Capt. George Tunison

“KISS” or “Keep it simple …” is something you’ll hear well known DOA lure inventor Mark Nichols use quite often in his public presentations and videos when describing productive retrieve presentations using his many successful and widely copied soft bait lure designs. Simple: meaning casting it out and reeling it back at a medium speed. No two step, jerk and twitch, pause twitch – twitch, or speed reel and pause, none of that fancy razzle dazzle that gets wise old fish pointing and chuckling or simply scares them away from that crazy rattling thing passing through their hood.

Probably the oldest lure design of all, the simple jig is a lure that actually “does it all” from top to bottom, with retrieve styles only limited by your imagination and past successful experiences. Of course, the word jig not only describes the lures design but to most people, a hop and fall retrieve style as well. Now apply the KISS rule using a simple cast-it-out and reel-it-in method and you have the classic big snook lure, the long-tailed flair hawk jig which has consistently accounted for many trophy snook over the years, especially for night bridge anglers using this simple straight line retrieve.

With tarpon season in full swing, Nichols’ popular soft bait creations, the DOA BaitBuster and Swimming Mullet, are hard to beat when fished properly. If you’re casting out and doing your favorite erratic lure retrieve to fool a big eyed tarpon, be it 20 pounds or 200, you need to try a new plan. Tarpon often like to follow or track your lure and the best lure presentations often use a straight and steady, medium retrieve. The DOA BaitBuster and Swimming Mullet definitely perform best using this method.

If you like the BaitBuster, make sure you also try the previously mentioned ZMAN HERCULEZ Swimbait as well. This soft plastic swimbait is a bit bigger than the DOA product with an upright molded in 7/0 hook but also an attachment point on the bottom of the bait. I add a beefy split ring and a 6/0 barbless hook to it which gives me extra holding power on tarpon jumps but still allows for easy releases.

Well known Florida guide and You Tube personality CJ Richardson rigs one of his favorite tarpon baits in a unique way. He removes the treble hooks from an old-time classic snook bait, the 52M MirrOlure, then attaches a pinch of surgical tubing covering the nose screw eye opening. He then runs a 7/0 circle hook through the tubing securing it. Cast it out and reel back slowly, straight and steady, no frills, in front of a school and hang on. Looks like a small lifeless piece of plastic moving steadily with tide but definitely produces bites unless you start an erratic retrieve. Using this MirrOlure mod and lifeless retrieve we jumped several fish in Key West Harbor then later in the Ten Thousand Islands casting to laid-up tarpon in shallow warm winter bays.

Using standard MirrOlure plugs for tarpon definitely works but a deeply hooked fish with a throat full of treble hooks is bad news and a fine way to get yourself or fish in big trouble. A wildly bucking 3-pound ladyfish hooked to one end of a top water plug and two trebles buried in my hand on the other end definitely ramped up my pain factor, causing me to put on quite a show during the first 15 minutes of a trip with brand new to angling visitors. The sudden chaos, flying blood and ladyfish slime splattered across her face and clothes, with me howling in pain while trying to subdue the panicked fish scared the poor woman half to death. Imagine the same scenario with a green triple digit tarpon. Don’t be that guy! Discard those trebles for in line single hooks.

Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. You can contact him at 239-282-9434 or via email at captgeorget3@aol.com.