There’s been resurgence of late in the production of natural-looking hard lures that perfectly mimic bass forage such as crayfish, crappies, shad and bream. If appearances are mainly what counts to a bass, there’s no telling how many record stringers will hit the weigh-in scales in 2011.
On the other hand … I’m reminded of a couple of lures from days of yore, the Lazy Ike Natural Ike and a series of Bagley Small Fry balsa crankbaits. In all respects, these looked like the real deal. The Natural Ike represented Lazy Ike’s most aggressive foray into the bass-fishing market, and the company even signed up some of the more prominent pros of the early 80s such as Marvin Baker, a Sam Rayburn guide.
Alas for Lazy Ike, the fishing populace in general couldn’t emulate Baker’s fishing success with the Natural Ike, and it soon faded into oblivion. I tried the Natural Ike at some of my Florida Panhandle haunts such as Lake Talquin, Lake Seminole, Dead Lakes and the Apalachicola River. The biggest problem that I had with the Natural Ike is that one could never be sure about how it would behave in the water. On the retrieve, and depending on the style and size, sometimes it would do a slow twirl, run off to one side, gradually swim to the surface or just come in like a stick. At best, its action was unpredictable and I assumed that was owing to its lifelike bulges, swells and curvatures, which didn’t lend themselves well to any sort of consistent bass-enticing wiggle.
Ditto for the Bagley Small Fry series, though I did enjoy some success with the crayfish copycat. Mainly I remember the Natural Ike and the Bagley Small Fry because they taught me a lot about the nature of bass and what is really important in a fishing lure.
There’s no telling how many bass – especially smallmouths – that have been caught on the original Lazy Ike, a curved piece of plastic that doesn’t look like much of anything one might see swimming around in the water. And Bagley’s Balsa B family, including the vaunted Killer B 2, only generally suggests the shape of some sort of baitfish. But what great lures these turned out to be.
At some point, I concluded that matching up perfectly in shape and detail isn’t the essential component of a productive lure. Attempting to duplicate Mother Nature, such as was the case with the the Natural Ike, can actually be a hindrance.
Color and size do matter, but it’s the message a lure’s action conveys to a foraging bass that is the most critical element, whether that action is imparted by the angler or inherent to the lure’s design.
No matter how real the lure looks, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the swing.