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| Hopkins No Equal- 3 oz. |
In terms of fishing lures, 2023 brought some surprises. Normally, I stick with the same stuff year after year because it has worked. But, in 2023 I branched out a bit and found some surprising new effective lures which I had not used much of in the past. We'll give these a worked next season.
*Metal- I was out on a windy and rough northeaster in September. I could barely cast my trusty egg/jig combo with the stiff wind in my face. I had a big metal Hopkins lure (4H-3 oz.) in my bag that I barely used in the past. What the heck. I snapped that on and heaved a booming cast into the wind, way beyond what I was casting with the egg. A few cranks of the reel and I was onto a decent over slot fish. I was sold. On just about every adventure after that day, I at least tried the Hopkins when I needed a long cast in rough water. It delivered good numbers of slots and over slots for me in that two week period of northeast roughness in September.
Yo-Zuri Mag Darter
*Yo-Zuri Mag Darters- I was never much of a darter fisherman. I tended to opt for skinny plastic swimmers like a Daiwa SP Minnow when I wanted a plug that swims. But, one night, while plugging one of the breachways, I unsnapped the SP Minnow and snapped on a Yo-Zuri Mag Darter. Right away, I hit a decent fish. I suspect there were mullet around and that smaller Mag Darter ( 5 inch) is a dead ringer for imitating a mullet. I continued to use this plug and the larger Mag Darter (6 1/2 inch) for much of the fall as my primary swimmers, and I landed a lot of fish on them at night in moving water. I'm sold!
*NLBN Paddle Tails- I used these as my primary paddle tails along with the NLBN jigheads. I used to fish Cocahoes a lot but these NLBN lures will far outfish the Cocahoe. They have a tighter wiggle due to a smaller tail and that seems to elicit more hits. When the bait was small, I went with the three inch models. When we had large peanut bunker around, I went with the 5 inch models. I used only white colors. And, they were killers!
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| 5 inch NLBN paddle tail |
