Well, the time has come, as it does every year, to stock up on new top-water lures. The water temps are hot and the trout are most ready to eat at sunup when they stalk the shallows looking for breakfast.

When I’m fishing in thick weed beds, I much prefer a top-water lure. It doesn’t get hung up and it provides some great action when a big trout smashes it on the surface. Over time, of course, the hooks get rusty and the lure itself sometimes develops leaks, which spoil its action on the retrieve.

Yet when I get to the tackle shop, I always find myself getting a little irritated. The lure manufacturers go to great lengths to put out attractive lures. They have different paint schemes and different ways to depict scales and eyes and even gills. Some top-water lures are actually pretty.

BUT ONLY TO THE FISHERMAN! When you get the lure out of the box and turn it over, what do you find? Blah. Pretty much just a bland white surface with hooks dangling, which is all a fish coming to the lure from underwater will ever see.

That great paint scheme is designed to attract a fisherman, not a fish. The fish don’t care about the paint scheme. If they see something moving on the surface that looks like a bait fish, they’re gonna’ eat it.

So why don’t the lure manufacturers just put out bland lures that are white all over and cut the price by a couple of bucks that they would save by not bothering to paint the lures? It’s because fisherman like the way lures look. We’re the suckers, not the fish.

Now I admit that soft plastic baits can go a long way toward looking very realistic. Maybe since they’re generally fished underwater and the fish can get a good hard look at what he’s about to eat, they have to be. Lures resembling worms, shrimp and crabs do their jobs very well, although not as well as the real thing. Give me a choice between a live shrimp and a plastic shrimp and I’ll take my chances with the live shrimp anytime. 

But even lures that are fished underwater don’t always look like anything a fish would typically be eating. I’ve used red-and-white lures since I was a kid and have had marvelous success with them, particularly when trolling them behind our sailboat. But in all my years of fishing, I’ve never caught or even seen a fish that was red in front and white in back.

So what in the world is the fish that hits one of those lures thinking? Now that I’ve asked the question, I think the answer is obvious. Fish don’t do a lot of thinking. Or if they do, they act first and think later. But then it’s too late. They’re on the way to my frying pan.