Wednesday 15 May 2019

The Spinning Grub Catches Dinner

By Gregory Thomas


Anyone who ever played hooky from school in order to spend a day at the lake remembers the time taken to dig up worms. This was not always possible to do on the day prior to a fishing trip because, if you were skipping school to do it, your parents just might ask about the bucket of nightcrawlers in your room. Many people would make their own lures from colorful string known as jigs, but these days kids can buy a spinning grub from their local retailer.

Utilizing colorful materials is key to attracting the attention of the quarry. The jigs made from sewing thread and a hook were done in brilliant hues that can be easily seen from under the water. If a tail was included on the jib, then the lure would wobble just slightly from left to right as the angler slowly winds in the reel.

The better the wobble, the greater potential for a fish to be tricked in to coming for it. Wobbling creates a disturbance in the water that fish, fowl, snakes, and even turtles might mistake for an injured insect or fish. These lake-dwellers are notorious for eating first and asking questions later, which is how we trick these animals into biting down on a hook that keeps them on our line.

Retailers who provide a modern version of this string jig have perfected the design of this style lure, including a much longer and more rounded tail. This particular design creates even greater visibility in the water and a much larger wobble. A larger wobble means greater water displacement, meaning the creatures of the dark will be given the impression that a much larger animal or insect has been injured.

The bigger the fish caught, the fewer baby fish are caught and released during the course of a day. This means that the humans can get started eating much earlier in the afternoon. The wobble of newer lures attracts larger fish, as smaller ones will avoid the indication that a larger fish is nearby because even an injured fish undergoing the death throes will be an opportunistic eater.

Under the waters of lakes and rivers on our planet lies an alien world. There is enough violence and horror in this place to keep any scary movie junky satisfied for life, which would not be long for most of us were we to be members of their environment. Everything in the world of fish, insects, and reptiles is both a predator, and potentially the prey of one of their neighbors, sometimes even their own kind.

Humans are merely tourists in this realm, and are basically the masters of their universe while they visit. Most lakes and rivers do not possess creatures large enough to eat human beings, although this generalization is not always true. There are some catfish and gar on record who have been large enough to kill and possibly eat humans, and the piranha in South America can collectively take down human beings.

The largest of lake predators can be fooled by the ingenuity of humans, however. Their world is a dark and perilous one, and one of those perils comes in the form of faux prey who idly float or swim by. Because fish cannot clearly see what they eat, human beings are able to trap them on hooks to be lifted from their realm and delivered to a dinner plate on the sandy beach nearby.




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