Lure fishing microcosm.

Since beginning my lure fishing journey I have learnt that the world of lure fishing is just as, if not more than, as expansive as all the other fishing genres I have come across before. It's not just the array of millions of lures, the vast colours that they come in and the different sizes that I am referring to either; every lure can be used in so many different ways and different situations.

One particular facet I have been intrigued by lately is micro jigging. I love casting jigs anyway and already had some tiny jig heads and tiny lures which I had not really had any great success with until recently.

I actually started messing around with this technique a little while ago, but it was only the other day that I went out to specifically concentrate on doing it. At first when I had a go a while back I made the mistake of actually casting the tiny jigs out into the canal, it was then that I concluded that beyond a rod length out you really lose all contact and control of the lure. Between under a rod length out to right under your feet they are deadly. Having the lure on a constant tight line and using a light rod means you can impart some pretty damn sexy movements on the lure with the slightest flick of the wrist. Fishing like this also changes the way you look at a canal, and all the normal distracting far bank features fail to register as you concentrate on the four feet from the bank which is now your microcosm. Doing so turns what to most seems like a small gap between two boats into the micro jigging equivalent of a ten acre lake.

Tiny is the order of the day and this Crazy Fish cruel leech mounted on a size 8 two gram jig head worked perfectly to compensate against the slight yet disruptive tow on this occasion. The little black lure wiggles like a hula girl with the very slightest of rod movements.

Although I only had a few hours to fish, my micro attack proved to work perfectly. I had to work along a bit of tow path until I found a concentration of fish holding tight to the concrete lined margin, but once I found them it was one fish after another with perch making up the majority of the captures.

What has surprised me was how many fish you could catch from one area. In a normal casting situation I have found you easily spook fish out of spot by hooking a few of their mates. Fishing these light lures into a shoal seemed to have little effect until I'd had hooked loads of them and been hit by even more.

The zander too seemed to be hanging out in the shoals of perch, although these young immaculate hunters seemed to prefer the lure to be moving further and quicker than the perch which seemed more attracted to a gentle off the bottom wiggling lure.

I have to say I really like this micro margin jigging, but to balance the tackle and make everything move naturally I was having to fish some very light fluorocarbon leaders of around 4lb in breaking strain which would be OK if a big perch turned up. A better zander though could make mince meat out of such delicate tackle so really even if you see an opportunity of a bigger zed or jack pike the whole leader would have to be changed in order to reduce the risk getting cut off. Saying that, I reckon some of the lures I have been using are so small they might well not register on a big predators radar and given that most of the waters I am fishing are the colour of milky tea I'd probably never know if a big fish was hiding right under my feet.