Recreational fishing has been around for a long, long time. Ancient writers like Plutarch, Plato, and Aristotle, to name a few, make references to this pastime. But the first real fishing guide, with instructions on how to make rods, lines, and lures, was an interesting little manual called Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle, published at the beginning of the age of Early Modern Science—around 1486 CE. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, its author was an English nun.

The Lure of Making Lures

Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of the Priory of St. Mary of Sopwell, was the Ernest Hemmingway of her day. Like Hemingway, she wrote books about outdoorsy, adventurous subjects, such as hunting, hawking, and shooting. She is best known for her do-it-yourself (DIY) book on how to catch fish, The Boke of Saint Albans, in which “Fysshynge” appears.

“Ye can not brynge a hoke into a fyssh mouth without a bayte,” she begins, and then goes on, in a hundred pages or so, to concisely explain how to use hand tools (hamour, knyfe, and fyle, for example) to make rods, line, and fishing lures.

Getting to know Dame Juliana is difficult because there is very little reliable information regarding her life. Indeed, details about her are so hard to come by that a few modern fishing historians are skeptical she actually wrote the book. But plenty of others are convinced that she did, and so to her belongs the title of “Mother of Recreational Fishing” because her work influenced every major fishing writer from Izaak Walton to Gadabout Gaddis.

Goin’ Fishin’

How easy it is in our modern world to go fishing! You merely visit a sporting goods store, buy a rod, some fishing line, and a lure or two, and head off to the lake. But preparing for a day of fishing was a complicated task in Dame Juliana’s day. Two weeks was barely enough time to make everything you needed.

First, you had to make a rod. As the Treatyse points out, you don’t simply cut a stick off the local elm tree. That would be the work of a lazy fisher indeed. To do it correctly, Dame Juliana recommends that you hike into the local woods, preferably between the holidays of Michelmas and Candelmas, and cut a length of hazel, willow, or ash; you then heat the cutting over a charcoal fire, shape it carefully (presumably with the hamour, knyfe, and fyle), and then allow it to cool in smoke for two days.

Making fishing line was even harder. This required yanking hair from your horse’s tail, weaving it into a thin cord, and then coloring it with dyes made from walnuts, soot, and ale.

Thankfully, the section on how to make bobbers is quite simple and requires only a cork and a pin.

Lure making—mostly tying flies—concludes Dame Juliana’s treatise. Her advice on this subject is excellent and still relevant, even after 600 years. In her description of 12 different artificial flies—yellow flies, stone flies, wasps, and drake flies to name a few—she provided centuries of fisherfolk with sound advice on making lures that actually catch fish.

Given that modern fishing rods and fishing lines are relatively inexpensive and work extremely well, few modern Makers would likely invest the time and effort they’d need to wind their own fishing line out of linen or horse hair, or even carve their rod from wood. But making their own lures is an altogether different story. Lure-making is straightforward, and just imagine the satisfaction you’d feel if you caught a trophy fish on a lure you made yourself! Such a scenario would provide you with bragging rights that are simply not available to those who purchase all their equipment.

Lures can be made out of many materials, including wood, metal, and plastic. The key to making a successful lure is to construct a device that mimics the motion of bait animals, causing the predatory sport fish to bite onto an attached hook. There are many different types of lures. A jig is a weighted hook that is made to bounce or “jig” at the end of a fisherman’s line. A plug is an irregularly moving lure in the shape of a small fish. And a fly is a tied and feathered hook that alights on the water’s surface to mimic a bug landing on the water; it was this type of lure that was much beloved and discussed in Dame Juliana’s treatise.

Among the most popular modern lures are those known as spoons. A spoon is a concave metal oval with a hook at the back. Spoons dart and wobble as they are pulled through the water, exciting game fish and enticing them to bite. Spoons were not known to Juliana, because they were not invented until the 19th century. But had she known about them, it’s quite likely she would have found them extremely useful.

Many fishing historians credit J. T. Buel of Castelton, Vermont, as the person who designed and crafted the first spoon lure in about 1820. An apocryphal account of how Mr. Buel came up with the idea is that he saw a large fish swallow a spoon he accidentally dropped into a lake.

Whether that story is true or not, there is certainly widespread agreement that spoons are very effective fishing lures. They can be made in various sizes (small ones for pan fish, large ones for pike), and by slightly changing the concavity and edge shape of the spoon, you can get a vast array of motions.

Making Your Own Fishing Lure

When you start thinking about making your own lure, remember that you have a great deal of latitude in choosing spoon size, hook size, the shape of the spoon, and so on. Some choices will work better than others depending on the type and size of fish you are trying to catch.

Making Your Lure

Before you begin, take a look at Figure 8-1, which shows the assembled lure, so you know what you’re working toward.

To prepare the spoon for use, follow these steps:

1. Don safety glasses.
2. Use the hack saw or cutoff wheel to remove the handle from the spoon as shown in Figure 8-2.

   

3. Remove the burr from the cut with the grinder or rotary tool as shown in Figure 8-3 (easier) or with sandpaper (harder). Make sure you sand the edge smooth.

   

4. Use a marker to mark the location for the eye beads on the lure.
5. Use the steel punch to make an indent on the spoon surface for each eye.
6. Drill a ¹/₁₆-inch pilot hole for each wire attachment and starter hole for each eye bead (see Figure 8-4).

   It can be difficult to drill through the spoon with a hand drill because the bit tends to wobble. Take your time and apply minimal pressure while starting the hole.

   

7. Change bits in your drill and enlarge the holes to ³/₈-inch diameter.
8. Drill ¹/₁₆-inch-diameter holes in the spoon for the attachment wire above and below the eye bead holes as shown in Figure 8-5.

   

9. Drill ¹/₈-inch-diameter holes for the hook and leader attachment as shown in Figures 8-1 and 8-5.

Now that your spoon is prepared, it’s time to assemble the lure:

1. Place eye beads in the ³/₈-inch holes and fix them into place using the bead wire.
2. Insert the wire through the ¹/₁₆-inch-diameter holes, and then the hole in the center of each bead, and then pull it taut and tie it off as shown in Figure 8-6.

   

3. Attach the #4 split rings to the hook hole and the leader hole.
4. Attach a #4 treble hook to the split ring in the hook hole.
5. Attach a #10 barrel swivel to the split ring in the barrel swivel hole (see Figure 8-7).

   

Remember, the idea behind any successful lure is to make the fish think the lure is something good to eat. You can change the lure’s movement through the water by using a hammer to make it more or less concave, or by slightly bending the leading or trailing edge of the spoon. You also can add feathers or colors if you think it will make the lure more attractive. You’re ready to catch some fish!

The Science of Hooking Fish

By the time Dame Juliana was writing her treatise, quite a lot of thought had gone into designing fishhooks. Although you may not have considered it up to this point, a fishhook is actually far more involved than simply being a sharpened piece of curved metal.

First of all, there’s that barbed point. The barbed hook is a clever, one-way device that was first used by our friends the ancient Egyptians in roughly the time of Ptah-Hotep. When the fish bites it, the barb goes in easily, but because of the distance between the hook point and the barb end, once hooked, it is very difficult for the fish to remove the hook.

Second, there’s the bend pattern that is forged into the hook. There are many different types of bends that have been figured out over time. When the fish bites down on the hook, the hook rotates on the line like a lever. The lever length determines where the hook winds up. Some shapes and levers work especially well for wide, flat-mouthed fish like catfish, whereas other shapes are better suited for narrow, elongated-snout fish like pike.

Finally, consider the material properties of fish hooks. Almost all modern hooks are made from alloy steel. In freshwater fishing, corrosion isn’t much of a problem, and any high-quality steel does well. In saltwater, though, stainless steel and other rust-resistant alloys last longer and are less likely to break when a big one is on the line. Some hooks are made by bending wire on a die while others are made via a metal-forming process called forging. Forged hooks are shaped by pounding, and that changes the structure of the metal to make the hook very, very strong.