This article originally appeared in the Fisherman magazine

Culling the Big Fish with Metal Lip Swimmers

The 2005 fall run action left a lot to be desired. Even in Montauk, where fall blitzes are usually the norm, there were many long faces walking the beaches, searching for any action. You knew it was bad when enthusiasm usually reserved for our beloved stripers was suddenly bestowed on schools of small blues. Although I was disappointed in the overall action, I still managed to have one of my “epiphany” moments. You know, one of those days where your knowledge expands in front of your eyes and you just know that the experience of that particular day will affect the way you fish for years.  

 Fishing with Don Musso of Super Strike fame is always a treat for me. His vast knowledge and his willingness to share it always brings me to full attention. His wonderful personality is just a cherry on top of a sweet pie. This particular day we were fishing in Scotts located on the west side of the fabled Montauk Lighthouse. We weren’t doing much when suddenly a school of fish erupts in front of us in a feeding frenzy. Engrossed in catching 8 to 12 lb bass, we paid little attention to the 4x4’s running full speed in our direction into the weed bowl and all the anglers streaming down from the lighthouse parking lot. As engrossed as I was on the scene in front of me, where hundreds of stripers were marauding bait, I could not ignore the sudden sharp pain I felt in my shoulder blade. I reached with my hand over my shoulder only to find a Super Strike Little Neck popper hanging on my jacket. The genius behind me was casting from the shore and hit me square in the back. After we exchanged pleasantries, I cut his line and stuck his plug in my bag while he took off toward the lot. I was about to mention to Don that maybe his poppers should be reclassified as “deadly weapons” considering the distance they can be cast and the speed they travel when suddenly another plug zoomed by my ear. A blue Gibbs Danny metal lip swimmer landed about six feet in front of me with a splat. Now I was enraged and steam was coming out of my ears. The fellow on the shore started his retrieve and his plug was within a foot of my Korkers. Just as I was going to turn and explode in anger I saw a dark shadow a mere two feet away from my rock, in a less than a foot of water. Standing on the rock gave me a birds eye view of the lure and what was about to happen. Towering over the lure, as I was, I could see the shadow rapidly approaching and then only inches away it thrust its tail and hammered the Danny. The sight of the 30 lb class bass inhaling the plug was now permanently burned into my memory. The fish took off like a rocket for the nearest rock on which, of course, yours truly was standing. I had to do some fancy footwork to let the line go under my feet and get out of the way. My apprehension disappeared as I admired this magnificent fish fighting for its life. Would you be surprised if I told you that among hundreds of fish caught that day, that bass was the biggest one? Do you wonder why a fish of that size smacked a metal lip in a foot of water while hundreds of surfcasters could do no better than a teen fish yet they were casting a hundred yards further? Or why Al Bentsen, a legendary angler whose exploits in the surf could fill a book, fishes mostly metal lip swimmers when not tossing his signature rigged eels? I sure did not, but not for long 

You have read it before that big fish are lazy and are opportunistic feeders that refuse to chase after baitfish in order to fill their bellies. Instead they calculatingly feed on the easiest of prey, for example, injured baitfish or lobsters which are not known for their running skills. It is no mystery then that those fishing with bait take a disproportionate number of large fish each year. A free chunk of bunker lying on the sand is too good a treat to resist for even the smartest of bass. My belief is that large fish are often present in the area we all fish and yet they are not terribly inclined to strike our lures. How can that be you ask?  Don’t big fish have to eat too? Yes but the consensus among surfcasters is that big fish feed differently than their smaller brethren. Where smaller fish are aggressive feeders and don’t think twice before they charge a school of spearing, large fish are thought to feed less often but take larger meals. Instead of expending their energy by hunting down small baitfish, they might opt to eat a 3 lb bunker, a shad or a herring and call it a day. Zoning in on the injured or weakest fish in the school is another way they love to feed because they expend the least amount of energy by feeding in this manner. Often times they will ignore a bucktail that is swept by the current or a popper that is pulled across the surface. However, toss a chunk in the same area and they will be all over it. Is there a lure that we could use to imitate a large struggling baitfish? A lure that almost appears suspended in the water, barely moving, appearing to be an easy meal for a large cow?  We cannot do that with a bucktail as it has to be retrieve at a decent clip, besides the profile is too small. A needlefish is too thin and it really is not designed to be suspended while a darter is magical but it needs to move at a good clip in order to work well. But you can do it with a large metal lip! It is my belief that a metal lip swimmer is the best lure suited to cull a large cow out of a school of smaller, more aggressive fish. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a metal lip catch the biggest fish of the day but I’ve seen it enough to know that it is not just a freak occurrence.I want you to use your imagination for a moment and paint a picture in your head of how your lure is moving through the water. You are fishing a fast moving rip in the inlet; a place you know surrenders its share of cows each year. Your bucktail (the most often used lure in these places) is being carried along with a current, puffing up every time you flick it with a wrist. Regardless of how slow your retrieve, the bucktail is soon swept out of the rip. That means that a big fish that is present in the rip has about a second to make up its mind if it wants to strike the bucktail before the lead head moves out of sight. Since we already covered the fact that truly large fish do not “chase” after anything, chances of them taking off after that bucktail are highly unlikely. Now imagine a metal lip with the eye in front of the plug bent way up forcing the plug to head down deep. At some point in your retrieve the lure will turn on an angle to the current and its metal lip with cause it to wobble in an almost suspended, stationary stage giving the appearance of an injured baitfish struggling against the current. Because of the wood’s buoyancy and more important a metal lip, these plugs stay in the rip longer and move at slower speeds than any other offering you might try. Think about that, a large, injured baitfish, almost suspended in a rip on its last breath. Does that sound to you like a large meal for a cow with minimal effort on her part? It does to me.

Fishing the open beaches of Long Island ’s south shore, although differing in structure from the inlets, is no less productive when in search of that cow. Regardless of what your weapon of choice might be, popper, needlefish, bucktail or rubber shad, they all have to be retrieved at a decent speed in order to work them properly and keep them off the bottom. The metal lip swimmer however gives us a unique ability to hold it almost stationary or barely moving. The longer our plug remains in the strike zone, the more it appears like a wounded prey, increasing our chances of enticing that reluctant cow to take a swipe at it. First though, some myths have to be debunked. For me one of the most exasperating sights is to observe surfcasters working metal lips with the wind at their backs. They think that the few extra yards in casting distance they get with the help of the wind is their ticket to success. Wrong!!! The truth is that metal lips produce best when there is an onshore breeze and lots of white water. Fish want and need cover in order to feed in the shallows and an onshore wind affords them just that by creating decent wave action. In addition, the frothy white water churns up the bottom, exposing clams, crabs and sand fleas, all part of a striper’s diet. You need to put aside your fear about not being able to cast a metal lip as far as other plugs in your bag. Remember, the angler casting behind me pulled a cow from less than a foot of water? I find that success with a metal lip often depends on a proper retrieve in conjunction with the wave action and is almost never dependent on the length of the cast. Here is another thought that some might find disturbing or at least challenging. You should fish a metal lip swimmer by “feel” and not by sight. You should be as comfortable in darkness as you are in the daytime. Once you can see and start admiring the action of your plug and the tantalizing wake it leaves behind, you are unknowingly out of your game. Why? Big fish cruise the backside of a rushing wave and the white foamy water it leaves in its path. Your plug should be positioned and held as long as possible in this area. If you can “see” your plug it means it is not behind the wave but in front of it, a place no self-respecting cow will hunt. The trick is to cast a metal lip just as the wave is cresting and having it land in the foamy water on the backside. Fish will move in after the wave to scope out what the tumbling action has uncovered as nuggets of food.

Which ones?

There are a lot of choices these days when it comes to metal lips hanging on store shelves and it might be hard to choose exactly which builder’s creation to buy. I would recommend that you insist on one with a stiff metal lip, one that does not bend easily. The metal lip is the most important part of the lure, you could say it breathes life into a plug and gives it its signature action. A great paint job won’t do a darn thing for you if you have to bend the lip back after every fish or when it smacks into rocks. Another thing to look at is how the plug is weighted and how durable is the finish. Ask those who fish them with regularity for their recommendations and their experience with them. We are talking about targeting large fish, the kind that will put an inordinate amount of pressure on all lure components and you need to be confident that the plug will take the abuse from these fish.

Open Beaches

Since stripers are nocturnal feeders in only makes sense to target them from dusk to dawn. I prefer some onshore wind with the least amount of moonlight as possible. A few days before and after a new moon are my favorite times for targeting larger fish with metal lips. On open beaches my hands down favorite is a Beachmaster 2 ounce Danny in either herring, yellow or blurple pattern. Its bulky body will attract bass from 5 to 50 lb although smaller fish do tend to leave it alone. I will either leave the eye of the plug straight or bend it slightly down depending on surf conditions. I want the plug on or close to the surface and bending the eye down accomplishes this. As I mentioned before, you must get used to the idea of fishing a metal lip by “feel”, reeling faster as your lure speeds up on top of the wave and then immediately stopping the retrieve as you feel the resistance of the plug wobbling on the backside of a wave. At times you must take a few steps forward with each set of waves otherwise your lure will forcibly be pulled by line tension. Almost always the hit will come as the metal lip is wobbling on the backside of the wave so keeping it there as long as possible is imperative.

Montauk

Montauk beaches are seemingly made for metal lip swimmers. Abundant white water rolling over an uneven bottom, large boulders strewn everywhere and a fast current which increases the effectiveness of metal lip swimmers. What’s not to like about this scene? I use the same approach when it comes to my retrieve as I do when fishing the south shore beaches. Wading out to one the many points dotting the south side of Montauk Point and working a metal lip slowly in the dark is one of the surest ways to cull a cow from the rocks. Honestly, this is somewhat of a lost art these days as darters and needlefish have taken over in these areas but not because they catch bigger fish, it’s because they cast further. For some reason, when we are fishing at night we constantly question our casts because we can’t see where our plugs have landed. Going with a needle or a darter will increase your distance but will not necessarily produce bigger fish. I won’t lie by saying you will outfish the guy next to you who is fishing bucktails but what you give up in quantity, you will gain in quality. I like Danny’s in these waters with Beachmaster’s Junior swimmer my second choice. I love these plugs for their versatility when working them under the surface. If bass are not responding to the Danny on the top, a Junior swimmer comes out of my bag as a replacement. Do not bend an eye down to make it swim on the top! These lures are most effective when fished from just bellow the surface to a foot or two deep so start with the eye straight and gradually bend it up if fish are not responding.

Inlets

I am not professing to know how many big fish reside in the ocean compared to the back bays but I am convinced that the numbers are skewed toward the bays. With back bays being a primary nursing grounds for baitfish large and small and featuring an abundance  of ambush points like inlets and bridges it is no wonder that many  big cows are caught on the inside of the inlet as they are on the outside beaches each season.. Inlet jetties, long a bastion of those tossing bucktails and eels, have always been regarded as big fish magnets and that holds true today. I should mention that I am not a cow “hunter”. That moniker is usually reserved for those who target only large fish. If something is tugging on the end of my line, I am a happy fella. But there are times during the season (these are usually coincident with a moon phase and wind direction) when I feel that my shot at big fish increases dramatically and no place usually offers a better statistical chance of success than an inlet jetty. These structures are known for giving up a disproportionate number of cows each season compared to the sandy beaches that surround them. Most of these fish fall to eels or bucktails. But unlike everyone else I often opt for a metal lip lure designed with only big fish in mind. A large Beachmaster Cowboy, weighing in at approximately 3.5 ounces and almost 2 inches in diameter is an absolute cow killer in any area that features deep, fast moving water. Why deep water for a swimming plug you ask? Unlike most metal lips Cowboys are designed to dive deeper than any other metal lip on the market. Tuning this lure properly by bending the nose wire up will send this plug digging for the bottom where large cows lie in ambush. The sheer size of the plug will discourage most small fish from talking a swipe at it, always a plus when you are fishing a short window of opportunity around current flow. The Cowboy, by the way, is the most misunderstood lure in the metal lip world. Yes, it can be worked on the top with a large “v” wake behind, but dig one down in a fast rip and watch your rod throb under the strain. This is similar to working a large bottle plug in a heave. In order to get the most out of this lure you need a good current flow. When you pick up the slack, the rod should pulsate in your hands while the cowboy is digging down, wobbling side to side. Because of the wood’s buoyancy and metal lip’s resistance this plug will “throb” deep into the rip while you just hold the line tight. It won’t sweep through the rip in a hurry like a bucktail. You don’t even need to retrieve it if the current is fast enough. Just keep the line tight.  Imagine a large shad, bunker, herring or even a small blackfish seemingly suspended in the rip, close to the bottom. Can you think of a more appealing presentation to make to a large cow?

Back Bays

If you want to target big fish in the back bay waters you will have to accept the fact that bridges are where the action is. Narrow passageways over which bridges are built create fast currents underneath them. The lights on the bridge attract baitfish which attract gamefish which in turn attract us. Did you think that somehow we are removed from this nature feeding chain?  Gamefish use the bridge abutments as their protection from the current and dart into the current to feast on bait only to retreat after the meal back behind the structure. However, access is a big issue with bridges theses days but a little ingenuity goes a long way. If you ever fished on the banks alongside these bridges you know the current underneath is ferocious. You also know that your bucktail will get swept away in short order, either in or away from the bridge depending on the direction of the flow. The gamefish that is hiding in the lee of an abutment has only a moment to decide if taking a swipe is worth its time before the bucktail is gone from its sight. Metal lips however will wobble in the current and often will just wag its tail from just the force of current. Often, the wagging roll of an almost suspended metal lip swimmer in front of its nose will entice that reluctant cow to take a swipe at it.

So there you have it, a big presentation, a slow crawl like movement and a lot of wiggle. It’s as close to a large struggling bait carrying a sign “Eat Me” as you going to get. Try it this year and I can almost guaranty you will be impressed with the results.