C
chris61182
0
Growing up my favorite lure used to be a chartreuse roostertail in either 1/16oz or 1/8oz. Fast forward a number of years and my tacklebox had long since run out of roostertails, and I was now at the age where I have to buy my own tackle. Being relatively poor I only bought a couple and went fishing. Much to my surprise the blades didn't spin, but I explained this away being I just got a bad batch. More time passes, and I saw that they were on sale so I bought a couple more to replace the ones that didn't work. I went fishing, and these didn't work either. Now I'm starting to get a bit miffed, it's quite unlikely I'd find two bad batches separated by that much time. Finally, a couple seasons later I noticed they were on sale again, and figured I'd try my luck again and bought a yet again a couple more. Surprisingly, or not, these didn't work either.
By this point I've completely written the brand off as junk, there's no way I could have found three separate bad batches all separated in time and space. Over the intervening years between that last purchase and now I have only lost a few of those because how rarely they get fished. I usually reserved them for times when I wanted to throw a lure really tight to some nasty cover and didn't want to care about losing it, but even that didn't work well enough at thinning my selection of non-working spinners.
So now I come to the whole point of my post. Last week when I was in Corvallis fishing the Marys I encountered one of those super snaggy spots and wanted to get close to some cover to check for fish, so on went a roostertail. And I couldn't believe what I felt as I started the retrieve, I felt the blade spinning! Retrieving against the current, across the current, and unbelievably with the current, the blade spun. During the week I hit up the Tualatin and being quite snaggy I felt no qualms about testing out another roostertail in my collection, it worked too. As a matter of fact by the end of that day I had tested most of my roostertails, and their blades were all spinning. Then yesterday at Hagg I tried out what I believe to be my last untested roostertail, and by now it is probably clear that it worked as well.
Apparently, the years sitting in my not to terribly well cared for tacklebox has imbued them with some sort of fishing mojo. Or maybe some quality of the tarnish they've developed helps them spin better, I don't know. Either way the moral of the story is that if you've been bitten by the a brand new spinner that doesn't spin, if it's been sitting around long enough tie it on and give it a cast. Who knows maybe it's just gotten lonely from lack of use, and is willing to put on a show for you when you do finally give it some attention.
OK, well that was rather long winded for just saying that some of the junk in my tacklebox mysteriously started working again. Hopefully others will find themselves as fortunate.
By this point I've completely written the brand off as junk, there's no way I could have found three separate bad batches all separated in time and space. Over the intervening years between that last purchase and now I have only lost a few of those because how rarely they get fished. I usually reserved them for times when I wanted to throw a lure really tight to some nasty cover and didn't want to care about losing it, but even that didn't work well enough at thinning my selection of non-working spinners.
So now I come to the whole point of my post. Last week when I was in Corvallis fishing the Marys I encountered one of those super snaggy spots and wanted to get close to some cover to check for fish, so on went a roostertail. And I couldn't believe what I felt as I started the retrieve, I felt the blade spinning! Retrieving against the current, across the current, and unbelievably with the current, the blade spun. During the week I hit up the Tualatin and being quite snaggy I felt no qualms about testing out another roostertail in my collection, it worked too. As a matter of fact by the end of that day I had tested most of my roostertails, and their blades were all spinning. Then yesterday at Hagg I tried out what I believe to be my last untested roostertail, and by now it is probably clear that it worked as well.
Apparently, the years sitting in my not to terribly well cared for tacklebox has imbued them with some sort of fishing mojo. Or maybe some quality of the tarnish they've developed helps them spin better, I don't know. Either way the moral of the story is that if you've been bitten by the a brand new spinner that doesn't spin, if it's been sitting around long enough tie it on and give it a cast. Who knows maybe it's just gotten lonely from lack of use, and is willing to put on a show for you when you do finally give it some attention.
OK, well that was rather long winded for just saying that some of the junk in my tacklebox mysteriously started working again. Hopefully others will find themselves as fortunate.
I think it was to dark to be a steelie,