How Fishing Lures Work: What Each One Is Pretending to Be

How fishing lures work: each one is pretending to be something a fish eats, a baitfish, a crawfish, a squid. Here are 27 fishing lures underwater, from a pond bluegill to a blue marlin, and how each one is fished.

A cream line drawing traces the animal each lure copies, level by level, from the pond out to the lures that catch big fish offshore. Two of them have no hook at all.

Pond: an inline spinner, a spinnerbait, topwater baits, a fluke, a jerkbait, a football jig and a Texas-rigged worm, all for one big largemouth bass.
The coast: paddle tails for striped bass off a pier.
Offshore: a spreader bar, a deep plug and marlin lures for tuna, wahoo and a blue marlin, released at the boat.

0:00 A worm, a bluegill and a bigger fish
0:45 Inline spinner: pure flash
1:18 Spinnerbait and a pickerel follow
1:52 The big bass under the lily pads
2:39 Four tries on top
3:18 Fluke: a wounded baitfish
4:13 Suspending jerkbait
4:45 How a bass takes a bait, slowed down
5:24 The pond’s biggest bass
6:19 Striped bass from the pier
7:05 The end of the pier
7:44 Why boats troll
8:20 Morning: tuna, then a wahoo
9:12 Afternoon: the marlin spread
9:50 The two lures with no hook
10:36 Fish on

The two Shorts this came from:
What Every Lure Is Pretending to Be: https://youtu.be/q3V0Z6r43yM
Deep-Sea Fishing: What Every Lure Is Pretending to Be: https://youtu.be/kTlgvvDQwJg

Sounds (CC0 and public domain): The Designer’s Choice by Nicholas A. Judy; the USC Cinema Sunset Editorial Collection on the Internet Archive; rubberduck and jcpmcdonald on OpenGameArt; 14FPanska_Nemec_Petr and damarlo on Freesound; Jamie House, Elizabeth Chitty, Pierrot Desperes and anguscarlyle on Radio Aporee; Yellowstone Lake from the National Park Service and the MSU Acoustic Atlas.