Freeing stuck lures

Even though your significant other would you rather didn’t you finally break down and purchase that new expensive lure you have been eye balling for the past month. You then take the time to change out the old line with some brand new quality line and attach the lure with good solid knot. You’ve taken all of the precautions and head to the water.

You make your first cast to a fishy looking spot and BAM, fish on! “Its gonna be a great day”, you land and release the fish. 2 casts later you hook into another quality fish, “This lure was so worth the money”. You continue fishing and hooking up until the inevitable happens, your lure get stuck, “AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!” Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Of course the first thing you instinctively try is just pulling on the lure. While this can work at times, it can also embed your hooks deeper into the object thereby decreasing your odds or getting you lure back.

While nothing works 100% of the time and you will at times loose your lures, I’ll share some tips that have worked for me and has saved me quite a bit of money over the years.

First tip, try giving it some slack. This can be especially effective with a floating lure. Next, try raising your rod tip and giggling it, again putting slack into your line can at times free your lure.

Try freeing it from a different angle. This technique works best if your in a boat because you can get to the opposite direction the lure got stuck. Now of course this technique wont work to well if your in a boat, cast up tight to shore and get hung up. You can also use this different angle technique shore fishing by walking to the left or right of where you were standing when you initially got stuck.

One very effective technique that has worked for me is using the “Bow and Arrow” trick. The bow and arrow trick is where you put some slack in your line, pull the line tight until you have pressure against the snag and a nice bow in your line then let the line go, like shooting a bow and arrow, which throws slack into your line. What happens is when you release the line the rod snaps back and throws slack at the lure and can jar the lure free. Sometimes it takes several tries before working so you need to be persistent.

Be ready when you finally get the lure free. I’ve had times when the lure finally popped free and have a bass just smash it. My guess is the bass was watching the lure “struggle” to get free and when it finally broke free he thought it was trying to escape and the predator in him made him strike it very aggressively.

The Rod tip bump. If you can get close enough to your lure you can stick your rod tip into the water and tap the end of it against your lure and tap it free. I really don’t like doing this because I have broke the tip off of a rod doing this technique because it got stuck on the front hook or the crankbait and the rear hook was stuck to bad to free itself from the tapping of the rod. In my opinion its not worth the trade off but I know a lot of people that use this technique with success.

Next we have the pole retrievers. All they are is a long pole, usually made out of collapsible aluminum and can be extended to 12 feet or more. At the end of these retrievers is some kind of attachment that is designed to pull the lure free, hooks and coils are pretty common. Of course these type of retrievers don’t work to well from shore, unless of course your lure is stuck a few feet from shore.

Next we have my favorite technique which is a plug knocker. Plug knockers are basically some kind of heavy weight that you attach to your line, then send it down to your lure where it bumps into the lure and knocks it free, hence the name lure knocker. There are basically 2 different types of lure knockers. You have the free falling ones that slide down your line freely and the ones that are attached to a string that you lower down to your lure. The stringed styles sometimes have something like chain or hooks that are supposed to get tangled with your lure and you pull it back.

You can purchase factory made plug knockers but I like to make my own because they are cheap to make therefore if you end up not being able to free your lure and you end up loosing your knocker as well as your lure. There are several different ways to make your own inexpensive basic plug knocker.

Take an old used spark plug and a big snap swivel. Run the gap arm of the spark plug through the round eye of the swivel and bend down the arm with either pliers or a hammer to secure the swivel in place. Another variation is to get a heavy lead weight, I use a 2-3 ounce sinker, the kind with the metal line tie. I then attach a big snap from a snap swivel, PRESTO! Quick, easy and inexpensive. The reason I dont use the swivel part of the snap swivel is because in increases the distance between the top of the snap and the weight. Maybe its just me but I personally feel the closer you can keep your line to the weight, the more effective your knocker will be.

When you get your lure stuck attach the snap to your line, hold your rod tip high so it travels faster and let it slide down your line and knock your lure free. If it does not free right away don’t fret. Sometimes it takes giggling your line to bump it free. A few times I’ve had to send a second knocker down to free it. By the way, I have found that the plug knockers work very well on crankbaits and swimbaits and not so well on jigs and worms.

To summarize, nothing works all of the time and you will loose lures, that’s just part of the game. But if you follow some of the tips I mentioned I promise you that you wont loose as many lures.

Thanks for visiting my site. Be sure to tell all of your fishing buddies and come back soon

Until Next Time, Good Luck and Tight Lines To Ya!