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So okay, what the hell am I doing? Simple – I’m normally changing a lure from a proven fish-raiser into a proven fish-catcher, and that difference is what lure fishing is all about. I know for one that I would rather go home after a trip and state I’ve caught 12 fish out of sixteen bites rather than say I’ve gone four for 25. Does that ring a bell? (Sure does with me…….)One thing lure-fishing does for anyone who actually drives the damned boat, is that it normally gives them a lot of time to think about piscatorial matters in general (especially that bit where you’re cursing, since you’ve just lost the third fish of the day, on the bite, yet again). One also tends to think about what the hell you’re doing and what the fish are doing. You also think harder when one boat after another leaves the edge in a cloud of smoke as they back down after yet another fishbut that’s all part of the deal. The one truth that you learn however, is that no one is the best at anything and the fish will always make a fool of you, and that therefore ANY advantage you can gain on the fish is always going to help in those end of season statistics. Amongst these advantages I include obvious things such as penetratingly sharp hooks which draw blood, new or nearly new fishing line, good anglers/crew and tackle/boats in good condition and well maintained.Right, having lined up all those advantages in your favour, it’s now time to put your lures in the water (if you’ve read this far you might start to think back on those words ‘fish-raiser’ and ‘fish-catcher’) and while doing so, here’s another advantage you should be putting to good use. In my view, this advantage is simple – give the fish something it can eat. I’ll explain further. Lures can be divided into two groups as a rule of thumb. One group includes those lures which raise fish but have a poor hook-up ratio, and the other group includes those lures which seem to catch every fish they raise. I make no distinction between hard-heads and soft-heads with this rule. My understanding of this rule leads to the following conclusion – a lure which tracks straight, pops loudly and then dives, leaving a plume of smoke behind it, is an eminently edible lure, particularly if at the depth of its dive it pauses with no smoke for a moment before it returns to the surface for another gurgle of air – this is when a marlin will normally try and eat a bait with its mouth – when the fish can see it clearly. On the other hand, a lure which thrashes wildly on the surface, throwing water everywhere, shaking its head and zipping from side to side in an excellent imitation of a swimming Schwarzenegger on Viagra will probably raise hundreds of fish in its lifetime, but won’t catch too many of them (some of the larger lures in this category actually waltz away from marlin, sidle in when they’re not looking and stun them, after which they become foul-hooked on the next lure coming up behind them). This doesn’t mean to say that the fish is acting any different, but simply that it knows something is going on up there in all that white water and it’s going to try and bludgeon its way in, bill flailing in an attempt to hit whatever the hell it is that’s causing all that commotion. Sometimes, such as when the fishing is very slow and no one is catching anything, then I will deliberately run four ‘extreme’ lures like this just to try and get a bite. If you don’t get the bite you’ll never have a chance to catch a fish, but on the whole my preference is for a lure that quietly gets on with its job (it is no coincidence that lures like this need minimal adjustment to track well in almost any condition) and the first you know of a bite is when the clip comes open and no one has seen a fish – it has eaten the lure at the bottom of its swimming cycle, down in the depths (relatively speaking of course, since even Black Bart’s Grander Candy goes no deeper than about 2′ in its cycle).This past summer in the Azores, I met a French cameraman who has perfected the technique of running a camera back into the spread so he can sit inside and film, and see the lures on a small colour monitor. Apart from the countless times he would run outside into the cockpit to tell us we had been visited by a fish (and we didn’t see a thing from the bridge !) the camera also gave us a very good view of what the lures actually looked like under the water – which in turn was a simple corroboration of what I had always suspected anyway. There are most definitely lures that SWIM and catch fish, and there are lures that do not swim and do not catch too many fish. It is a fact that hook-rigs and types of skirts are also relative to a lure’s action, but what we are talking about here is head-shape and bubble trail. For me, head-shape can be addressed in four basic groups – pointed, straight-cut, angled and cupped. There are also variations amongst each of these groups. STRAIGHT CUT LURES (also called pushers) These lures are amongst the easiest of all lures to fish. Rig ’em, slap them out and they’ll pull all day with little effort and they’ll catch fish. Champions amongst them include Black Bart’s Grander and Marlin Candies, Mouldcraft’s Wide Range and Hooker, Hacksaw’s from C&H, Zuker & Big T, and also C&H Stubbies and Flames. Fred Archer also has a range of softheads that when rigged correctly swim like the devil. Other lure manufacturers like Sevenstrand, Williamson, Braid, Tinker, R&S, Schneider and Boone also produce straight-cut lures in their range and I suspect there are probably another bunch of manufacturers out there who are already reaching for their phones ! The secret to these lures is positioning, hook-rig, leader size and skirt material. Combine all these elements correctly and you will get a lure that pops, plumes and dives whilst shuddering. Well, almost all of them will. No matter what you do to the Wide Range, it still catches fish and looks like a frothing lump of lard back there in the spread. (Actually, here’s a tip. Take a Wide Range, take the head off and straight-cut it in front of the eyes and re-glue it back into the skirt. You’ll end up with a ‘short’ Wide Range that has twice the original in pulling power. Because the head is smaller though, you must reduce the skirt – try running it with alternate inner strands cut out). King for me amongst all these lures is the Grander Candy. Although a large head, its ability to dive and appear briefly 24″ underwater without smoke, leads to painless and successful hook-ups. It can be run in any sea condition as long as you can adjust its height. Bart makes them in soft and hard, but my advice is to try if you can and find a source of the older hard ones, and make sure they are rigged in the traditional Hawaiian style with automobile vinyl. This skirt material gives the barrel-shaped head of the Candy much more movement than a typical Yo-zuri-type skirt and leaves a long tight condensed trail of very fine bubbles. I do not work for Bart, he does not give me free lures (I lie, he once gave me a freebie about three years ago) and so what I say about this particular lure is my personal opinion. They work and should be included as a classic in any lure drawer (if you are targeting smaller fish, then the Marlin Candy is a good bet but it will not swim as deep underwater). I have run the Grander Candy everywhere behind the boat, but it does not run too well on the long rigger. If you want to run it further make sure your centre-rigger is braced to the bow, and your entire fly-bridge is well insured. It is an absolute dream on the short corner in rough weather and in calm it works just as well on the short rigger. Adjust the height to achieve the right action – it works best in the lower half of the wave where you can adjust its height in relation to length until the lure achieves its deepest depth during its cycle.All the other lures I have mentioned above also catch fish consistently. One of the main factors for their success is that they are easy to run and so fishermen run them much more than other lures. One of the most successful lures of all time for blue marlin is Mouldcraft’s Wide Range. Probably every boat in the world has one. Probably, it’s a black and purple. No pegging required, tear it out of the package, slip on some hooks and toss it out. Sooner or later come and collect your IGFA certificate. Hmmmwhy does this lure catch fish when it looks like a lump of lard in the water ? (Hey, Frank !? Yeah, I’m having a go at your Wide range again here. I’ll buy the drinks next time to make up for it – you know I’m just jealous…………) Here’s why, and these next few words envelop some truths and lies about lure-fishing for marlin, for me anyway. 1) IT RUNS STRAIGHT – to a marlin, with those big eyes set apart from each other by that damned bill (God, we love it and hate it, don’t we ?), something that attracts the fish but does not alter the attitude that the fish takes to kill it will always be better.2) IT IS SOFT – this is a matter of argument on my part, but lots of people say that a soft-head is good for repeated attacks. Yeah, I guess so, but I have seen fish batter the bejesus out of hard heads and still go strong. Soft-heads for me mean less chips and cracks both on the lure head and on the deck. The head will last longer. They’re just easier to work with. I admit though that if I’m bait & switching I will always use softheads if possible.3) NON TANGLE SKIRTS – it is virtually impossible to hook the skirt with the hooks, let alone tangle the damn thing up. Unfortunately, due to those skirts, the lure does not pull much air. The Wide Range has a wishy-washy, large bubble trail similar to a farting poodle out for a swim, and secondary to the boat itself, I place the bubble trail as being more important initially in raising a fish than the head shape, since a 100’ trail can be seen much more easily than a 14″ lure. I feel the attractor factors line up in this order – the boat noise and shadow is the primary factor, then the fish will normally see a bubble-trail, then the action of the lure-head will incite an attack, and at the ultimate moment a fish may take note of the colour of the lure. More on this later.4) THE FACTOR (PART 1) – there are probably more Wide Ranges in the water at any one time than any other lure in the world (the rival contender to this title being its close cousin the Super Chugger or – if you’re in the know, the short-headed Super Chugger. The original Chugger was too long in the head and didn’t swim wellSt.Thomas mates quickly took to their knives and shortened the head until it swam and now Frank Johnson makes the ‘short-head’ version commercially – it’s a better lure so ask for it). When that happens and the world’s oceans are being churned to a froth by so many inert pieces of lard, then eventually some stupid marlin is going to eat one and this leads me on to the ONE ABIDING MISCONCEPTION amongst marlin fishermen. Someone will say, “That lure’s not catching, let’s change it.” Now here is a fact – you are wishing/hoping/praying/ that the boat will run across a fish. It would appear from film footage that only a small part of the marlin you run across with the boat come into the spread where you can see them – say, four in ten (I KID YOU NOT !) and of those four only two will eat, or try to. So, when the fish has its hackles up and wants to eat (and you’ve paid thousands of pounds on airfares and boats and you’ve gone 12 days without a bite), you have two choices to offer it – something swimming along that it can see clearly and eat easily without expending energy (which is where, unfortunately, the Wide Range fits the bill exactly), or something it will slash and bill in predatorial excitement and leave you turning the air bluer than the sky above as you hear those immortal words – “Oh, I think it’s billwrapped !” If you don’t believe this bullshit, think of your youth – I bet when you tried to catch a grasshopper you waited until it stopped jumping around – it’s instinctive. So, just changing the lure will not help you get a bite when you and every other boat around you is not. If the fish is in the mood to eat and you run it over, it will come up and clobber something, whether it’s a lure, a tennis-shoe, a banana, even a bare hook. Marlin have been hooked on all of these things. If you do not run a fish over, you won’t get a bite. So, if you have your four fish-catchers out there (and yes, they can be Wide Ranges if you insist), spend the time looking for birds, dolphins, weed-lines, bait-balls and other signs of life that might indicate a fish – stop changing your lures every three minutes. You can take this a step further and say that if you pull four prime lures in the English Channel you will never catch a marlin. Pull four bananas on the drop-off in St. Thomas on the full moon and you will almost certainly get a bite. YOU HAVE TO FIND THE FISH FIRST!5) THE FACTOR (PART 2) – okay, so there you are with a spread out. Maybe a beautiful Ruckus on the long rigger, a smoking 501 from Joe Yee on the short rigger opposite it, a pulsating Big Henry up on the short, and, er… your mate has a black/purple Wide Range on the long corner, looking pretty insipid and lazy. The fishing isn’t hot, it’s flat calm and the hours drone by. The crew doze on the tackle centre. Suddenly a clip opens and a reel shrieks. Whoa, panic, everybody looking for something in the wake, skipper jumps up and there’s your mate reaching for his bucking rod which has line hissing through the rollers. You feel sick. All those trips to Hawaii, Mexico, Venezuela, maybe the Azores etc, and you’ve bought some decidedly delicious lures and learnt how to rig them. Your mate, a bleak-basher who you invited along at the last moment, rang Capt. Harry’s and they sent him a marlin lure for $30 – yup, the Wide Range. They also included a 90 degree hook-rig and a leader which were on special offer, all of which he rigged proudly that morning and the mate put it out on ‘his’ rod. There he is now, grinning at you as the mate buckles him into the harness, and he’s cocky as hell as he says something stupid like “Easy, this marlin fishing innit ? Don’t know why you make such a fuss about it……” You turn away and feel seasick for the first time in years. Grrr…………… The average mate doesn’t give a damn, and the skipper’s happy that a fish has been hooked. You’re not !Okay, here’s a few things to think about. Firstly, that Wide Range has a one in four chance of being eaten to start with. That is a fact that we can be certain about without having to be a marlin to know it. Secondly, it’s a softhead and the fish maybe bit down hard on the head, the hooks weren’t tangled in the skirt or blunt, and voila! they went in. Thirdly, we can assume maybe that the marlin had time to look at the whole spread from below before she came up. She saw three baits smoking, wiggling, sliding around a little, throwing some water maybe, and then there was one, just zipping along in a straight line, not doing a lot, perhaps it wasn’t well, not jumping, and well……………. it’s like you rough shooting along a hedge. Out pop four pheasants, three wheel up, climb, jinking, and the fourth flies in a straight line across your line of fire……which one are you going to shoot ? Fourthly, it didn’t have to be a Wide Range. It could have been any one of a number of straight-cut or cupped lures (Marlin Magic actually makes a hard-head called the Hard Head [original, huh ?] which is his answer to the Wide Range). Betcha a black/purple Pakula Smoking Jo would have worked there too. Fifthly, and this one might make you think, especially if you fish for other species, how about the fact that the marlin was maybe tuned into feeding on some bait that didn’t jump or throw water everywhere but just slid along in a straight line ? In 1994 when the FRENCH LOOK first came to Madeira, all they used were Wide Ranges. Every day, all the time. I’ve looked in my logs and here is a fact. They did not raise as many fish as all of us trying to do the Hawaiian thing, but they caught exactly the same number. So instead of going 1 for 4, or 2 for 6, they were regularly going 2 for 2, or 3 for 4 etc. They had their fish catchers out, and they then concentrated on staying awake and getting a tan. Enough said? Yes, you can hedge your bets and put a splasher out there, and in fact many top boats do exactly that. They’ll have a huge splasher up short, either with hooks or without, and then they’ll have the fish-catchers behind. No matter which way you look at it, the easier the bait is to eat, the more fish you will catch on it. I remember a client in Madeira who turned up on board with his favourite lure – a huge scooped-face pink Konahead from Sevenstrand. The thing was battered to pieces, huge bill-marks all over it. When he proudly produced it. I asked him how many fish it had caught. He told me none – but said it raised them like crazy……………hmm.So, obviously, you’re now wondering what the hacksaw I had in my hand at the beginning has to do with making a lure a fish-catcher ? Well, if I have a lure that is too active, I’ll normally try and shave the head down so the angle of cut is not too great. If the head has a 30 degree angle, for example, I’ll turn it into a 15 degree cut with the hacksaw and some wet&dry. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll carry on chopping away until I have the head running as I want it. You don’t need a vice to do this, and I’ve even done it at sea. Of course, you can also do the opposite and make a straight-cut lure a diver. If the lure sits out there doing nothing, looking insipid, then I’ll make a 2 degree cut on the face and then carry on from there until I have a lure that does what I want it to. This is how the Zuker came into being, and as of right now, it is my most favourite lure in the whole world, a cross between a Grander Candy and a super-plunger.If you have a box of lures you don’t use, spend this winter going through them and make some changes with the hacksaw. One more tip and I’m gone for this month – take a Wide Range and turn it into a softheaded super-plunger by giving it a 3 degree cut with a sharp knife. Sand with coarse paper to start with and then fine. You’ll end up with one more type of softhead to run which will catch you a bunch of fish!

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