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The bigger the lure, the bigger the fish...
A wise man once said to me (It was in fact, Squidder) “If you keep using big lures like that you will catch a massive fish”, or something like that. I always tended to upsize profile rather than concentrate on colours, think it had a lot to do with feel through tackle more than anything else. When it came to learning to fish the surface I initially found smaller profiles and colour selection drew greater results, rather than monstrous shadowed riffle movement.
Recently a few sessions have shown me that really true blue blighters (Yes, I mean Bream) aren’t scared to attack large lures, very similar to the observations I had previously deduced from Bass. Not only were my efforts rewarded but it was backed up with reports from various tournament anglers, professional anglers through to your regular Joe’s. Be it a larger rattle chamber, silhouette or action some rather large lures have been doing the business, much larger than the traditional stylings of a good old River 2 Sea Buggi Pop 35.
Here is where walking the dog comes in to play, drag a larger lure with a elongated 70mm profile without working the rod tip and the estuary sleeps, a few twitches here and pauses there and the situation awakens. Throwing something so big initially feels very awkward, that is of course until the first result is encountered. It’s not just Bream on the cards, at the last Forster tournament I collected more Whiting than I would care to admit (Given it was a Bream event). From Ecogear 45’s (45mm’s), Jazz Zappa’s (55mm), R2S Baby Rovers (50mm) to Lucky Craft Sammy’s (65mm) there are plenty to choose from, don’t think its too big either.
To give you a run down, cast once, lost PX due to good fish (suspected Whiting), upsize to Zappa, lost lure to another corker (again, probably Whiting), upsized to a large R2S Rover of 113mm and landed successive Bream. This was an omen but not the norm for every situation; still all smaller lures walked were ignored! (And I am talking about south coast staples, Buggi Pop, Hopper Popper and Towadi).
Walking the dog is nothing new but it is gaining stronger recognition amongst Bream circles as a deadly technique. It doesn’t have to be applied on the flats; walking lures quickly over racks can be deadly and walking long poppers from shallow to deep water (The opposite of deep to shallow) in and around submerged rocks is heart in mouth stuff. Sometimes it pays to lock your drag as the big boys will steal it anyway, choose when you do though (Nothing worse than pulled hooks!).
Rather than try and explain the technique of ‘Walking’ in my own words I have provided some videos below from certain anglers and sites online with definitive approaches to learning. Keep in mind though that any lure that floats, lays horizontal, tips the rear vertically, has a cup face or not may all work, it’s all in the amount of action implied to the lure that will bring the end result (Regardless the species). To learn about ‘Walking the dog’ watch the videos below:
