Wednesday 18 July 2007

Free Lure with Every Beer! Well Sort Of.


I'm off to south west France in a couple of weeks so I’ve been getting my fishing kit together.
I’m been hoping to spin for trout while I’m there. So I bought some new 5-10g (quarter ounce) lures and was about to buy some spinning blades too when I remembered bottle cap lures. I'd seen these things in action as a kid, and like so much stuff you can make at home for nix, they match the stuff you can buy bite for bite and you get the added satisfaction that only home made kit brings.
Best of all they are very easy to make. OK. Correction they really are very very easy to make.
First the hard bit - drinking the beers. Mission accomplished.
Then retrieve the caps from the recycling bin - you and I would call it interference (or sabotage) Mrs SBW calls it tidying up.
Use a nail to make two holes in the cap, near-ish to the edge, exactly where depends on the size of split rings you have to hand.
Fit split rings
There are two (or more) schools of thought as to what shape to make the lure
A. a tunnel or shell shape that creates turbulence and bubbles as you pull the lure through the water.
B. a Z shape, which will act as a propeller as it moves through the water.
Now for the technical bit: ring one gets a swivel, ring two gets a hook.
Jobs a good 'un.

Beer-Fishing-Recycling. It's All Good

I though I’d have quick look online, in case anyone had really innovated with a 17 bend design, and boy did I get a shock.
People actually buy them!! They pay $30 for Six -THAT'S $5 EACH!!
Only in real life - you couldn't make this stuff up!!!
A guy has set himself up in business selling them. Shrewdly exploiting the brand loyalty many of us feel towards our favourite brewski he sells them by beer brand.
I can't see the fish thinking 'oh no I’m a brand X fish, I’d never bite for brand Y'. But people just ain’t that smart.
He's also tried to play the recycling card, but missed the point by packaging each lure in it's own plastic and card display pack. Hmmm.

Give a man a fish he eats for a day.
Teach him to fish and he sits in a boat drinking beer all day.
Bushwacker.