Looking For One Lure

[Brand0n]

me and a buddy at work usually hit some local lakes or ponds near office parks. im looking to take one rod and reel and one bait with me. something i can use anywhere, anytime, and any type of cover. ive been using brush hogs lately with some luck. i think maybe if i take another color with me or maybe some rage tail space monkeys i can do better. little help? i always take a few poles and half my gear with me to use one thing and i need just ONE lure to bring em in!

[Crappiebasser]

I would carry a shaky head spinning rig with watermelon or green pumpkin worms. They work anywhere.

[Brand0n]

all my outfits are baitcasters with 15-20lb fluorocarbon line on them

[5fishlimit]

Spinnerbaits.

[Bass Junkie]

For that rig, any condition: Jig

[Bluebasser86]

Jig without a question. You can fish them at a crawl along the bottom, hop them along quickly, or swim them high in the water and catch fish. Pick your favorite green pumpkin or black and blue jig and you're good to go.

[K_Mac]

If you are only going to take one, some kind of T-rigged plastic (like you are using) is probably about as good as anything. If I could only take one bait it would be a Senko, wacky rigged, with the option to use weight to vary the rate of fall. As mentioned jig would also work. The problem is nothing works best all the time. One of your combos and a couple of lures would give far more options. Add a top water, a crankbait or two, a hard jerkbait, a spinnerbait/chatterbait to a small fanny pack and you are ready for most situations. Just my opinion-worth what you paid for it!

[Sam]

1. Get a small tackle box. One that can fit into your pocket. Put biats, hooks and weights in box.

2. Depending on water temperature and water clarity have these basic colors ready to go:

Clear - Watermealon with blake flake.

Stained - Green Pumpkin with black flake.

Dirty - Junebug and black/blue

3. Fish worms or Senkos shaky head and Texas rigged.

4. Use jig heads to keep worm on bottom if fishing Texas rigged plastics. Jig heads will reduce the number of individual bullet weights you will need to take with you.

5. Add spinnerbait, jig/pig and crankbait to bait selections. You select the colors.

6. Have small pliers in your pocket along with a nail clipper.

7. Don't forget fishing license in case a local law enforcement officer decides to check you out even though you are on private property.

8. Before you go to work each day tie line to tree or bird feeder and walk off at least half and then pull on line a few times to remove the memory. Run line through KVD Lure and Line Conditioner to help remove memory as you reel the line back onto your reel. You may want to walk to where you tied the line and untie it so the line can twist back onto the reel with less memory.

9. Bring cell phone and send us pics!!!!

Happy New Year!

[Sam]

10. Agree! Fish Senkos and plastic worms wacky rigged, too.

[Brand0n]

i throw alot of 10" culprit worms texas rigged alot

[SudburyBasser]

If I were being tortured to pick one lure I'd flip a coin and either go with wacky rigged Senko-style bait or something with a jig. As others have said above, neither is perfect but they'd probably best fit your need.

[CPBassFishing]

1/2 oz flipping jig. Heavy enough to punch through some weeds, but light enough to swim. Put a matching grub or a small creature bait such as a baby brush hog on it.

[matt996]

Check out macs tackle RJ jig! most versatile bait on the market imo. swim it, crawl it, cast it, flip it!

[WRB]

me and a buddy at work usually hit some local lakes or ponds near office parks. im looking to take one rod and reel and one bait with me. something i can use anywhere, anytime, and any type of cover. ive been using brush hogs lately with some luck. i think maybe if i take another color with me or maybe some rage tail space monkeys i can do better. little help? i always take a few poles and half my gear with me to use one thing and i need just ONE lure to bring em in!

Live big Canadian night crawler, fly lined with a weedless size 1 Gamakatsu wide gap finesse hook should work a high percentage of the time.

No 1 lure will solve your problem. Soft plastic worm, splt shot rigged is as close to a live night crawler as it gets.

Tom

[mnbassman23]

Jig or senko

[RyneB]

one lure would be punishment to me. It all depends on water conditions. I would say jig, but if the ponds are choked full of weeds and such, a frog would be a good tool. I think a pack of senkos, a jig, pack of grubs and a jig head will cover your needs and take up very little space.

[aavery2]

Man that is a tough question. I would have to go with a 3/8oz swim jig, black and blue, or green pumpkin.

[Brand0n]

ok ok maybe 2 lures then ive had my luck on swim jigs in summer not sure about winter...the weather here in georgia has been stable around 30-50 degrees daily rain off an on variable winds

[A-Jay]

Here you go - this is what I'd fish if I wanted one bait to do what your asking - A Texas Rigged Jig & Plastic.

What I do like about this rig over a Standard Fixed hook jig:

First and fore most, the fish eat it.

The hook-up ratio is the same as a standard Jig or maybe even a bit better.

It comes through cover better.

I can modify / customize the rig any way I want. By switching the weight, the skirt color or type, the hook size or type and the plastic trailer of my choosing - the options are endless.

With very little chance of hanging up, I Fish it over and through lily pad fields, milfoil patches, cabbage patches, stump/log jams, and open water ~ All on One Cast !

So, instead of carrying a ton of different color and size jigs, I can be ready for anything (including punching through the slop) with a hand full of weights, skirts, hooks and a small assortment of plastics. Beavers, Beasts, Grubs, Craws and creature baits have all taken fish.

Here's the rig, from the main line to the hook:

-A stopped knot (I use a double uni-knot made from left over braided line)

- A small bead to keep the knot from slipping through the weight.

- A 1/2 oz tungsten weight

- a Boss Punch Hub - this is placed inside the skirt collar

- The skirt of your choice

- A parasite clip (optional, but does help prevent the plastic from sliding down the hook)

- A 5/0 Owner wide gap plus EWG hook (#5139 - very stout, I love this hook)

- Your favorite soft plastic - pictured is a Power Bait Beast

Hope this helps

A-Jay

[Jigfishn10]

A-Jay, that rig never gets dull to look at...sweet!

Here's mine:

Here it is naked:

[aavery2]

ok ok maybe 2 lures then ive had my luck on swim jigs in summer not sure about winter...the weather here in georgia has been stable around 30-50 degrees daily rain off an on variable winds

IMHO, jigs work well in almost all conditions, you have to match how you fish them to the current conditions. In cold rainy weather, I would use a swim jig much more like an arkie, or football jig, throwing it into heavy cover and dragging in very slowly back to me. Obviously there are better jigs to use than a swim jig for this technique, but if I was limited to just one, I think I could make it work for me.

[LgMouthGambler]

For me down here, it would be a lizard. Zoom 6" Watermelon red chart. Many ways you can fish it. I usually just rig it to a 5/0 EWG, and a 1/16 oz weight.

[Bankbeater]

Around here, this time of year, I would use a jig or a senko.

[Jake P]

If you can find 1 lure, then you are a lucky man! Seriously though, there are plenty of popular lures that catch fish more than others in general. Senkos, straight tail worms, curly tail worms, craws etc. 1 Thing I can say though is if your fishing a pond, downsize your lures.Not saying you cant catch fish on 3/4 oz jigs, but you wont catch near as many. I do good with zoom straight tail worms, rage tail thumpers and anocondas in 7". Rage tail baby craws, Zoom flukes. if your looking for a moving lure, try the Booyah Pond Magic Spinnerbait. That thing is deadly in ponds!

[Raul]

If such thing as "one lure will bring them in all the time everywhere all the time" existed tackle manufacturers would be willing to pay a lot of cash to get it and so would we. On the other hand you don´t need a big bunch of stuff in order to bring them in, it´s more a matter of having few baits and know how to use them, stickbaits like senkos are close to "one lure will bring them in" as long as you know an almost endless ways of rigging them, if you only rig them t-rig you are light years away from the full potential they have, who said you couldn´t rig them on a shakey head ? who said you couldn´t d-shot rig them ? who said you couldn´t neko rig them ? who said you couldn´t split shot rig them ? there´s many ways to skin a cat. Jigs can be flipped, hopped, swimmed; grubs can be fished weighted, unweighted, swimmed, buzzed and used as trailers for jigs.

It a matter of being creative with what you have, most of the times it´s going to work.