Bite Lights

[Jim80]

Well today i got my issue of north american fisherman and as i'm flipping through the pages i come across a electronic lure called the bite light .
It has a blinking light in it's tail and flashes a different pattern on every cast .
The manufacturer is saying it triggers the predators instinct faster that a
conventional lure but I'm not sure that i am sold on it .

So in everybody's opinion is it a gimmick or is it functional ? Weigh in i'm
interested to see what everyone thinks one kit of 3 lures is like $30
thats $10 a lure for that personally i would stick with conventional lures ,
also the add totes that Wyoming officially banned this lure .

[MrPhotographer06]

you can get 3 of most lures for that price of one your call! never heard of it

[Jim80]

I'm not thinking of buying them just kinda made me think as i read about them and
wondered how everyone would think of them . kinda made me wonder if technology
was making a step in the right direction or if it was another cheesy gimmick ?

[pignjig]

Denny Brauer has a blog entry on "another" website where he describes how innovation is a good thing. There will always be baits that are designed to catch fishermen rather than fish. But, truth is, some of those wild ideas pay off. Imagine what a lot of folks thought about the chatterbait, spider jig or wacky jigs when they first came on the scene. The blinking light lure concept has been around for awhile. It just gets repackaged after a few years. Maybe some day some inventive angler will come up with the right design or what not and it will take off, too. I'd always thought Reel Magic-type sprays were a gimmick until I tried them...

Just two cents...

[bamabassman]

gimmick,don't do it. i got some of roland martins helicopter lures and some flying lures (from my brother). if you want to try em, lmao. gonna give everyone at the get together a helicopter lure. hahahaha, for real i am.

[carolina-rig-01]

i always take what those type of ads say with a grain of salt.......i say gimmick.

[JB]

i got plenty of lucky lite zookers for sale, pm me

[MrPhotographer06]

i'll take one of every thing yall are givin away
email for addy
MrPhotographer06@gmail.com

i cant get any bites on anything right now

[Jim80]

thats awesome zook does it swim by it's self or do i still have to reel it in ?

[bamabassman]

IT HAS TO BE REMOTE CONTROL TOO!!!! no line attached to it. send me a dozen.... in nanner yeller!!!! fantastic jb, fantastic.

[BigBassin144]

that's the color John! I'll take ma few of them too!

anyways, IMO, the lures with the lights in them are pretty much a gimmick. Speaking of, I'm gonna catch a fish on one of them helicopter lures John, and send you the picture.

BB

[bothomas]

BB, the best way to fish the helicopter is texas rigged.. lol I hear it works well on a drop shot too!!

[BigBassin144]

Don't worry, I'm gonna try it until I catch something on it too. I bet it would work on a C-rig also.

BB

[pignjig]

They do work on a C-rig. Especially if fished deep and fast up a sharp drop off in very fast current..Wait a minute, that's Niagra Falls. Sorry...never mind

[Lancer6]

[quote=bamabassman;191082]i got some...flying lures...[quote]

In defense of The Flying Lure; Circa the mid-80s a well-meaning live-in GF surprised me with "the kit". Believe me, "Surprised" barely describes my feelings of the moment but, in that Mary Ellen had a body that would raise stiffies in a graveyard were she to trot nekkid through the skull orchard AND the fact that she came complete with a lake house AND the fact that she was 22 years old to my 37 AND she thought I hung the Moon, well...
A couple of days later, as I dropped the TM in a favorite spot on Medina Lake and picked up a Lew's Graphite Speed Stick/Lew's BB-1 combo embellished with a Sneaky Pete spinnerbait, there came a little "Aren't you gonna use the lures I gave you (sniffle, snuffle, whimper)?" Well, one look at the bikini-clad bombshell arrayed across the carpeting of the rear casting deck was enough for me.
Soooooooo, I rigged up the backwards-"flying" jiggy thing and cast it close to a slightly submerged ledge and let it aviate into the gloom beneath. The danged thing actually DID glide away from me and disappeared from sight. An instant later the line twitched a tad and I set the hook on a Medina Monster (any bass over 12 inches in length.) During the hour or so we spent in that cove The Flying Lure accounted for at least five more bass in a mix of LM and SM. As I semi-accurately recall, one smallie measured 16 inches and one LM made 18 inches...WOW!
Over that few days we spent at the cabin, the FL accounted for several more bass and I even caught a couple on the bass-akward-traveling spinnerbait contraption that came with the kit.
Mary Ellen, who gave me much joy for ten years, is long gone and (rumor has it,) is now about two axe handles wide. The cabin went with her and my "Sponsor" boat is somewhere in a home for retired fiberglass.
I can't seem to find any remnants of the original Flying Lure kit.
Well, being a man of few words, I suppose I should pad this post with this:
I actually WAS impressed by the concept of the FL. I sat down one afternoon and "designed" and cobbled up some variations on the theme. There was one that proved quite effective and here's a kinda-sorta description:
I applied some lead to the shank of a standard worm hook, placing it about a tad up the bend. I then took several 4-inch tubes, probably original Gitzits, and (you're gonna love this!) placed them between two sheets of heavy foil, covered that with a towel, and placed a cast-iron frying pan atop that. Then I placed an iron, the kind you use to get the wrinkles outta your shirts, in the pan. I tinkered with the temp (no steam) and wandered off in search of Mary Ellen. We'll draw the curtain for a couple of hours.
When I returned to the work area I turned off the iron, lifted the towel and foil, and "Eureka!"...then "Dammit". After discarding the plastic multi-colored pancake I had created I replaced the foil and installed a few more tubes. Setting the iron to a lower temperature I joined my female morsel in the pool and we toasted the sunset and each other, several times, with Tanqueray and Tonic (w/lime).
When we tottered back into the condo, I found that I'd achieved success. When the tubes were allowed to cool they were flat! I now had tubes that resembled a NASA "Lifting Body" aircraft.
When carefully rigged on my weighted hook, the point protruding from the top of the nose end and the eye and knot concealed within the body, these contraptions DID "fly" backwards. I actually caught fish on them. An added benefit was that the knot and a bit of the line, being shielded within the tube, were less vulnerable to bass's toofs!
Now that there are hooks with sliding weights on the shank, I may resume the experiment. Picture a LARGE tube, flattened, flying away from you into a bush, under lily pads or 'neath a ledge.

L6
Inventor

[Bender]

I have played around with smaller bass and they do chase a laser pointer thing similar to how some cats will. Maybe this is using the same idea?

[pignjig]

Bendersaurus- That's clever, the laser pointer. I'll have to check that out, too.

L6- Would you post some pics if you resume the experiments?

-Pig

[bamabassman]

ok l6... i'll try it again. maybe on some of these boat houses? i'll let you know. and show one of yours, ok?

[Lancer6]

Originally Posted by bamabassman

ok l6... i'll try it again. maybe on some of these boat houses? i'll let you know. and show one of yours, ok?

BBM,

Boathouses, docks, ledges, vegetation with an "overhang" or space between the stems (See: Pads); All are prime targets for a lure that can actually glide away from the angler and penetrate the shadows.
When you cast the lure, make certain that you allow a fair amount of slack so the lure can achieve maximum travel. Also, the smaller the line diameter, the less drag=good.
I'm not camera-equipped, nor am I able to find any relics from the old days. Just imagine a large tube that is flat rather than round. The hook protrudes from the top, near the nose. The weight added to the hook is concealed, of course, and is near or at the very beginning of the curve leading to the point.
With the advent of factory-weighted hooks, especially with weights that slide on the shank, there is another rigging style that might be very effective. Simply rig the flattened tube as you would a swimbait, with the weight exposed under the flattened tube and the offset eye of the hook protruding from the top rear of the tube. You'll have to rig the hook untied so that you can position the business end of the hook first, then carefully punch the eye through from bottom to top, then tie on. With careful adjustment of the weight's position, you can alter the "Glide ratio" of the lure.
Actually, though time-consuming, this rig affords some real advantages. First, it will be snagless. Second, having the eye and knot atop the rear portion of the tube will help keep the lure gliding on a flat place rather than tilting to one side. Third, you'll be able to "steer" the lure to a small degree after some practice. I recommend you do as I do when testing, evaluating, and tuning lures...in a swimming pool with underwater lighting, at night.
When I was actively using my little treasures, so well as the original F. Lure, I found that I could probe a succession of descending ledges on any given cast. That, as we nowadays say, was most "Kewl"!
As the lure finished poking about under one ledge, I drew it back until it could then be "released" to glide beneath the next one. The message here is to NOT assume that the initial flight is all there is...there may be other cover that can be searched during the same retrieve.
These lures take a lot of practice and observation to be maximally effective, as do most lures. Still, if one is willing to tune both lure and self, they can be very effective.

Good Luck! And WATCH THAT LINE!

L6
PS: Small tubes are not suited to the "Flat 'n Backward" scheme. I'd recomment 4-6" tubes with so fat a body (maximum diameter) as possible.
Be careful when flattening so that you don't melt 'em.