By Gabriel Hnat – Products Editor
New Jersey Angler Magazine
The American sand eel or sand launce (Ammodytes americanus) is a small schooling fish that derives its name from its narrow, elongated body and its ability to quickly burrow into soft sandy bottoms in order to elude predators. Sand eels are important forage for virtually every predatory species that swims from Maine to the Carolinas. The fact that everything from fluke to tuna dines on these pencil-shaped baitfish with regularity makes them an important element of the angling equation.
Sand eels tend to prefer cooler water temperatures. They spend most of their summer in the deeper water from several miles east of the shoreline to well offshore, where they provide an important forage base for many pelagic species. But during the spring, fall, and sometimes straight through a mild winter in the southern portion of their range, vast schools of sand eels inundate the shallows from the surf line out to the inshore lumps and ridges. This timing puts them in the same places, during the same seasons, as the gamefish with which they are most closely associated, the venerable striped bass. When a school of striped bass and a school of sand eels come together, the resulting feeding frenzy is usually what anglers refer to as “epic”.
During these insane feeding frenzies, stripers gorge recklessly on the hapless baitfish, and it’s not uncommon to watch giant bass shooting through inches of water as they pin sand eels up against a sandy shoreline. Even under less “blitzy” conditions, stripers can often be seen casually rooting along the bottom, their heads angled downward and their tails breaking the surface, in search of burrowed sand eels. During these periods, every striped bass exhibits what appears as a red, irritated area on their lower lip…a sure sign that they’ve been ferreting out sand eels from the ocean floor.
The fact that striped bass love to dine on sand eels is certainly not surprising to striper aficionados. In fact, during seasons when sand eels are prolific (known affectionately to striper anglers as a “sand eel year”) striped bass alter their feeding preferences. During such times, linesiders key in on the narrow-bodied sand eel at the exclusion of other forage species. In order to be successful during such periods, anglers must present lures that closely mimic a sand eel in both length and profile. A wide-bodied swimming plug will go unnoticed, as will deep-profiled lures like swim shads and most spoons; but a lure that resembles a sand eel with get attacked with gusto!
Enter Lucky Craft’s new “Flash Minnow Sea Finger Slim”.
Lucky Craft - Flash Minnow (Sea Finger Series)
Part of the CIF (California Inshore Fishing) series, this new plug is one of the best sand eel imitations to be introduced in some time. The precision engineered slender body was specially developed to duplicate not only the shape of narrow-bodied prey, but also the unique frantic behavior characteristics. The “Flash Minnow Sea Finger Slim” can be effectively slow twitched on or just below surface for shallow presentations, or a steady retrieve will take it mid-range for searching the water column.
Swimming the lure sub-surface at a medium-to-fast retrieve, combined with intermittent quick jerks and pauses, produces the enticing injured wobble and erratic flashing that stripers and other gamefish simply can’t resist. In addition, because of the highly detailed holographic finish, the bait’s depth and dimension is greatly enhanced and the iridescent shimmering effect is incredibly lifelike at all light levels – even during the important low-light periods of dawn and dusk.
Premium saltwater hardware and an assortment of killer universal forage patterns including zebra sardine, laser ghost sardine, aurora green shad, and salty pearl white fully completes the package. From the 5 ½-inch, 133 size all the way up to the 7 ¾-inch, 193 model, Lucky Craft offers a Sea Finger for matching virtually every growth stage of the Atlantic sand eel.
- Lucky Craft Flash Minnow Slim 133 5.5 inches, 3/8 oz
- Lucky Craft Flash Minnow Slim 153 6.25 inches, 1/2 oz
- Lucky Craft Flash Minnow Slim 173 7 inches, 3/4 oz
- Lucky Craft Flash Minnow Slim 193 7.75 inches, 15/16 oz
Fri, Nov 20, 2009
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