Magic Mojo

Some plugs have that elusive “it” factor — something that can’t be explained or duplicated.

That’s the case with a JLH troller I’ve been fishing for years. Beyond the obvious wear, nothing sets it apart from the half-dozen others Jay built me. It weighs within a tenth of an ounce of the rest, and its proportions are identical in every way.

Yet it produces. Consistently. Relentlessly.

Its magic runs deepest from a single rock. The plug has caught fish elsewhere, but when it comes out at — let’s call it Jammy Beach — and I’m standing on Whale Rock, it takes on almost otherworldly power.

I’ve thrown other JLH trollers, Musso torpedo clones, original Musso trollers, darters of every variety, bottle plugs, bottle darters, glide baits, banana plugs, and nearly every color imaginable. Nothing comes close.

The plug has been rewired three times, and I’ve lost count of how many hooks have cycled through it. I’ve changed hook sizes, brands, and rigged it both with a cut hook and a split ring. It’s been fished blind, as a cyclops, and with a pair of fresh headlights. The lip has been glued back into place a handful of times. None of it diminishes what this plug can do.

And these aren’t schoolies. At last count, it has accounted for more than three dozen striped bass over 30 pounds — nearly a quarter of them over 40.

For reasons I’ll never fully understand, when that battered black JLH troller swings through the current off Whale Rock, big bass eat it.

I’ve considered retiring the old warrior many times, but I can never quite bring myself to do it. For now—at least until I find a worthy replacement—it remains firmly planted in a coveted tube of my three-tube Commando bag, ready for its next turn in the lineup.