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Part 2
Spinners of one kind or another have probably caught about as many or more fish than just about any lure there is.
That comment won’t surprise experienced anglers. Chances are spinners are one of the lures they’ve been using to catch a variety of game fish. But what even some of those experienced anglers don’t realize is that today there’s a lure that puts a whole new “spin” on things.
The lure I have in mind is a Mack’s Lure Promise Keeper. It’s the dandy little bait I talked about in my previous column. As I also mentioned in that column, the Promise Keeper is one of the favorite lures of Bobby Loomis, the nationally recognized expert who now is a top executive here at Mack’s Lure.
If you read my previous column you’re also aware I promised to share some of the tactics Bobby uses so effectively with his own Promise Keepers. He’s caught a variety of game fish on these lures, including some beautiful native trout from Washington State waters.
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Bobby Loomis will tell you he fishes a Promise Keeper with a twitch and pause routine. Here's proof it gets results. |
“The first thing you need to know about a Promise Keeper,” Loomis says, “is that it has a different movement than a typical spinner. The Smile Blade up front is responsible for that.”
If you’ve used Smile Blades ahead of some of your other lures you’ll know what Bobby is talking about. My friend Dr. Ron Stirtz, of Eugene, Oregon, really started something when he came up with these smile shaped plastic spinner blades. You know, of course, that they’re going to spin when you slide them onto your leader. What you probably won’t realize until you’ve seen it yourself is that these unique little hunks of plastic impart a special action to whatever is trailing along behind them.
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Bobby Loomis will tell you that it's the Smile Blade that gives the Promise Keeper the special action it has. |
That’s what Bobby is talking about when he says the Promise Keeper has a “different” movement than conventional spinners. It’s also undoubtedly what makes these sparkling little fish catchers so darn effective for a variety of sports fish.
Loomis does something else that is probably every bit as important. It’s the way he manipulates his Promise Keeper as it is retrieved. “Once I get my Promise Keeper down where I want it,” he says. “I retrieve it with a twitch and pause routine. I want the lure to move erratically as it comes back to me.”
The movement Bobby makes with his rod tip to get the desired lure action isn’t done with big jerks. “I only twitch my rod tip an inch or two,” he says. “The movement is just enough so the lure darts ahead then hesitates before it darts forward again.”
This column carries pictures showing some of the many beautiful trout Loomis has caught using this procedure. But while trout are the fish pictured, Bobby will tell you that the technique he used to catch them is one he developed while fishing for bass.
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The Promise Keeper shown here is pictured right where it should be,
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A region in Washington State that Bobby loves to fish is one that encompasses the headwaters of beautiful Lake Chelan. He also fishes Coon Lake and the Stehikan River that are in the same part of the Evergreen State. He was actually married in that area a few years ago. His wife’s family has a cabin in that region and that’s where the marriage ceremony took place. The only access to the area is by float plane or boat.
Something else that Bobby says is of great importance in achieving maximum results with a Promise Keeper is selecting a color that the fish you’re after will hit. ‘In that area around the headwaters of Lake Chelan,” he says, “I’ve had excellent success with blue, black and green colors. Sometimes in Lake Chelan itself the hot pink shade can’t be beat.”
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Promise Keepers come in a variety of colors. They also now come with both a single and treble hook.
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Something else this veteran angler will tell you is how important it is to find the depth at which the fish are holding. “Don’t go on retrieving your Promise Keeper at the same depth unless you’re getting hits,” he says. “Pay close attention to where your lure was and what you were doing with it when the hits do start to come.”
Bobby has another suggestion if you decide to try the same twitch and pause retrieve he has found so effective with his Promise Keepers. It’s to use a good quality of snap swivel at the end of your leader.
“The Promise Keeper comes with its own swivel,” he says, “but I favor using a swivel at the end of my leader as well. I do so because the twitch and pause routine I use so much increases the possibility of getting line and lure tangles. Having the two swivels up front helps cut down on this potential problem.”
There are a lot of other things this Mack’s Lure executive does that will help the rest of us who throw Promise Keepers. One is that he always selects a rod and line that will best let him handle these lightweight lures.
The Promise Keeper comes in only one weight and that’s 1/8th-ounce. When he’s throwing these lures he most often does it with a 7 ½-foot lightweight rod and 6 to 8-pound line on his spinning reel. In recent seasons he’s been doing more and more of his trout fishing using a braided line on his spinning outfit.
There’s another bit of good news about the Promise Keeper. The lure originally was sold with only a small treble hook. It still comes with a treble but the box it comes in now also holds a single hook as well. The single hook is tied with the same crystal flash tail that comes on the treble.
If you don’t want to use a treble hook, or if perhaps regulations where you’re fishing forbid it, simply slide the treble off the split ring to which it’s attached and replace it with the single hook.
That’s about the size of it. I’ve just covered some of the major points a recognized expert uses with a lure he’s convinced will live up to its name---Promise Keeper--- provided you’ll give it opportunity to do so. I’ve told you how he does that. Build his tactics into your own approach and changes are good you’ll get you the same kind of results.
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