Trolling Lure Skirts Don't Last Forever. Time for a Change Maybe?

New lure skirts will immediately re-establish your lure's eye-catching attraction, but no matter how convincing they look to us humans, they won't catch anything unless the fish know they're there. They need to make their presence known.

Skirted trolling lures achieve this by setting up a long stream of tiny bubbles - the smoke trail.

Most of the smoke trail is created by the lure head - in fact, often it's all of it, with the skirt contributing nothing other than colour and bulk.

While colour may be important - there's certainly more than one school of thought on that issue - there's little doubt that a good smoke trail really does provide the visual stimulation that draws in predatory fish to the lure.

When you're changing your skirts then, don't just go for colour - look for texture on the surface of the skirt.

Textured skirts will produce an impressive smoke trail...

So anything the skirts can provide to add to the smoke trail is a valuable contribution indeed.

All those little nodules and indentations work on the water and produce vibrations and bubbles. Every little helps!

It's not always easy to find original manufacturer's replacement lure skirts - they'd much rather sell you a new complete lure - but these will get the job done...

Offshore Angler Squid Skirts

And talking of changing lure skirts, here's how it's done:~

First, cut off the old skirt, showing appreciation where appreciation is due, then discard it without any further display of emotion and...

Cut off the nose of the new skirt (if it had one) such that it can just be stretched over the head of the lure, then...	If the new skirt has a nose, cut it off...
Turn the skirt inside out and insert the lure head, front-end first into the skirt leaving just a smidgen of the lure head visible, next...	Turn skirt inside-out and insert head..
Bind the skirt with light line, nipping it tight in the necked section of the lure head - drop of superglue on the whipping will do no harm - and finally...	Attach skirt securely to head...
Roll the skirt back over the lure head and that's it done - a new lure!	Ready to go! Artwork by Andrew Simpson

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