Lure finish and flash
A lure’s shape and weight set its action, and touching either makes it a different lure. Finish plays no part in that at all: it changes only the signal.
Three ways to give off light
A mirror surface throws light back as a narrow, sharp flash. A matte one scatters it softly and evenly, with no sharp edges. Holographic film splits light into coloured bands — a flash of a different character, not a stronger one. There’s no fourth way: everything sold under other names comes down to these three.
A hologram is a film, not paint
Holographic film is glued onto the body and sealed with lacquer on top. Its damage is its own kind: not wear, but peeling from an edge, after which water gets under the film and fogs it from inside; that can’t be fixed. Nickel and chrome, by contrast, are applied by electroplating — a thin layer straight onto the metal, which barely affects the lure’s weight.
Metal under the paint
In a metal lure the plate itself lies under the paint, and it’s the plate that keeps working once the paint wears off. In a hardbait, plastic lies under the finish, so a scratched finish exposes nothing useful — just the bare body underneath.
Soft plastic is coloured differently
It isn’t coated on top but coloured all the way through: pigment and glitter are mixed straight into the rubber. So soft plastic colour doesn’t wear down to a base — it fades and clouds all the way through, along with the body, and nothing brings it back.
What wears through first
Edges, corners and the spot opposite the hooks — wherever the lure touches rock and bottom. Flat surfaces last longer, and it’s from them that you can tell what the finish looked like originally. So a worn lure from the box isn’t a reason to write it off: one side is worn, the other is intact.
Time works against the flash
Copper and brass darken from water and air, nickel and stainless steel don’t. A darkened lure loses the sharp flash but not the vibration: one of the two channels switches off, and the lure becomes a different one, not a ruined one. Brass can be brought back to shine with plain baking soda if needed.
What can be changed by hand
Finish is the one thing an angler can change themselves with no cost to the action: a marker line on the side, a stripe of glow lacquer, a holographic sticker. Weight doesn’t increase, the balance point doesn’t shift, and the lure stays the same lure. Shape doesn’t allow that.
What’s in this section
Two cards: about what flash actually does, and about glow and ultraviolet finishes — the only ones able to give off anything where ordinary light has already run out.
