This book has had a profound effect on my fishing life since my teenage years.

"Great Fishing with Lures"

Murray: Syd/Melb 1970

 page7

PREFACE

Since fishermen are human, fish are inundated with forgeries form sublime to incredible. Despite that, or because of it, we know we're no worse than anyone else. Fishermen save their more outrageous perfidy for fish, rather than their bosses or wives.

Let's make it clear. Whether it's a worm or a mini-skirt, every bait has a hook in it. You could say civilization is based upon the same principle, maybe known by another name. It might be called an incentive system, health insurance, annual increment or discounts for cash. Yet it's the most effective system, and without it we revert to wars and worse.

The development of lure fishing as a major sport is no accident. These last twenty years (ie 50's to 70's Ed.) it has grown from a nappied infant to a muscular adult, with a growth pattern which parallels the motor car in timing, quantity and technology. Fishing today mirrors our technology, and at  the same time reflects a basic human need, a need that increases with urban development and population growth. Fishing helps us stay human.

Checking back on the long history of lure fishing, the works of Isaac Walton make him the fisherman's Shakespeare. Isaac was revered as the patron saint of fly fishers, and some Australians, therefore look on him with suspicion. They need not. Close reading of his lyrical prose shows that he used bait and setlines cheerfully when he had to. He'd jumped at the chance to  use a spinning reel or a sidecast. In so many words, Isaac was actually one of the mob.

It's easy to track European and American influence on our fishing. We have trout fishermen who are more English than the English, and plug casters who are faithful worshippers the American cult. Yet the dominant theme of our lure fishing has native roots. It may have been the a cedar-getter who first shaped one of his chips and tied a hook for bass, or a bearded selector who ran out of cicada baits and tried tying a couple of green leaves to his linen line instead. It has grown ever since.

Today, fishing is Australia's major participant sport. Of the millions who fish, many use lures - and those who don't usually think about them, wishing they knew enough to have confidence in lures. The mounting pressure for information has resulted in this book. One happy problem attached to this problem, has been the number of interuptions on my doorstep every day of the week. - thousands of people in search of a private odyssey, whether trout, bonefish, bass or barramundi.

The reasons for the facination of lure fishing vary from person to person, but they include these:

Lures make fishing an active sport.

They cover greater areas of water.

They catch less small fish.

They don't smell or deteriorate.

They're cheaper than bait.

They're a million different ways.

They suit fishermen and and allow room for endless experiment.

For reasons of clarity within this book, the word "lure" appies to devices built from material such as wood, plastic, rubber, various metals, usually in imitation of natural food. The word "bait" implies natural flesh of some kind which is more or less a fish's natural food.

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