I don’t know how, but I had not met Peter before I started this latest job. A fellow Scot, he lives in the Westport area and does a lot of fishing. We both know the same guys and fish in roughly the same places but we had never bumped into each other before now. Both of us pitched up in Mayo around the end of the 1990’s but unlike me he already had strong family connections to the area. We finally met up and have been swapping fishing tales since I started this assignment in January. Peter’s main focus is on sea angling but he dabbles in other branches of the sport too. Last week he surprised me with a wee present.
Peter has been around and on a trip to USA some years ago he picked up a box of small soft baits which regaled in the name ‘Trout Magnet’. Alas the trout showed no interest but he caught some perch on them back in the day. Since then the lures had been left in his loft and forgotten about until he heard me rabbiting on about canal fishing. I was delighted he no longer wanted the box when he gave it me them. Here was another form of fishing for me to try out.
In the past soft baits have caught me the odd pike but nothing to write home about. The whole drop-shotting thing passed me by and ‘urban fishing’ on canals in cities seemed to be a world away from me drifting in a boat on the Irish loughs. Now that I occasionally fish the Royal or Grand canals here I can see that jigging a small soft bait could bring me a few perch. I don’t own a drop-shot rod but I have a couple of light spinning rods that might do the trick. There is an old ABU Duet with two tops, one of which is rated for 2 – 5 grams so that will probable be fine for this kind of work. I know the experts in drop shotting use braid for their running line but the old ABU’s rings were never intended for that so I will just use some light mono instead. All I want is a set up that I can use for a change and not spend the whole day with.
The old box is in poor shape, all twisted and bent. I will try steaming it back into shape but I suspect it is beyond saving. The same goes for most of the hooks. The neat little jig hooks were all rusted to some degree. I tried to save one or two but I will have to make up new ones. In the end only 4 hooks could be salvaged by cleaning up with fine grade emery paper, the rest were far too rusty. The baits themselves have fared much better and a wide range of coloured grubs are perfectly usable. A good clean in warm soapy water was administered as they were dirty with years of neglect. A swoosh about in the suds then dried off in some paper towel and they looked just fine. They are very small, only an inch long but I think they will be attractive to perch. I already own some bigger ones so I now have a good selection to pick from.
The tiny jig hooks are light enough they could be cast with a fly rod. I however am planning on using them on normal hooks on a drop shot set up. The baits themselves come in a range of colours with browns and oranges prevailing. They are split tails so should have a bit of action in the water.
I looked up Trout Magnet on line and sure enough they are still going strong. There is a short video on the website which goes into the detail of how to rig the lure. They fish these on the river suspended under a bobber on very light line (2 pound test).
I particularly like the fact they are so small. The run-of-the-mill perch in Irish canals is between a quarter and half a pound. Your average 3 inch bait is just too big for wee fellas like these but my newly acquired one inchers should do just fine. I have watched a few videos on drop-shotting and while the basics look pretty straight forward I am guessing there is more to it than meets the eye. My love of using maggots under a waggler will remain but the wee plastic grubs mean I now have an alternative for slow days of when I am low on bait.
Claretbumbler 