In the relationship between sellers of fishing shops and visitors to these same shops, that is, anglers (in this article we will talk about spinning players), the following situation often arises. A spinning player comes into the store (by the way, this can be not only a beginner, but also an experienced angler) and asks the seller to pick up a spinning bait for him for pike fishing, whether it be a wobbler, lure, silicone, for fishing in certain conditions: “for at the price, they say, I will not stand! The seller, relying on personal experience, or on some other facts, with the words: “This is the most catchy,” hands him such a bait.
The fisherman, beaming with happiness, takes her, and in full confidence that now the whole pike is “ended”, he goes fishing with her on the very first day off. Arriving at the place, he first of all carefully takes out the very notorious bait from the box, attaches it to the fishing line and makes a cast. He watches with great surprise as the bait arrives at the boat empty. But, without losing his enthusiasm, he makes a second cast, and everything repeats. Makes the third – zero. After the tenth cast, doubts begin to appear in the angler, and the bait no longer looks as attractive and fabulously catchy as it was literally ten minutes ago. Well, after the twentieth cast (for someone, due to the reserve of patience, this number can be somewhat larger), this bait in the eyes of the spinner becomes more and more uninteresting, “dull” and “lifeless”, unable to attract anything alive, except for the buyer in the store . And with a displeased look, he takes off this “ill-fated” bait and throws it back into the box with the words: “Deceived”, most often addressed to an innocent seller. After that, he takes out his favorite proven spoon, or something like that, and after a few casts he catches fish.
By the way, I would like to note that the very bait “X” most often turns out to be a wobbler, since this is one of the most difficult lures in terms of animation and selection of a specific model. But other types of baits are not immune from such a fate.
Of course, I slightly ironically described the situation described above, but in general, everything happens approximately according to this scenario. And I think that you don’t need to be a professional spinning player in order, judging by my description, to understand that, as a rule, the seller and the bait are not to blame in such a situation. So what’s the deal? Who is guilty?
I think if you ask this question directly to you, dear readers of our site, then most of you would answer that the wiring was not the same, or the conditions did not correspond to a good pike bite, and would be partly right. But. Most likely, you will agree with me if I say that a lot of things are interconnected in fishing, one comes from the other, that is, if weather conditions or some other reasons that only fish know for sure do not call the latter to high activity (and this is usually noticeable after the first hour of fishing due to the absence of bites), you will have to work hard to find the right wiring again for the right bait. And if the level of pike activity is very high, then with the choice of bait and the type of its wiring, as a rule, you don’t have to be especially smart (although there are exceptions here too). As you remember, I ended the story about the sad fate of the “X” bait by saying that the angler, having changed it for a proven one, soon caught the same fish.
And not in vain, since such stories with new baits often end up with just that: fish are caught, but with proven baits. Therefore, I believe that the main reason lies not in the wiring or the weather, but in how much a person believes in himself and in what is tied at the other end of the fishing line. By the way, the question of the belief of the spinner in his bait, even if it Chinese pinwheel, in my opinion, is a very important and interesting psychological aspect of spinning fishing, although not much attention is paid to it.
Faith in proven bait
The further outcome of the situation that is described at the beginning can be completely unpredictable – it all depends on the person. At best, the angler will still try to “squeeze” something out of the bait on subsequent fishing trips, and this usually helps. At worst, he will throw it into his box in the compartment of baits that do not catch. This is if the person is non-conflict. Otherwise, he may come with claims to the store. What is this “bait compartment that does not catch?” – you ask. Yes, I noticed that many spinningists, sometimes even on a subconscious level, divide their lures, roughly speaking, into three types: they catch, they catch badly, they don’t catch. And interestingly, they almost always start fishing with those who catch. Of course, I don’t want to change these names to: I believe, I believe with difficulty, and I don’t believe. I just want your box to be free of lures that don’t catch and that you don’t believe in, and these are all very closely related.
From my personal experience as a sales assistant in a fishing store, I can say with almost complete certainty that fish can be caught with almost any bait presented in the store, even the worst, as long as it does not have defects in operation (the wobbler did not fall over, the spinner rotated, but not stuck, etc.). The main thing is to overcome the barrier and believe that this bait is capable of catching fish, and “squeeze” out of this bait everything that it is capable of. I do not mean that you need to take any one bait and cast it all day long without getting tired and of any use. So you can swim from morning to evening with the deep pike wobbler. while all active fish will be concentrated on the shallows (and this is not such a rare case). Everything must be used for its intended purpose, at the right time, in the right place and wisely. Of course, there are no ideal baits, so you can never really say which one will be the favorite in the kingdom of Neptune today. I think many people are familiar with cases when, having arrived for fishing and most of the day trying in vain to find the right bait, having tried the most catchy and proven ones, you are already ready to admit defeat. And no longer counting on anything, just for the sake of interest, you put the most “unsuccessful”, in your opinion, bait that you have never caught anything on. And lo and behold – suddenly a fish sits down! Then the second, the third! Ultimately, the fishing is saved, and there is no limit to your surprise.
Here you, dear readers, may object that this example contradicts what is described at the beginning of the article. But this is not entirely true, because in 90% of cases after such fishing, this bait “revived” in your eyes begins to fish regularly. And this happens mostly because you were finally able to believe that this bait is capable of catching fish, moreover, at a time when others are not catching. And if before that (not counting, perhaps, one or several fishing trips with this bait) you made a maximum of 3-4 casts with it, now you will make 10-20 casts, or even more, and also try different wiring, which will eventually give a positive result.
That’s what I want to say. Not every bait is obliged to catch fish from the very first minutes of the first fishing, and you should be ready for this. Each such bait has its own time, you can say “rush hour”. This does not mean that you need to take your entire arsenal fishing with you, make 3-4 casts of each bait, and with the words “today is not your day”, put it back into the box. The best way out is to try to understand how the bait performs better: at what depth, at what pace and at what speed of retrieve.
By the way, the speed of wiring is no less important point in spinning pike fishing than the type of wiring. Many baits, especially wobblers and wobblers, can only have a few speeds at which they create the most attractive vibrations for fish. That’s where you need to find them. As I said, you can catch almost any bait, the main thing is to find a key to it, and this is directly related to the same belief in this bait.
By the way, the most interesting thing is that the vast majority of anglers cannot fully believe in this or that pike bait, even after this bait in the wrong hands simply works wonders before their own eyes. Of course, with such a performance, the blood boils, but a surge of enthusiasm, as a rule, does not last long, and the angler again switches to proven and familiar baits for him. Up to the point that he will find among the latter some semblance of the former and will also be good at catching fish. Spinningists generally tend to idealize, leaning towards one particular company or a particular model of lures. And everyone, as a rule, finds something of his own, on which he is best able to catch, and stops there. Yes, and in conversations one often hears that someone has a vibrotail of one company that is out of competition.