Henry Gilbey’s advice on the best ‘metals’, from old-school favourites to some new kids on the block.
How some old-school favourites and new kids on the block find success thanks to spin-stopping and jigging
It’s barely light, but I’m already thigh-deep in a powerful north Cornish surf. The sound of the waves combines with the odd screech from some birds I can’t yet see, but I know are already on the hunt for bait. I unzip the lure bag that sits around my waist and to the side, and by feel alone I pick out a specific metal lure. There is just enough light to make out the colour of the lure – dark, nearly black – and I secure it to the little clip tied on the end of my leader.
I set my drop, turn my face to the bouncy onshore conditions, and I bring the lure rod through to send the metal out there into all that churning water. How on earth is a bass going to find such a simplelooking lure in all that turbulence?
Ten turns of the reel handle and I feel the most delicious bump imaginable, and then my rod tip slams over hard. Does sea fishing get any better?
The more surf-based lure fishing for bass I do, the more I fall head over in heels in love with it, and, as with so much of this fishing, it’s a steep learning curve. For sure, I could suggest all manner of different lures that might work on their given day – paddletails, very grippy hard lures, and so on – but what fascinates me is how we are almost coming full circle and back to what I guess were once called spinners.
I refer to such lures as metals these days, but when you read about an angler catching bass on an Abu Toby or a Kilty Catcher, it has to take you back to the old days when metal lures like this were so prevalent. Relatively cheap and simple, a lot of them might be ignored these days, but if bass used to hit them many moons ago, then they sure will now. If there is one kind of lure fishing these metals are so well suited to it’s in the surf. I would argue though that not all metals are born equal, and, without a doubt, I am finding a few distinct preferences.
OLD FAVOURITES
Here I’m going to talk about metals from, say, 20-40g in weight. You might find that heavier versions are required for your surf fishing venues, or a big paddletail fished hard to the bottom might produce more or bigger bass, but as a generalisation, I get away with a sub-40g metal in the heaviest surf conditions.
It amazes me every time I go out surf fishing now that bass can so easily find our lures in conditions that often make it hard for us to stay upright as the water surges back and forth, but bass are amazing creatures.
If you go looking around you should be able to find the Abu Toby and Kilty Catcher lures, and these simple metals will catch you plenty of bass in the surf. I would advise you to bin the split rings and hooks that come rigged on these lures, but as basic metal lures, these have stood the test of time and should be around for many more years to come.
Look a little harder and you can actually find a whole load of simple metal lures in the right weights, which will catch you plenty of bass and will not break the bank. You will find that a 30g metal from a bunch of different manufacturers can vary wildly in size, and the materials they are made from might also be different.
Over the last year or so, one particular metal lure – the Savage Gear Seeker – has become my surf lure of choice. I have really come to appreciate a few things about this metal lure. For its weight, the profile is relatively large. I like this when I think about a bass switching on to a lure in turbulent conditions. Give them more to aim for perhaps?
The Toby and Kilty Catcher are proven fish catchers, but an equivalent weight Seeker casts far truer into strong headwinds. Originally, I could find the Seekers in 23g, 28g, and 32g, but for a while it’s only been the 23g that has been easily available. I’ve heard that the killer 28g and 32g sizes will be back on the market early in 2020.
SPIN-STOP
The Seeker has a great action when you do nothing more than a simple straight retrieve. While it looks like the lure is spinning all the way around and should be twisting your braid, in fact it’s not. What looks like a spinning sort of action is, in fact, the lure turning intensely from side to side, so you do not need a swivel on the front of the lure to prevent line-twist.
You don’t have to crank the hell out of the Seeker to prevent it from dragging along the bottom because it was originally designed as a sea-trout lure for the Scandinavian market. A lot of their shore fishing for these fine fish is in shallow water where they often need a lure that casts a mile and covers lots of water, grips in, and swims nice and shallow at the faster speeds they often use.
One technique these switched-on Scandinavian sea-trout anglers use is called a ‘spin-stop’, where, on a straight retrieve, you suddenly stop reeling and allow the Seeker to flutter back down on a tight line for a second or two (vary this time according to the depth you are fishing) and then start winding again and repeat. I had four bass the other morning doing just this in some heavy surf conditions, and it’s usually when you start winding again right after the lure has fluttered down that the fish will hit your lure. The Seeker looks amazing when you let it flutter down on a tight line. I am sure other metal lures can work a bit like this, but the shape of the Seeker lends it so well to this simple technique.
JIGGING METALS
Another technique I haven’t used enough in the surf is jigging with metals. I watched a very good angler catch a lot of bass the other month when he very deliberately fished his Seeker in a strong rip-current and worked it
up and down more like a jig. It can be hard to fish like this when you have strong side winds because the resulting belly of line kills a lot of the feel you need, but if you have the wind directly in your face especially, then I think it’s a method to explore.
The Seeker can and does work like this, and if you are going to really do it properly then I would rig it with a couple of assist hooks at the top, but there are also a number of specialist Japanese slow jigs on the market these days that come pre-rigged and are specifically designed to be fished like this.
I need to spend more time fishing these lures in the surf because I have struggled a bit so far with strong side winds and a lack of feel. Indeed, if you can’t feel the jig on the drop, especially when the bass are most likely to hit, then they aren’t nearly as effective.
I really like the look of these lures from Zetz and Major Craft especially because they are properly pre-rigged with good assist hooks, tend to cast well, and we are seeing more of these slow-jig type metal lures in that 20-40g range.
One thing I have really noticed recently when fishing with the Savage Gear Seeker early in the morning is that in those half-light conditions it seems to be the darker Black Pearl and Red/Black colours that produce more fish. I was fishing close to a friend the other day and landed four or five bass and then asked him how he was doing - nothing! I unclipped my Black Pearl colour Seeker and gave it to him. He unclipped his White Pearl Seeker, a killer colour I would never be without for much of my surf fishing, and then clipped on my Black Pearl version - first cast, bang, fish on, second cast, bang fish on.
Metals may in some way simply be metals, but the more time I spend surf fishing, the more I am finding out how not all metals are born equal, and their colour can sometimes make a lot of difference. ■