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The Flying Lure is a very simple lure to use. It is programmed to fish itself—by design.

Three-and-a-Half-Year-Old Outfished Dad and Catches a Lunker!

Randy Niquette of upstate New York wrote to me about the effective­ness of the Flying Lure’s slow preprogrammed action in teaching his young son, Scott, to fish. He writes:

The Flying Lure’s natural fish-catching action is often overlooked in the presence of other, more “striking” benefits, such as going under cover. However, some of the lure’s most potent fish-catching ability lies in this action. Unfortunately, the words natural, fish-catching, and action have been so overused by everyone in the lure business as to have become meaningless. You just have to see the lure work. The Flying Lure is unique in that it is the only lure to require no human actions whatsoever during its descent. This allows the lure to be a completely natural body in its environment, interacting with water currents, bouncing off and going around obstructions, and so forth. Never at any point is the lure’s descent flawed by human error.

It is we humans, not fish, who think lures need to be overworked in an exaggerated manner. It’s like bad acting! The fish are probably laughing at the amateur actors that most lures are, trying to mimic what should be subtle, fluid, and almost motionless gliding, by jerking, darting, and other sorts of buffoonery. After I fished with four-time world champion bass angler Rick Clunn, and showed him how to use the lure for the first time, he astutely observed that “most of us [fishermen] haven’t learned how to stop cranking the reel.” Rick is so right! Less is more. It’s easy to teach a three-and-a-half-year-old like Scott to just raise and lower his rod tip and let the lure do the rest. He’s eager to learn and has no ego tied up in pet methods. Therefore he’s much easier to teach than an opinionated “expert” who is set in his ways. Some people will just never get it. . . and that’s okay. Remember: Less is more. Fish are what counts, not ego. Little egos catch big fish, because they’re always willing to learn.

If you look at the lure closely, it is divided into two basic parts, the body and the tail. The body is a unique planing surface. If you look at it from the side, the nose looks like the leading edge of an airplane wing. The soft body is made to interact with the jighead to provide lift in the water and to make the whole lure glide forward and pull the line behind it. Believe it or not, that simple design took years to perfect. The patent attorneys who worked on the project stated that many of the formulas used on the lure were similar to the concepts used in human-powered aircraft. The idea in both cases is to make a wobbly, nonrigid body “fly” through its respective medium.

The ability of the lure to fly through the water, however, is not enough. A natural action must be coupled with it. The interaction of the tail with the shape of the body gives the Flying Lure its characteristic side-to-side swimming motion. This motion combined with the slow fall inherent in the lure’s flying action gives it its unique fish-catching action. The lure performs this action entirely on its own. And it is this action, which the lure has every time it is released, that gives it its unique appeal in open water or under cover.

Is Instant Success Possible?

The self-propelled swimming action of the Flying Lure is what enables a child like Scott Niquette to catch a lunker bass. In my estimation, it takes at least six months of fishing to learn how to use a plastic worm or a jig properly, not expertly, just properly. The Flying Lure will perform perfectly on the first cast, as well as it will on the thousandth cast. Using the lure requires much less manual dexterity than using conventional lures.

Don Meissner’s Secret to Fishing the Flying Lure

Don Meissner, host of the TV show Rod and Reel Streamside on public television stations, was the first major figure to discover the Flying Lure. Since his discovery, he probably has caught more fish on the lure than anyone else . . . except me.

Don and I first met at the national fishing trade show, AFTMA (American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers’ Association), when I was just starting to market the Flying Lure. I had a tiny little booth, with a thirty-gallon aquarium as a demonstration tank. My friend Paul Martinez was helping me with the booth as a favor. That aquarium is where Paul and I first demonstrated the lure to Don and Guido and Dion and Rick Clunn, and to anyone else who would watch.

When I tried the lure in the Hawg Trough (a huge tank that contained live bass) for the first time, it caused a stir at the show. Actually, women’s professional fishing champion Linda England tried it. She caught five fish on five casts—and then took it off her line. I continued to “mop up” for three days! Viewers were stunned. That started the tradition of fish tearing up the lure in a tank in front of hundreds of spectators watching—when other lures were not performing! But more on that later.

Don liked the concept of the lure but didn’t really try it until months later. He was having a tough time catching fish one day and said, “What the heck, I’ll try it!” Well, he started catching all kinds of species of fish, on TV, when no other methods would work. He became a believer first and then the world’s foremost expert on the use of the Flying Lure. What he can do with the lure is incredible. He fishes the lure in open water, he drifts with it, he even trolls it. He does everything that I haven’t thought of—and I invented it! In writing this book, I went to Don first and asked what the secret to fishing the Flying Lure was. Don’s answer was deceptively simple, yet profound. He said, the secret to fishing the Flying Lure is to do nothing.

Don Says Don't Do Anything

According to Don, the Flying Lure depends on your doing nothing! That’s right . . . absolutely nothing. Most educated fishermen can’t accept that. The Flying Lure depends on you simply giving the lure enough slack line so it can work itself, as it was designed. That’s it. When the lure has landed on the bottom, lift your rod tip to give it a new starting point, so it can swim again, on its own. Give it some slack line and it’s off. That’s it. That’s why anyone can catch a fish on it.

This lure will catch fish on its own. Don thinks of it as unfishing. That is, you’re not doing the fishing, the lure is. All you are doing is control­ling the starting point of the lure’s next glide to the bottom.

Don feels that the reason some experienced fishermen may have trouble fishing the lure is because all other lures depend on the fisher­man having to do something. Crankbaits need to be reeled, plastic worms need to be hopped and worked. Consequently, many experienced fishermen try to fish the lure too hard. They give it fast, violent motions. They don’t give it any slack line. They reel it and twitch it, just as if it were a conventional lure. . . wrong! It never has a chance to work this way. This lure works when you’re not—always remember that.

Casting the Lure

The Flying Lure doesn’t really need to be cast in the traditional manner. If you are right next to cover, such as a dock or a tree, you can simply dangle the lure in the water and let it glide away from you by giving it slack line. To give the lure direction, give it a slight pull away from the direction you want it to go. For example, if you want it to go under a dock, let the lure hang off your rod tip and suspend in an inch or two below the surface of the water. Then pull it away from the dock about a foot. As you pull it away, the lure will align itself in a hook-up position and will be pointed directly at the object you want to penetrate. Then simply let it go by giving it slack line. The lure will swim in its intended direction—away from the direction in which you have pulled it. The fishing line acts as a tail on a kite might. It helps the lure achieve proper direction and stability in its glide path.

You can also cast the lure in a conventional manner, toward the cover you want to penetrate. Let’s say that you’re casting at a stump and want to have the lure bounce down and penetrate its roots underneath. Make your normal overhand cast and let the lure hit the water and sink on a slack line. The bait will simply continue its cast underwater and will right itself and continue to swim forward.

If you want the lure to make a soft landing in the water to minimize the splash when fish are spooky, simply stop the line with your hand when the lure is about a foot over the water and about to land. This will stop the lure short of its target. The lure will lose its momentum and settle softly in the water. Pull the lure toward you a few inches after it lands, to give it the proper orientation, which may have been disrupted by your abrupt stopping of the line. Even if you don’t do this, the lure will generally continue to swim forward because the drag of the line in the water will straighten it out. The line acts as a stabilizing rudder. The lure will swim in the direction that the line is pointing. The more line you have in the water, the more it will act as a stabilizer.

Flippin’ the Lure

Flippin’ is a technique that was popularized in the late 1970s. It involves using a long rod (seven to eight feet or more) and making very short, underhand “flips” into brush and other cover. The casts are literally zero to twenty feet long, at most the length of your arms, rod, and dangling line combined. You generally don’t use the reel to cast. You just “dip” your lure into brush pockets, weed pockets, and so forth. The object of this technique is to make extremely quiet casts, by laying your lure into the water instead of splashing it down as with a normal cast. A quiet approach makes a lot of sense in shallow water since fish tend to be skittish here because they have limited escape routes.

Flippin’ usually occurs with heavy line, such as fifteen- to thirty-pound test. Traditionally, leadhead jigs with fiber brush guards were used with this technique.

Many flippin’ fans have turned to the Flying Lure because the lures make flippin’ easier and more effective. How? When using a Flying Lure to flip, you simply pitch it into places where you would normally use a jig. When the lure lands, it simply keeps on going farther under the brush or obstruction to which you have cast it. This makes the technique much more effective because you’re penetrating deeper and farther into the cover than ever before. I call it flippin’ plus! Flippin’ fans are tuned in to the shallow-water hiding habits of bass and have an easy time understanding the Flying Lure. Even though the line size used in flippin’ may exceed the recommended weights for the four-inch and six-inch Flying Lure, that’s okay. Since you’re generally flippin’ shallow water anyway, your lure won’t go any farther than a few feet underwater. In the initial stage of the lure’s descent, the first few feet, a large line size will not affect the lure as much as with longer casts. You’re not going for distance here, you’re going for incremental penetration of the available cover. Inches make a difference.

How to Retrieve the Flying Lure

After the lure has entered the water, avoid the temptation either to start working it or to tighten the line. Let the lure sink and swim forward on its own power. As it is sinking, give it slack line. Don’t be afraid to give it too much slack. You should try to keep a slight bow in the line—that is, leave the line just tight enough to form a slight arc between your rod tip and the point at which the line enters the water. This way you leave enough slack in the line to let the lure work, yet you have enough contact with the lure to know when a fish has struck. As the lure is swimming on its own, keep feeding it slack line. If you are using a spinning or a spin-casting rod, keep the bail open. As you follow the lure down with your rod tip, wait until your rod is in the horizontal position. If the lure needs more line, simply whip the rod upward in a quick motion to peel more line off your reel. This momentarily slows down your lure’s forward motion, but it will speed up again immediately once you feed it more line, This shortcut allows you to strip line by using one hand only. Follow the lure down with your rod tip again and repeat this action if necessary. Another way to give the lure more line (with two hands) is simply to peel line off your reel with your left hand as you are working your rod with your right hand, or vice versa.

In working your lure with a level-wind casting reel, you can simply hold your rod steady and peel line off the reel with the hand that isn’t holding the rod.

Once the first “fall,” or swimming action, is complete and the lure is on the bottom, you can twitch the lure to resemble a crawfish, raise your rod tip four to six inches, and let the lure swim away in short scoots, again like a crawfish or an injured minnow.

Mostly I like to move the lure one to three feet by lifting the rod tip and then following the lure down to the bottom again. This action finds a new starting point for the lure and lets it work on its own again. Letting the lure work on its own is the key. As the lure is working, it is probing the bottom, swimming into weeds. Most important, it is maximizing the time and distance that it is falling.

What Is the Lure Doing?

As the lure is traversing the bottom, it is important to visualize what it is doing. As you are lifting and lowering your rod tip, the lure is covering the area twice—once forward and once backward.. . once on the lift and once on the fall. It is straining the water—twice as thoroughly as any other lure. Fish have twice the amount of time to see it and be in contact with it.. . twice the amount of time to decide to take it. This is extremely important in neutral or negative feeding situations, when fish aren’t actively chasing lures. These situations occur most of the time you are fishing. Usually fish just aren’t active.

Persistence— An Introduction

Think about it this way: How much time do you spend eating during the day? One hour? Or maybe three hours at most? That's much less than 10 percent of the time during a given day. If this is true, then the reverse is also true: You’re not eating more than 90 percent of the time. Fish eating habits vary by species and by water temperature, but you get the point. When you’re not eating, you have to be enticed into eating ... as by Aunt Bertha, when she says, “Have another cookie, just one more, oh, come on!” Even when you’re not eating, you may be enticed to say “Okay, I’ll have one” if the opportunity keeps presenting itself to you. Herein lies the concept of persistence. If a lure keeps going back to where it just came from, it has the attribute of persistence. Flying Lures, which are persistent, are like pushy salesmen!

How Persistence Works

I often enjoy fishing out of the back of someone else’s boat, on his or her home lake, as a guest. Once I was fishing as a guest behind a friend whose favorite lure was a jig and pig. We fished all of his favorite places, which included docks, downed trees, and weed beds, out of a bass boat with a bow-mounted electric motor. Generally the back of the boat tends to be the worst place to fish from, since the person in the front gets first shot at all the cover. There I was, in the back. After my host took his casts at the cover, and he was a good fisherman, so did I. I proceeded to catch my first fish behind him, under a dock—about a three-and-a-half- to four-pounder. He had just skipped his jig under the dock, because it was an open one that was easy to reach underneath. It wasn’t that I was reaching under cover that he couldn’t reach. “How did you do that?” he asked in amazement. “Nobody catches fish behind me on this lake, especially after I’ve hit it with a jig and pig! How did you do it with a plastic lure?” I was smug and just smiled.

Then, at the next dock, another three-and-a-half-pound bass came to the boat caught on the Flying Lure, after my friend had already fished the dock. In this situation, catching fish after fish behind somebody who thinks he’s a pretty good fisherman can be devastating psychologically. It’s been done to me before. At this point, I had to tell him. I was, after all, his guest—and needed a ride back to shore. His lure, even though it was getting to the fish first, wasn’t staying there long enough to get a bass. After the third or fourth twitch, his lure had been pulled out of the strike zone. These weren’t active bass. If they were, they probably would have taken his lure when it first arrived on their doorstep. But they weren’t active and his lure did not have persistence.

Along came my little Flying Lure, after his. It swam naturally to the bottom. . . without a hit. I lifted up my rod tip a foot or two and let it fly back under the dock. No bass again. Then I did it a third time and voilà! A strike! That fish was convinced, or enticed, or triggered, into striking by the persistence of my lure in its face, when it wasn’t actively feeding or striking conventional lures.

Fishing pro Mary Taylor once outfished a local male pro from the back of his boat in Lake Sam Rayburn in Texas. Using a Flying Lure, she outfished him eight bass to one that day because the fish had to be teased out from under the moss and wouldn’t take normal plastic lures, or anything else. Mary made a believer out of him in a hurry. Nothing gets my attention as quickly as getting my hat handed to me in a given fishing situation.

Conventional lures are hit and run. That is, you work the lure past a fish. It looks at it and gets a little bit interested. You give the lure some more action (you twitch or hop a plastic worm). As you do that, you pull it away from the fish. The very action of making the lure enticing, that is, pulling on the line, moves the lure away from your quarry. I’ve seen it happen time and again in testing tank environments. A fish becomes interested in a lure, let’s say a jig. You give it some action, the fish follows. You give it some more action and bang. You’ve pulled the lure just outside of that fish’s range of interest. It’s gone! It stops, or turns and goes back to relaxing, and you’ve just blown an opportunity to catch that fish forever. It happens all the time with conventional lures. There’s an old saying, “You can’t push a string.” That’s so true in fishing. With a Flying Lure, you can push on a string, so to speak. The action of pulling a lure back toward you is decoupled from the action of moving a lure to give it lifelike motion. In other lures, the two are one and the same. This hurts your fishing.

Next time you go to a fishing or outdoor show, look for a fish tank like the Hawg Trough and watch the demonstrations. See how many times a lure, any lure, is pulled away from the fish before it’s had a chance to get interested. That’s why I love to go to outdoor expos around the country with the Flying Lure. It’s no contest! I win hands down—every time! It’s just not fair. Not only do the fish respond to the preprogrammed action of the lure, but it keeps going back in their faces. It’s really unfair! At the time of this writing, I have never yet failed to get at least one hit from a fish when I go up to the platform on a tank and cast into it. I often tell bystanders that if at least one bass doesn’t hit a two-inch Flying Lure, they’re not inactive, they’re dead! Of course, in these exhibitions we bend the hooks down, so we’re not actually catching the fish, we’re just playing with them, like a kitten plays with a ball and yarn.

Persistence. It’s opened up a whole new ball game when it comes to fishing for fish in their most common state—inactivity. Learn it and you’ll outfish others, and they won’t even know why. Ignore it, and you’ll be missing fish you could have had.

Maximum Flying Time

The time of free fall—that is, the time between the lure’s landing on the water’s surface and when it lands on the bottom of the lake or ocean—is the most productive moment for any sinking lure. Fish seem to hit lures on the fall most of the time. No one has really proven why. It could have to do with the fact that the lure looks as if it’s trying to escape from open water and find a hiding place on the bottom. The Flying Lure is designed to spend a maximum amount of time in free fall—the time of the cast when lures are struck the most. Its free fall really becomes a slow “swim” to the bottom, maximizing the time and the distance over which the lure falls. But the lure not only spends more time in free fall than conventional lures on the initial cast, it free falls multiple times during each cast. This gives the lure a much longer time to catch fish during the most productive part of the cast. Many people refer to this as getting multiple casts in one.

Less Casting Skill

Because of the Flying Lure’s ability to traverse distances, you can cast short of an obstruction, yet the lure will swim right under it, better than a pro with a conventional lure could do.

Mark Stefanowicz, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, cast the lure about three feet away from a stump and let it swim toward the stump. He writes:

Top Water

The Flying Lure is an exceptional top-water lure. Don Meissner can fish it along the surface of the water so it looks just like a hopping frog. The hook always rides up. Just reel the lure at a slow to medium pace over the tops of weeds or lily pads, and give it a slight hopping motion with your rod tip. . . a few times per second. It’s deadly! Especially when fish take a swipe at it and miss, as they often do with topwater baits, you can let the Flying Lure go retrieve them. It will swim right back in the face of a fish that just missed it. That’ll usually do the trick. It’s a fun way to trick fish that I taught Bass Masters Classic winner Guido Hibdon, who now regularly uses it.

What Kind of Equipment Do I Need?

In a worst-case situation, you could tie a Flying Lure onto a stick and fish it quite effectively, due to its self-propelled action. A proud grandpa once told me that he gave his three-year-old granddaughter a two-foot pole and some line. . . and she was catching fish after fish off a dock, just by working it back and forth, without a reel.

Despite this, I do recommend you get some decent equipment. A fairly stiff graphite, or similar lightweight, high-sensitivity rod is in order. Fiberglass is okay, but tends to be heavier and not as sensitive to fish strikes.

For most freshwater and light saltwater applications, I use a five-and-a-half to six-and-a-half-foot heavy-action spinning rod. Get a 100 percent graphite rod if you can. These are the best. The brand of reel really doesn’t matter, as long as it is of good quality and matched to the rod.

You can use bait-casting equipment with the Flying Lure as well. A standard heavy-action five-and-a-half-foot jig and pig or worming outfit will do. Again, any good-quality reel is acceptable.

For saltwater, surf-casting equipment and boat rods can be used for the large saltwater-size Flying Lure. The larger nine-inch Flying Lure is made for all large saltwater species such as striped bass, tarpon, and grouper. It can also be used for large freshwater fish like musky and monster bass.

What About Line?

Use as light a line as possible—as dictated by where you are fishing. For a two-inch Flying Lure, I recommend two- to eight-pound test line. For best results, use two- to four-pound test line. It will create less drag and will make the lure perform better.

For a four-inch Flying Lure, I recommend six- to ten-pound test line. For heavy-cover applications and flippin’, twelve- through seventeen-pound test can be used.

For a six-inch Flying Lure, I recommend ten- to twelve-pound test line.

For flippin’ and saltwater applications, fourteen- to twenty-plus-pound test can be used.

For a saltwater Magnum-size Flying Lure, I also recommend four­teen- to twenty-pound test and higher, depending on the application.

Space Age Lines, Long Rods

I am partial to a new generation of lines that are made of fibers such as Spectra (TM) and Kevlar (TM).. These lines are much thinner and much stronger than nylon monofilament line. I have been working on a line developed just for the Flying Lure that is super thin and super strong. This line gives the Flying Lure superb glide characteristics, very little drag, and is super tough. These new “miracle” fibers are the future. Spectra has already been used for some time in kite cords and for big-game fishing. Its advantage besides supertoughness? Almost no stretch! Watch for these new types of lines. Always check with the manufacturer of your rods and reels before using any of these new lines, however, because lack of stretch may damage or break some conventional rods. The new materials can damage some line guides as well. Make sure your rod and reel warranty covers the use of these new lines.

European Flying Lure fishermen use these new lines with long spinning rods of seven to nine feet. After you get used to an eight-foot spinning rod, it’s really quite versatile. I’m experimenting with these long rods for use in the United States. The long rods absorb shock better, which is necessary with a line that has zero stretch, and give excellent lure and line control.

What About Lure Size?

In general, the bigger the lure, the bigger the species of fish it will catch. But then again, there’s Don Meissner’s muskies and gar that he catches on two-inch lures. Go figure it out! Here are some general guidelines. Two-inch lures catch panfish such as perch, crappie and sunfish, also spotted bass, Kentucky bass, smallmouth bass, trout, and even large-mouth bass. It’s a great lure for clear water and tough fishing situations. The two-inch lure will catch just about anything.

The four-inch Flying Lure is the most popular size for most freshwater species, because it most closely simulates the size of food fish in freshwater lakes. The four-inch lure is primarily used for largemouth and smallmouth bass, walleye, pike, pickerel, muskies, and large crap­pie. We get letters about trout and salmon being caught on the four-inch lures as well. Many people use the four-inch lure for saltwater species such as snapper, weakfish, bonefish, and stripers.

The six-inch Flying Lure is used for large freshwater fish, such as largemouth bass, walleye, musky, pike, and so forth. It’s also a great top-water lure in heavy weed cover. The six-incher is the standard size for coastal saltwater fishing such as striped bass, tarpon, bonito, snook, and so forth.

The saltwater-size Flying Lure is for most saltwater species, surf casting, and monster musky fishing.

What About Color?

Color is a very local phenomenon in fishing. There are few rules and lots of exceptions.

I prefer darker colors and natural colors for clear water. These include black, pumpkinseed, and root beer Flying Lures. I also like to use Glidin’ Natural Flying Lures, which are painted to resemble a variety of food fish and crawfish. If I’m fishing for largemouth bass in California, and their food fish is rainbow trout, I’ll switch to a rainbow trout pattern Glidin’ Natural. If smallmouth bass in Tennessee are feeding on small crawfish, I’ll use a two-inch Glidin’ Natural in a crawfish pat­tern.

For dark, muddy waters, I like to use bright colors, preferably with metalflake in them to reflect any available light. Chartreuse, electro blue, and fire and ice Flying Lures fit the bill perfectly. Pearl is also a favorite of Don Meissner’s.

For waters that fall in the middle, between dark and clear, any color that works is obviously acceptable. Some of my all around favorites are tequila sunrise, red shad, and silver shad. Also, Glidin’ Natural patterns that match a food species can be deadly.

Adjusting a Flying Lure

You can bend the middle of the shank of a Flying Lure jighead to give it a slight U shape when viewed from the side. This bend will give your Flying Lure a more pronounced side-to-side action. You can also impale a strand of the tail on the metal clip, in the top center of the lure, and use it as a rudder to make the lure swim left or right.

Storing Your Flying Lures

The best place to keep your Flying Lures is somewhere that keeps them perfectly flat and straight. The Flying Lure packages that they come in are perfectly designed to do that. Please don’t take them out and dump them into a tackle box. If the bodies deform, they won’t work correctly. Also, remember to keep colors separated. Soft vinyl plastic colors tend to “bleed” into each other if they are mixed. Take care of your tools!

Above all, experiment with your lures. Watch them work in the water. Try new approaches and new ways to fish them.

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