Fish & Fishing: A Look Back

It’s worth repeating. Today’s marketplace is overflowing with shelves full of artificial lures embodying the look and actions of countless live baits. If you were limited to a single lure guaranteed to catch fish in a variety of situations from shallow water to offshore, on the surface or near the bottom, anywhere in the world, what would you choose?

While you are wrestling with your decision, consider that the government answered that question for you more than 75 years ago at the beginning of World War II. Survival kits aboard warplanes and in life rafts contained a leadheaded bucktail and a length of fishing line. Story after story talks about how successful that bucktail was in providing food for starving military when they were in a life raft or stranded on an island.

The popularity of the bucktail has waned over the years and only a relative handful of anglers today recognize its true value. It remains my favorite lure, and I can’t even begin to list the myriad species I have caught on it in many of the world’s waters.

Before the advent of soft plastics, we just fished a plain bucktail or we hung a strip of bait on the hook. By the way, dangling a length of bait from a bucktail is exceptionally effective today. In the early days of soft plastic, the worm combined with a bucktail worked well. Now, there are countless soft plastic tails that greatly improve the effectiveness of the leadhead.

If you decide to use a bucktail more often or plan to try it for the first time, let me remind you of some of the basics. You always want to attach the leader with a loop knot so the leadhead can swing freely without moving the line or leader up and down. The rule of thumb is to use the lightest weight bucktail that will reach the bottom or the depth you want to probe. And, it goes without saying that the lightest leader also makes a difference in performance.

You’ll find that some leadheads and plastic tails will outfish others. It’s a matter of preference, experience in fishing them and how you rig them. If you are targeting bottom species, the bucktail has to bounce along the bottom and not rise very far above it. When you are simply probing, it pays to work the offering from the bottom to the surface. Trolling a bucktail can also be extremely productive. The best approach is to fish it on a flat line and not more than three or four waves behind the boat.

One rule that I try to follow is to keep a spare rod rigged with a bucktail whether I’m inshore, on the flats or offshore. You never know when a situation will arise when you need to present a bait to a fish you can see. That’s when a bucktail provides the answer. If the fish remains in sight, you can fish the lure shallow and, if it disappears, the bucktail can be allowed to drop in the water column.

The leadheaded bucktail has been catching fish long before the military made it part of their survival gear, and it still catches fish today. Try it!

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