I assume we all have lures that we grow attached to over time. I’ve had many, some of them even had names. I had yellow/white Super Strike Little Neck Popper that just seemed to have some kind of extra mojo, it seemed to be able to draw a strike when I couldn’t raise a single fish on anything else. I carried this plug for years and it eventually earned the name, “Old Yeller”. With its deep ‘hook-swing’ groove and so much bass rash it looked like freestyle scrimshaw in the worn paint, that plug was as comfortable as my childhood bed. Then, one day, it just broke off on a cast, sailed 100 yards out into the middle of the Canal and sunk out of sight. That was probably 10 years ago and it still hurts to think about it.
I believe it was 2015 when I obtained a pile of the original Sebile Magic Swimmers in the old blue boxes—I still have some of them. The mackerel-fueled blitzes in the Canal were on fire that year and I got the wild notion to paint one of those Magic Swimmers in a mackerel pattern that I felt would stand out among the millions of the real thing. So after removing the hooks and eyes and scuffing the plastic, I primed the body and I guess I was in a rush to finish this thing because I didn’t paint it with my airbrush and I really didn’t put all that much finesse into the paintjob.
I had a can of spray paint that was made to touch up metallic silver auto paint, I sprayed the whole thing with that. Then I hit the top portion of the plug with screaming fluorescent green, like something you’d expect to find at Area 51. Then I ripped the cardboard insert out of that blue Sebile box and used a box cutter to create a crude stencil of mackerel stripes, about 3 inches long. I repeated the stenciled pattern several times down each side of the plug with some black spray paint and I didn’t even put eyes back into the sockets, I just drew pupils in each spot with a Sharpie, added hooks and it was ready.
I believe I made it on a Thursday afternoon and fished it Friday morning. Right from the start there was something special about that plug. I’d fish white or some of the other, more realistic, mackerel patterns I had made and catch fish, but when I snapped that bright one on, it was like everything ratcheted up to another level. And while that plug never landed any true giants, it did account for many large fish in the 35- to 37-pound class and too many 20- to 30-pound fish for me to count.
Then, just last month I ended my Canal hiatus and found myself pedaling the access roads once again. When I spotted a large pod of feeding stripers in the fog, I knew what plug I needed to use. Right away, I hooked up to a good fish! The angry cow dove deep and ran hard against the tide, (a sign of a truly large fish). I had her all the way back to 30 feet out, I saw her broad tail and massive length. I’d even go so far as to say it would have been my Canal personal best. But she rolled and dove and shed the hook. With so many fish around, I tried to salvage the moment by fishing the battle-worn plug back to shore, but something didn’t feel right about the way it was swimming.
When I pulled it out of the water, the truth was revealed. That last battle had broken one of the two loops that join the head section to the middle section. Stainless steel molded into the ABS plastic, there was no way I could repair it. No name ever attached itself to this plug, but 8 years of service is no small feat, especially in the Canal where hostile environments, relentless currents and big fish account for thousands of lost plugs every year.
It didn’t hurt like the loss of Old Yeller, but it hurt. And yesterday I unsheathed a brand new ‘rainbow trout’ colored Sebile, scuffed it up and primed the body so that I can create its replacement. With any luck, I’ll get another 8 years out of this one.
