Something Different

Well this isnt strictly Lure fishing Lure fishing..... but i had to put it on here!! i joined my Dad and Brother in a bit of shore fishing on the north sommerset coast for a spot of bottom fishing. for years and years my Dad has tried his socks off to catch a Cod from the shore with not a sniff!! we headed up to some reefs i know of and finally after a good session of over 30 Doggys a Ling and Dad landed his first Cod.....

we ended the night with four cod banked none of any size i had one just under a pound but good to get out and do something different. role on the Wrasse fishing this year! i have tons of new lures that will show the pollack and bass a thing or two this season!! anyway welldone Dad

Next Generation Softbaits....

Over the last couple months iv been doing some field testing for Nick Roberts at http://www.basslures.co.uk/ and there has been one lure that has really caught my eye! as soon as i saw the Sebile Magic Swimmer Softbait i was in love..... this innovative soft lure is the very next Generation in lures and is proof of thinking out of the box!

I know in the crazy lure world there is soooo much to get confused about but take this from me, this lure is a real trend shaker!! its based on the swimbait style of lures in paticular the name sake Sebile Magig swimmer, which is a hard plastic swimbait made for serious abuse! iv used soft plastics for years to great effect but this lure really Ups the game! they come three in a pack in two sizes 5 and 6inch they come with one heavy duty worm offset hook and 6 ballast weights (the compound rings you can see on the shank in the photo above! these can be added or removed to suite your style of fishing. leaving the weights in the middle as shown in my picture this allows a nice easy sink rate, falling horizontally through the water. if you push the weights forward to the kink in the offset hook it creates a tighter wiggle and will fall nose first, ideal for a feeding bait fish presentation! push the weights back into the lure to the bend in the hook and you create a very irractic style great for when fish are wanting panic baits... check out Patrick Sebiles Youtube Videos on this product http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKKm4HMHLog

This view really shows the good sections which make this lure soooo different! this is going to be a firm favorate for me this season! ill keep everyone posted on these fantastic lures on this blog, deffo one to watch!! you can get these from Nick at www.BassLures.co.uk in a good range of colours, to suit fresh and saltwater needs.

Busy few weeks

Well iv had a bit of a mental few weeks at work but its all worth the wait as its my Annual April week off to hunt some monster pike........ Previous years have always served me well and as some of you who followed my other blog or brouse the Lure Anglers Society forums this week off has produced two fish over 30lb to myself and numerous 20's! my Hols start friday the 2nd April and im very much looking forward to time on the banks with my fishing Buddy Tezo.

The WOW factor.....

Now being a crazy lure angler i have my fair share of lures stashed away!! some are manky chewed up softbaits, some are fancie sparkly Rapala's etc but i own a few lures that are just beautifull to look at and it almost seems a shame to let pike ruin them........

every now and then you see a lure that just blows you mind!! Nick Roberts from Top Water Lures sent me one of the smaller Lucky Craft Real Bait Premium's in "Amago Female" colour!!!!......

This Photo really doesnt do this Lure any Justice.... it is by far the most Stunning Hand made lure iv seen! its different to the likes of USA's Musky snax lures, dont get me wrong they are fine BUT this Lucky Craft Lure from Japan is mind blowing...... every single detail is shockinly spot on, the eyes look real its even got muolded teeth! the paint job is stunning and it really is a work of art!! the box it comes in says it all! this is as good as it gets in my eyes, shame i cant read any of it as its all in Japanese ha ha. Nick if your reading this please please feel free to send me more ha and if you know of anything that beats the quality of this i truelly wanna get my hands on it!

it weighs 36gm and is the usual swimbait style lure with a amazing action that is amazing, this model is a floater and with a few cranks and jerk of the rod tip its down a few feet and brimming with life! Lucky Craft also make Real Californias which are the bigger brother to this lure, very simular to the Spro BBZ's but 100 times better qaulity concerning paints and style. even coming in a velour presentation case! both lures can be purchased from www.basslures.co.uk have a brouse see what you think

Perch Lures

Above is the MegaBass Zonk77 what i mentioned in the last Perch trip post. this is one of the ever growing "new school" lures from the East (japan) MegaBass are at the top of the food chain concerning top quailty lure fishing kit! all of which is very popular with the bass anglers in the USA and growing here in the UK. This lure is spot on for Uk lure fishing for chub/perch/pike as its a ideal bait size and has some awesome features which make it a cut above most of the simular style stickbaits.

note the hinged diving vane, which creates a cracking aggressive swimming action, no dout this will produce me some cracking fish this season...... it also has moulded cut outs on the back to give it even more disturbance and vibration, something iv rarely seen on lures apart from the "old school" Ryobi mugger from yester year, made famous by John Wilson

Above is the MegaBass Xslayer, which i used over the weekend rigged on a 6gm owner jig. It has a wicked action when fished in and around cover!! you can really walk this lure to where the fish and holding! i noticed the way it sits on the bottom with its tail pointing strate up letting you bottom bounce without snagging every twig or weed in sight! notice the moulded ribs which create extra vibration and also a rattle chamber just above my thumb in the piccy! this lure has already proven its weight in gold with the bass Lads here in the Uk and Ireland and soon as the weather warms up ill use allot more of this type of lure. it can be rigged on a jig or fished on Texposers or dropshot so who knows what it will produce this year!!

both the above lures are from Nick at Top water lures and can be purchased from http://www.basslures.co.uk/

Here is one of the all time classics..... and with out fail a TOP pred lure!! iv used Rapala for 20 odd years!! and Shad Raps have always caught me some amazing fish, from the legendary Super Shad rap through to these 5cm shad raps. These 5cm models are the bomb for perch and chub and one simular to this is what i used on a recent canal trip, it was in a BlueGill colour and the perch seemed to love it! its got the classic Rapala swimming action and dives to 4ft perfect for canals. this model is factory standard but as you can see in the piccys from the last session we Mod our lures Ady and Mart both use Storm lead spots to make these lure neutural in the water so they can suspend not just pop up to the surface!! in one of my previous photos you will see Marts Rapala Risto Rap with its mods in place, they really do kake such a differnce to the amount of fish on the bank!!

attention to detail is where its at....... these things make a BIG difference

Tackle Talk

Recently me and my fishing Buddys have mostly been Targeting big Perch from various venues from ponds, rivers and canals around the country and over the last couple months had some amazing results including a coupke PB's being caught!!

I thought id take a bit of time to go through some tackle that has worked for us. ill talk about some lures and also the set up i prefer to use!

Ill start with my Rod and Reel of choice, those of you who may of fished with me or have seen my reports for the LAS will know i like to use the VERY best gear i can get my mits on!! im a firm believer in using the best, there is sooooo much lure fishing gear out there at the mo! some amazing stuff but also some utter rubbish!! I religously use Shimano Reels!

My favorate for Ultra-light lures and smaller lures is the reel above. the Shimano Conquest 51GT-Ti this is the smallest Baitcaster Shimano make, and has to be seen to be believed!! only holding 65yards of 28lb braid and as you can see my 5cm Rapala shad rap is actually longer than the reel!! i have a handfull of rods which this reel cant even be screwed onto due to the reel seat being so small you cannot do the rod up to grab the reel!!

It will literally cast just a trace and i have to have 4 of the SVS breaks on to slow the spool down because its spool is so light and is to fast for my general lures. it suffers from only having a tiny handle it feels wierd when you first use the reels, almost toy-ish but due to the retrieve speed it ballences out well and after a session it does exactly what i like in a reel!! it has 10 ARB bearings and is smoother than anything iv used before. with 8lb of drag it will cope with anything you will hook in british waters! Im a Baitcaster guy but Martin and Ady both use fixed spools which is more comman for UK ultra-light and generally the way to go if you want to do this exciting style of fishing. there is plenty of quality fixed spools on the market so its a personal preffernce as to what you use. just remember some of the top end imported shimano's are mega money!! £350+ but you do get sheers quality which is hard to beat!!

Terminal tackle wise id use 20-30lb braid due to the venues i fish sometimes being fairly rough and snaggy!! matched with again 20-30lb wire trace..... you can by all means go allot lighter as i know allot of guys are fishing Ultra-light with 10lb braid and 15lb traces etc. but remember lures arent cheap nowadays and a snag is a bad way to get rid of your best lures!! plus no one wants to snap off while playing you PB pike or Perch do you......

Road Trip...

Well after a mental week at work opening a new section in Exeter Screwfix fishing kind of took a back bench.....

but finally managed to head out on friday!

i went out for a Curry thurs night with my Brother when the phone went off, Martin Harding has txt me asking if i was upto much over weekend after chatting we decided to push the boat out and make the long drive up the M5 and M4 to a venue where Both Ady and Martin had done extremely well for Perch!! i have heard both of them talk about this canal allot over the last 18months and was looking forward to adding yet another venue under my belt! the thoughts of a UK canal where the pike isnt the top pred makes my juices flow!! Perch are on my hitlist untill next month where ill be back onto monster pike (hopefully)

We managed to find some amazing looking water it all looked too good to be true!! it certainly looked cracking

there was a shockinly strong wind, which made casting light lures a bit more tricky!! we saw plenty of small perch to half a pound mailing our lures!! i had a box full of lures given to me by Nick at Top Water lures which im field testing for him i was using A lure from MegaBass called a Zonk77 ideal for smaller pike and BIG perch and the seemed to like it with 4-5 small perch nailing it instantly!!

Me and Marting were armed to the teeth with the usuall dinky Rapalas and jigs etc we knew we would produce well!!

it started off fairly slow with lots of tiddlers and one 2lb Jack pike to me when we decided enough was enough!! that dreaded "one last cast" ended up being 12-15 casts and Mart shouts "im in!!" i turn to see him playing a nice perch about one and three quarter pounds but it had a few friends following him!! i could see a few well over 2lb!! i cast out the MegaBass Zonk77 and it was smashed instantly by a fat 2lber...... both of us had massive smiles mow as it was all falling into place!!

While Martin was wrestling this nice fat perch a decided to dip into my field test box and there was a nice Megabass Xslayer soft plastic looking at me in purl white, ideal for Perch!! these lures are spot on for UK fishing and i know my Buddy Henry Gilbey has used Xslayers with great success!! check his website for in depth write ups on MegaBass Xslayers http://www.henry-gilbey.com/ i rigged my Xslayer on a 6gm owner jig head with triangular offset which just hooks anything within a hundred yards ha ha ha it ballanced out really well! perfect action BUT could only get tiddlers to want to know it!! watch this space on Xslayers i know a venue that will have 3lb Perch jumping on the bank for them!!

we ended the Day with 10 Perch over a pound and a half, and 5 of them 2lb and over. with tons of tiddler perch chucked in!! i also landed two pike, sodding things cant get away from them!! ha