this line of enquiry, and finding another subject to write about.
I persisted.
I decided to go through each unused lure, one by
one, and being really hard nosed, toss out those lures I was unlikely
to use again. This proved to be a long exercise. Going through
lures is a bit like going through a photo album. Photographs are
really memory joggers. They serve to remind us of an instant that
represents a whole sequence of events. The story behind and around
each photo is bigger than any single image can ever tell.
Watching people going through photos following an
event such as a fishing trip is interesting. There they are, looking
at one photo, but to each person that one photo brings back a
different memory. Each memory based on the same theme.
But I digress. As I examined each lure I was reminded
of the reason I had bought it, and very often the last time I
had fished with it, or it's now lost brother. I was reminded of
fishermen I had fished with who had used the lure to good effect.
There were good, some great, fish that had been caught on this
or that type of lure.
Memories of fishing situations where I could have
used a particular lure to good effect, but had to make do with
a less than adequate substitute, flooded back. I could recall
particular lures that had performed exceptionally well. Even though
I had bought other lures of the same type, brand, colour, etc.,
I had never been able to emulate that one lure's success rate.
There were lures that I knew to have been successful
for other fishermen. I had been with them when they had caught
fish with the lure. So I had bought one too. I had taken it fishing,
but somehow I always seemed to use some old favourite or other.
It was only when the going got tough that I pulled out the new
lure. Why did I never try the new lure when the fish were on the
bite? The lure languished in the bottom of the tackle box, to
be pulled out when nothing else worked, and was unlikely to.
At the end of the exercise it will not be too surprising
to learn that my tackle boxes contained 103 lures. Those of you
with good memories will know that this is the same number with
which I started out.
Lures are like cliches. They are very handy
to have around to meet specific situations, and toss out quickly,
to great effect. I guess in the end it all boils down to the famous
80:20 rule which has appeared in my articles more than once.
For each of us I guess that 80% of our lure caught
fish are caught on 20% of our total number of lures. Trouble is
that the 20% of lures, are different lures, for each of us.
In the end selecting a lure may be a bit like the
advertising business. Lord Lever, owner of the soap powder giant,
once said, "I know 50% of the money I spend on advertising
is wasted, but until I can find some way of telling which 50%,
I will go on spending the 100%".
We had a cast-ironlure guarantee in my shop. All
our lures were guaranteed to catch fish, if used iin the right
place , at the right time, in the right way, and you are good
enough."
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