Retrieve Styles and Jig Head Types - Fish EyeView (by Scuba)

[the_hide]

Got a little bored fishing late Friday Afternoon, was fishing from the kayak at Browns Bay - Cape Patterson not much about as there was no waves and almost perfect visibility, could clearly see the bottom at 15+ metres. Water temp was ok so I decided to test some of my different jig head types and retrieve styles from a fish eye view. Went home loaded up the dive gear and headed back to the water. I like to try and match my retrieve and the jighead type to the bait Im trying to emulate. So I sat my sisters boyfriend on the kayak and basically tested as many different style plastics and jig heads with varied retrieves that I had with me. Heres the shad results for anyone whose interested.

Testing in 8 metres of water over a sandy bottom.

Test Group 1 - 65mm Squidgie Fish & 50mm Illusion Shads with 1/8 ounce gamatsu ball head and minnow head jigs. Watched two retrieve styles , the generic jerk with twitches and what I call a swimming the shad (slow retrieve, little time spent stopped, vary the lures depth before pause).

Jerked Retrieve - Both jig head types did very little to vary the action or behaviour of the shad on a jerked retrieve, both resulted in the lure darting quickly from the bottom and slowly swimming back to the bottom, the more streamlined minnow head did not significantly reduce the time spent off the bottom (to my surprise), it did however make the bait appear markedly bigger. The ball head jig did sit the bait up off the bottom in a much more natural manner. Each attempted twitch of the rod actually didn't add that much movement to the lure , basically dragged the lure through the sand and sat it up a little more, not what I thought I was achieving with a twitch.

Swim Retrieve - Noticeable difference in horizontal movement through the water with the minnow head. The round head appeared slow on the retrieve and appeared to the naked eye to have a less realistic movement and less general body action than the minnow head. There was significantly more sideways movement in the water with the minnow while the ball head pretty much went in a straight line. The minnow head really did swim like a fish would in short bursts the round head much less so.

My Shad/Fish Conclusions

The minnow head (darter or like etc) while making the bait appear marginally bigger behaved in a very natural baitfish like manner, more so on a slow constant retrieve than jerked. To a diver whose seen thousands of baitfish swimming the increase in sideways behaviour of the minnow head and more natural swim action combined with the swum retrieve really looked like darting wary little fish. The jerked style may well imitate a sick or injured baitfish but I haven't seen to many of these to compare it in realismn.

On a side note the squidgies had truckloads more swimming action than the other tested plain flatbodied shads/fish. The side grooves on the belly really appeared to make the lure come to life.

For anyone whose interested in the results I also tested amongst other things, let me know if you want to know more.

Small Atomic Paddle Tails Grubs 1.75 and 2
Small Atomic Single Tail Grubs 2 and 3 Inch
Squidgie Wrigglers (60+mm)
Atomic 1.5 Baby Craw
Madman Craws of varied Sizes
Ecogear 3Inch Squid
Atomic Twin Tail 2Inch

With Ball , Tube and Football Style Jig Heads of various sizes.
With slow jerked, fast jerked and whipped retrieves with/without twitches.


The Hide

[Craig_S]

Man, this is good stuff and excellent reading.

If you've got the time and the inclination I wouldnt mind having a read of the whole lot.

Regards

C

[jimi]

Good work The Hide. Fisherman have always speculated about how their lures look underwater, and how fish respond to them, but without any real visual confirmation (most of the time) it's just speculation. Good to see some actual results.

It would be great to be able to tie a particular retreive style to how the lure actually looks. Even better to see how fish actually respond to a given retrieve. That kind of info would be like gold in a tournament.

Let us know how the other lures went.

James.

[the_hide]

I'll post the other test results over today and tommorrow, time permitting.

Can anybody who has fished the docklands area tell me what the water clarity/visibility is generally like. It may be possible for me to get hold of video and housing for a day, to check out how some of the less shy bream behave when thrown various lures etc. This would be the ideal place to work given its not apparently hard to find the bream here just a little harder to hook them.

[the_hide]

Results for Atomic Grubs and Baby Craw.


Tested the grubs (pretty sure they are atomics in motor oil and a pearl white - perhaps the pearls are lunker city grubs can't be sure) and with only two jig head types, the classic round head and the not so common here football style , popular in the US. 1/8 Ball head Jig (size 2 hook) and a 1/8 Football (size 1 Hook). Baby Craw where tested with I believe 1/16 size 4's.

I only really tested one retrieve style with the Grubs and Craw, your basic stop start retrieve with twitches, depending on the size of the craw I'm usually I use larger leaps , but with these little fellows it was the same as my generic grub jerk.

The ball head appeared to be the more accurate of the two, it fell/fluttered to the bottom in a pretty straight line. The Football jig head moved around a little and didn't necessarily fall where you placed it (my assistant could have just been bad but not that often). The ball head sat in the sand in a pronounced vertical position with the tail of the grub up in the water , the football head left the body of the grub at about 45 degree angle and the tale flapping around. There was a markedly better visual presentation on the grub motionless in the water on the ball head, more bait in open view off the bottom, with some current or wave action the tail would have been flaping around in more open view than the football head. The baby craw was a different story it looked very unnatural floating in the water in a almost vertical manner on its tail. However on the football jig it looked much more natural at a 45 degree angle.

The Retrieve was interesting , each jerk would lift the ball head of the bottom and then allow the bait to flutter back down to the bottom , twitching a ball head seemed to drag it along the bottom a little and put some erratic action on the tail before it sat back up in the water. The football head on a large twitch behaved similarly to the ball head , however on a small controlled twitch (we used only the tiniest rod action) the football jig would tilt the bait up from a 45 degree angle to almost vertical and then drop back again without the head moving off the bottom. There was a lot of action on the tail, to me this looked very much like a worm or other inveterbrate burying into the sand like they do when startled, starting flat then an arch of the back as they ettempt to burrow before lying back on the bottom as they push forward. The baby craw looked like it was startled and was standing back on itself in a defensive posture, (while not natural completely vertical , a little practice would ensure that you could choose not to raise it this high).

[Ravin]

Interesting info this always good to hear what the fish see :)

[mike_mad_fisho]

gday
great reading and very interersting

[beefaman]

Great reading! And thanks for sharing your findings with all of us :D Keep it coming, I think everyone would LOVE to know all the results. Once again THANKS !!!!:D :D :D

[panger]

Hmmmmmm, all very interesting. Keep up the good work!

I wonder how a skirted grub like a crappie spider looks compared to a normal grub in the water. Also how about tube baits, they're supposed to corkscrew down on the drop. So many lures to try, so many questions. Maybe you could film your experiments and sell them on tapes. If you could get an ABT hotshot to work the lure, they'll go like hot cakes :D

[mike_mad_fisho]

gday
yeah panger i reckon that would sell well thats a pretty good idea.
Mb

[shoey]

I went to the docklands on the weekend and water clarity wasnt too bad. If you are interested, Princess Pier or Station Pier has much better visibility and not as much traffic(Princess Pier in particular).

I would be happy to catch up with you and help you out from my kayak anytime.

regards Shoey.

[the_hide]

Actually station pier is somewhere I hadn't thought of really but is often a dive with plenty of fish im told, its closed to the public from the jetty now isnt it ?. It might be worth a go shoey, I had thought of the video , the only problem is the melbourne water visibility. It can be ok one day and shocking the next. I only have a still camera, I'll see if I can chase up a housing for the video from a friend.

[the_hide]

If anyone has any specific tests they would like me to run let me know. My collection of Jigs and Plastics is getting pretty big and if theres anything I don't have something off well its a good excuse for me to buy that aswell. (I'm like a kid in a lolly shop when it comes to SP's, ooh I like that one, ooh and that one)

[panger]

How about a true paddle tail (eg Pad Tue) vs a false paddle tail(ie t-tail eg atomic paddle tail)?

[tryhard]

WOW this is fantastic stuff keep it up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BreamShark]

It would be interesting to see what plastics like the crappie spiders and hoo daddys look like underwater find out what they are supposed to represent.
Have you tested any hardbodies???