Beads, Braid and Baited Hooks
Posted by Meggs | Fishing and Boating Posts | Posted on April 17th, 2010
Greetings all,
Well it seems such a long time since I posted a story about fishing so I thought I’d dust off one of my old chestnuts to share with you all.
This is going to shock a lot of you – so prepare yourself for this bombshell I’m about to drop.
Before I tell you this well kept secret about fish, I’ll tell you the story about a guy working a buzz saw in a wood-chip mill who inadvertently sliced off all of his fingers whilst guiding the timber through. He rushed off to the doctor who asked him why he didn’t bring his fingers with him so he could sew them back on. “I couldn’t pick them up” he replied.
So here it is… the big one…
Fish don’t have hands.
There, I’ve said it. That is one of the biggest lessons a fisherman can ever learn. Trust me on this one.
Anyone who has had children knows that when their babies are young they test everything with their mouth and believe it or not fish are the same. And just like young kids and babies, not everything they pick up in their mouth is eaten. In a sense it is just tasted, tested and discarded. Although fish don’t have hands and fingers to pick things up they are nonetheless curious creatures like you and me and will pick things up with their mouths.
So what has this got to do with beads, braid and baited hooks.
Whilst bobbing up and down some ten mile offshore one day with a fishing club that had an average age of membership of 75 years I noticed that the two old blokes who caught the most fish week in, week out had a couple of things in common.
Sure, each of them used fresh bait but so did a lot of other guys on the boat. Their gear was similar to everyone else except for the fact that they used beads just above their hooks. That’s right – beads. I remember reading old books about catching whiting from the beach and using a red rubber tube just above the hook to attract them. Fish don’t have hands and fingers so they see the tube or the beads and are tempted to find out what the hell is going on with them. And that’s when they are hooked!
By the way, one of the other reasons these two old blokes caught more than their fair share of fish was the fact that they lifted and dropped their baits up and down with their rods. They were the first to explain to me that people fishing on bow or starboard positions on a boat often caught more fish because of the natural pitching and rolling of the boat lifting their baits up and down.
Anyway, I hope you found that little discourse of interest and that next time you’re out on the water you try the same method.
Sea you later,
Skipper Meggs