Blog - Henry Gilbey

My apologies for the sporadic blogging, but I flew to Boston on Friday morning and I am now here in Cape Cod doing some striped bass related stuff with Fiiish’s lure designer. We were out on the boat on Saturday and smashed a load of striped bass - no size, but it was great to see how a bunch of prototype lures worked. Then we hung around the famous Cape Cod Canal on Sunday. There’s been a good run of fish the last few days and I saw some landed to maybe 30lbs yesterday morning, and whilst I didn’t manage to hook any myself, the highlight of my day was watching an osprey come down and pick a mackerel out of the water right in front of me.

Anyway, it’s 3.30am in the morning as I am writing this and we are heading out to fish first light. The photo above is of a serious Canal specialist who puts lures out further than I have ever seen and could not be kinder with helping us out Thank you Bull, we are in your debt. I even managed to find a few absolutely perfect UK bass sized needlefish in a local tackle shop out here - ok, so the hooks need changing, but they are exactly what I have been looking for, and the retail price was under $7 a lure! More to come………….

To watch striped bass flooding into the Cape Cod Canal and busting on bait, with anglers lined up chucking lures at them, and all the talk of an incredible start to their season, well on the one hand it’s bloody amazing, but on the other hand it makes me so sad for what we could have back in the UK with our bass fishing. Sure, our own fishing can get really good sometimes, but then you see what serious numbers of better fish does for (sport) fishing and its anglers, it’s just hugely impressive. Somewhat of a wrench to leave that sort of quality behind………

Bluefish from the boat on a Fiiish prototype lure

There was one two hour session on the Canal when to be honest it was more fun just to sit back and watch and take it all in - I managed a “small” fish around 15lbs off the top, and dropped a couple more, but to be honest I am not geared up to properly get at the bass when they are feeding on bait at the sort of range they were. It’s the same all over the world - you can see the better anglers who are geared up and skillful enough to do what’s needed to catch more fish than the other guys around them. Holy cow there were some fish landed.

Watching an angler put a 4oz surface lure out I don’t know how far - and specifically casting at feeding fish remember - well it’s quite something to watch, and whilst there is of course a lifetime’s worth of shore fishing to discover out here, the Canal “scene” amazes me, and sure as hell it’s a place to go and fish if you want a chance at a 40lb plus striped bass from the shore. It’s not remotely easy, but it’s some experience to fish it and see it fire. While we have been here there have been a bunch of fish of that size landed from the Canal, so the time has come to stop messing around and actually come out here on a proper shore fishing trip. It’s a blast working with the Fiiish people, but I need to come out here and spend proper time shore fishing for these magnificent fish. Roll on 2018.

A regular sized striped bass that's been gorging on squid!

And then we were out on a boat off the back of Martha’s Vineyard yesterday and that was just as incredible - loads of boats fishing a bunch of rips, with stripers busting all over the place as they chased small squid clean out of the water. Some of the top water hits I had were just amazing. The amount of water, the numbers of predators and baitfish, the tuna fishery out here that so many people are waiting for it to kick off in the next few weeks, I love the buzz you get when you spend time around the anglers and the fishing out here on Cape Cod. I’m flying home this evening for a few days at home, and then off out to Ireland for a couple of weeks of co-guiding work down in Kerry. It’s been too long away from the magical part of the world and I can’t wait to get back down there………..

It’s not remotely scientific and it’s only what I happen to think, but thanks to this particular rod I have finally worked out in my head why (to me) some of the considerably more expensive lure rods seem to be in a bit of a different class. Sure, this new version of the APIA Foojin'AD Flow Hunt 810ML 8'10'' 7-32g lure rod is not remotely cheap (I think APIA redid their entire Foojin’AD range a year or so ago), but there are plenty of expensive fishing rods out there if you go looking. If it’s going to be this expensive then it has to feel like it’s really worth that amount of money to me. So is it?

And whilst just north of £450 here in the UK is a substantial amount of dosh to go spending on a fishing rod, the fact is that some anglers will spend that much. Would I? Well with how much good gear that is out there now for sensible money these days I am undecided, but without a doubt this rather stunning, new version APIA Foojin'AD Flow Hunt 810ML is one hell of a lure fishing rod - but so are plenty of others. I’ll tell you why I think this rod is worth the money though………..

It’s how effortlessly it moves through the different lures and techniques - never remotely straining when casting lures towards the high end (32g), and giving you all the feedback and subtlety you could want when twitching something around like the 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick (15g rigged weedless and weightless). Whilst standing on a rock in a bit of sea and breeze I very deliberately worked through my lure box to see if I could trip this Flow Hunt up, and I couldn’t - and that to me is where the high end rods such as this one earn their stripes so to speak. The rod feels just as good with any regular weight sort of bass lures I might use, and with any technique I might currently employ.

Sure you can fish the same sort of lures on something like the awesome Major Craft Skyroad Surf 9’6’’, but for sure you know when you’re really trying to push say the Xorus Patchinko surface lure out there. Does it matter? Not really, but what I am trying to do here is explain to you why I think an expensive rod like this APIA Flow Hunt costs what it does. I don’t know the ins and outs of making fishing rods, but I am guessing the quality of carbon in a rod like this is different than in a rod costing say half the price or less - and my next guess is that some higher quality carbon and rolling processes etc. can result in a rod like this being so at ease with anything within its casting range that you clip on.

So I stood on my rock and cast a white Deps Deathadder 6’’ out (15g rigged weedless and weightless), and then twitched it around and got bumped hard on about my third cast. Swine fish! This Flow Hunt works soft plastics like this beautifully - so I’ve got that “feel” of the rod in my head, how effortlessly it puts that particular lure out there, and how well the rod tip works as you help the lure come to life. Next step is to clip on something very different, the Xorus Patchinko, and properly wind it up - but to be honest the rod doesn’t remotely break a sweat with how incredibly easy and efficient it is with the heavier, larger surface lure. There’s just no straining from the rod during the cast. Working the Patchinko at range with my rod tip up is great, no worries at all.

Casting and retrieving various hard lures is exactly as you’d expect - brilliant. As is bumping a Fiiish Black Minnow around, and I love the feedback I’m getting. Change back to a soft plastic, this time a 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick, yet the rod doesn’t feel any less accomplished now I am not remotely pushing that top end casting weight. I absolutely love the tip on this Flow Hunt by the way - it blends into some serious but easily usable power. Then I really went for it with the 30g Westin Kongetobis (says 27g on the packet, but they weigh 30g), a lure which is surely a perfect replacement for the discontinued Bass Bullet. I can hit that 30g lure as hard as I can and still the rod isn’t remotely straining, but my reel is, and that’s because I am about to run out of braid. Holy cow that lure flies! Can’t wait to use it in a bit of surf over in Ireland especially……...

I did actually have a few casts again with the previous generation APIA FLow Hunt the other day, and it was as nice as I remembered when I reviewed it a few years ago - see here. This new 8’10’’ version feels somewhat “tighter” to me - a little more together in the tip area especially, or in the way the rod seems to flow as you fish it (sorry about that pathetic riff on the rod name!). I always like the handles that APIA put on their rods, and this one on the new Flow Hunt is just fantastic. I do tend to fish with 9’ and longer lure rods these days, but I’d be more than happy with this 8’10’’ long Flow Hunt - rod plus reel just feels great in my hands, indeed the only slight niggle is that at this price the rod isn’t rung with Fuji Torzite guides.

The previous generation APIA Flow Hunt

Will it catch you a heap more fish than say something like the outstanding Shimano Dialuna 9’ 6-28g rod that I reviewed a while back? Nope, and neither will this Apia Flow Hunt put your lures out further, land more fish for you, or make you more attractive to the fairer sex when you are wearing tights (technical leggings!) under your waders. That’s not the point though. Some anglers want to spend more money on their fishing tackle. In my mind there’s no doubting how this APIA Foojin'AD Flow Hunt 810ML is a seriously class lure fishing rod that I am sure will find its way into a few UK and Irish lure anglers’ hands - and I hope that whoever is up for parting with this much money for a lure fishing rod enjoys the lure fishing experience with it as much as I have. What an awesome bit of kit, and once again I am really pleased that such a good selection of APIA rods are available in the UK at The Art of Fishing - APIA make so many lure rods that are so perfectly suited to our fishing.

Disclosure - if you buy anything using links found in this blog post or around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you any more to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.

Whilst seeing and sometimes catching different fish around the world is of course the most ridiculous thrill that never diminishes, as ever for me it’s the anglers I meet and get to spend time with that arguably floats my boat even more - and sometimes I come across some seriously good anglers who for whatever reasons are that step up in talent and ability, and I would suggest that a lot of this comes down to natural ability combined with an inquisitive mind plus that drive to keep on getting better…………

So whilst I don’t want to embarrass the guy, I am forever in Bull McKinnon’s debt for how kindly he has helped me out over on the famous Cape Cod Canal, and not only for spending his own time fishing with me, but also for being so open and engaging about how he goes about his striped bass fishing. Bull is an incredible Canal specialist who over many years has continued to think about and refine his approach to targeting the sometimes huge striped bass that can run through that manmade waterway - and one of the core aspects to his fishing is having the ability to put heavy surface lures a long, long way out. Distance is not everything of course, but when you are so often seeing the best fish taking bait off the top at range, it makes perfect sense to at least have the ability to get your lures out there when required.

But how on earth do you cast (with a scary amount of power I might add) say 3oz to 6oz lures out when you are fishing with braids around 10-20lb breaking strain (and yes, US line ratings are different to ours), and without a long shockleader? When I was out there last week I found that Bull had adopted the newer 12’ long Shimano Tiralejo surf rod, rated to cast 2-6oz, and bear in mind that this USA rod is called a “surf spinning” rod. I had a bunch of casts with the rod and when you get the timing it’s quite something how you can get a good say 4oz pencil popper out there, but I need to practise, put it that way! Bull though makes those power casts look so effortless, and his casting technique is something else to watch - smooth, no rush, but so much power, and his lures just frigging fly.

But how does he not crack off all the time with light braids and heavy lures? Logic says you can’t go casting those kinds of weights on braids like that, but Bull is one of those anglers who is always thinking and refining - some anglers do, and some anglers don’t, and this guy is one of those people who I consider it a privilege to have met and spent some time with. Over the years he has thought about the issues he faces with lures and lines and he has come up with a solution that works perfectly for him. How applicable is it to us? I don’t know, but I bet that some of you chuck heavier lures and worry about using light braids to do so - try this out and see if it helps.

Obviously to get maximum distance you want to be using the lightest mainline possible, and if you can avoid having a leader knot flying through your (small) rod rings then this has to help as well. Some lures cast far better than others of course, and it’s quite something how the better and bigger US pencil poppers fly, to the point that I would so love it if we could get some in say 1oz or 1.5oz for our own bass fishing in say a bit of surf.

Anyway, Bull threads his (light) braid up through the rod rings and then takes enough off so that he can create a very long loop which when tied will give him a few turns of double line (braid) around his reel, and it’s this which is giving the added strength and impact resistance for the cast. So let’s say you walk off around three rod lengths of braid from your rod tip - it’s not easy, but now you want to put a simple double overhand knot in the doubled up braid to create that long length of double line. In essence this is a very long loop you have created, and without a doubt those few turns of doubled up line (loop) around your spinning reel gives you the added strength. And as you can guess, it’s far easier to make this long loop at home! Putting a double overhand knot in a length of double line that long can be a challenge when you have to pull so much line through the loop to form the knot. I was worried that a simple loop might wrap round my rod guides or whatever, but it never did, and Bull said that it’s never happened to him.

The baby 2.5oz pencil popper that I was casting

Now what you then attach to the end of that really long loop is up to you - I always like to use a leader, as does Bull, but you could simply tie a Palomar knot to a lure clip if you don’t want to use a leader. I’ll tell you how Bull finishes it off to his lure because I think it’s bloody clever - very simple, well thought out, quick to change things, and highly effective. And from my time spent with Bull and casting far heavier lures that I would here at home, I am convinced that the length and diameter of your leader can affect how certain lures fly - put it this way, I saw it plain as day when I was casting a 2.5oz pencil popper on a Major Craft X-Ride shore jigging rod. I was getting a bit of wobble on the lure as it flew out, so on Bull’s advice I changed from a 30lb to a 50lb leader and bang, the wobble in the flight was gone.

At the end of that really long braid loop, Bull attaches a Breakaway Spinlink clip via a Palomar knot - the US anglers love Breakaway clips. I can’t get enough of the smallest Breakaway Mini Link lure clip (our bass are magnificent, but they aren’t exactly striped bass size), then there is the medium size Breakaway Spinlink clip, with the largest one being the Breakaway Fastlink clip which I used to use a lot on my rigs for bait fishing. These clips just work, and I have yet to see one fail, neither here in the UK not over in the US, and bear in mind how much stress an anglers who casts like Bull is putting that relatively small Spinlink clip through.

So you’ve got a very long braid loop with a lure clip on the end - secured with a Palomar knot remember, a perfect knot for a doubled up line, very simple to tie, and strong as hell. Bull will then carry a bunch of pre-tied leaders of varying lengths and diameters/breaking strains - bearing in mind that his leader will never enter the rod rings if that makes sense - with a small swivel at the top end to simply clip onto his Breakaway Spinlink clip that is tied onto the end of his long braid loop, and then another Breakaway Spinlink clip at the end of the leader for clipping lures on and off.

Now if this all sounds like a monumental pain in the backside, then think about it like this - setup that long braid loop correctly and secure it to a lure clip (or you could of course tie the loop straight to a leader) and it’s highly unlikely you are going to need to retie this for a long time. You’ve got a double length of mainline that helps with casting bigger lures with lighter lines, and whilst we don’t exactly need this for our more regular bass fishing, how about the anglers who are punching bigger lures into heavy surf conditions? How about if you could drop down to say a 10lb 8-strand braid and better cut through wind and waves if a bit of extra distance and control might catch you a few more bass? Let’s be honest, as much as a lot of us use say 20lb braids, do we really need mainlines that strong for our bass? This way of setting up has really got me thinking about the chance to go much lighter and reap the potential benefits for example.

Jacob from Redtop tackle hating his rod!

But does this really work? Well I have fished with Bull a few times now, and I hope to do so plenty of times in the future if the poor bloke can take all my questions! I haven’t seen the guy crack a lure off yet, and I have watched him cast lures as large as 6oz with the sort of power that makes me think he doesn’t like his fishing rod very much! He catches a lot of fish, and quite often to the sort of sizes that make me want to emigrate to the US and spend the rest of my life doing nothing else but chase striped bass………...

We are anglers and we all do things slightly differently - I understand that. There are so many ways to skin the proverbial cat with fishing and its many techniques and methods, but one thing I will never understand is why an angler would spend money on a modern braided mainline and then tie it to a leader with anything other than the best modern knots that have been specifically developed for just that purpose - to be the strongest possible way to tie braid to leader…….

And if there is a stronger way to tie braid to leader than the FG knot then I have yet to come across it. I have talked about this incredible knot before on this blog, and all the details on how to tie it can be found here on my website if that helps. Bang on all you like about uni to uni, the Improved Albright or whatever - and they are perfectly decent knots of course - but they don’t come close to how good a connection the FG knot is if you tie it correctly. Does it matter for our bass fishing? Perhaps not a lot of the time, but my argument is still the same - why not? Why not use the best connection?

Anyway, over a few years now I have occasionally emailed back and forth with a guy in Europe who deals with Sufix lines - and yes, I love Sufix lines. There are plenty of good braids, monos and fluoros out there these days, but for all that I try, I keep coming back to Sufix because I trust their lines completely. As I said the other day on here, I am genuinely over the moon that Sufix lines are coming back properly into the UK. So I was on a Skype call to this bloke earlier in the week to yap about Sufix lines, and whilst I know he’s heavily involved with Sufix, I then found out that he is actually Mr. Sufix, as in it’s his company. He designs and makes the lines in a couple of factories that he owns, and believe me when I say that I could have stayed on that Skype call for hours with the number of questions I wanted to ask. I got a fair few in, but Mr. Sufix has kindly said that I can fire any line related questions I want at him and he will do his utmost to answer me - and he’s perfectly happy for the info he gives me to appear on this blog.

We talked briefly about such subjects as how fishing lines are rated here in Europe and then over in the US (there is no logic to the US system, put it that way), how many factories there are that can make (extrude) monofilament line around the world (lots!) compared to factories that can produce genuine fluorocarbon (five), how braid suffers abrasion internally over time (fibres rubbing together and flexing over rings, roller bearings etc.) which can often be a cause of your braid suddenly starting to snap for no apparent reason (and how their Sufix 832 with its single Gore fibre is Sufix’s attempt at alleviating this problem as much as possible), how it’s scientifically impossible for a mono line to be coated with fluorocarbon as some lines are marketed, and also the FG knot………..

OK, so I know the FG knot when tied as per this video here is damn strong anyway, but I didn’t know that if you tie it correctly then it’s a 100% strength join between braid and leader. How do I know this? Because Mr. Sufix has tested it on a professional line testing machine. If you think about it, technically it’s not really a knot as such, hence the strength, because when you put an actual knot into braid, you weaken it - as with all lines. You might be using half-hitches to finish the knot and stop it unravelling, but the actual securing of the braid to the leader is a kind of wrap/clinch/grip thing rather than a knot as such - and because you are not trying a knot in the braid, you retain its linear strength. That is my understanding from our conversation.

And if it helps, with the kind of lightish braids that we use for our lure fishing (when compared to the lines used for say GT fishing), I put thirty over and under wraps in there before that first half-hitch which as you know you need to then pull really hard on both ends to secure the “knot”. I then put a further three half-hitches in, cut the leader tag end nice and tight, put three further half-hitches around the braid mainline only and then tie a three turn locking knot to finish it off. Tie the FG knot correctly and it’s a 100% join, but how you now tie your leader to a lure clip or direct to a lure is going to impact on the overall strength of course. Those thin lines we use that connect us to our fish are amazing if you think about what we put them through as we fish, so surely it makes sense to try and maximise their potential?

By the time you read this blog post I will be on my way to my favourite country on this glorious earth to do a couple of weeks of co-guiding work with John Quinlan of the rather awesome Thatch Cottage Fishing Lodge setup. For various reasons I haven’t been to Ireland yet this year and I seriously can’t wait to disembark that ferry tomorrow afternoon in Rosslare and make the longish drive to Kerry in the south west.

Our first bunch of clients arrive on Tuesday, with the actual fishing starting on Wednesday, and I can’t wait to get going. Working with anglers is a massive buzz, and to be surrounded by such a special part of the world is the icing on the cake. You won’t find a nicer guy than John Quinlan and we’ve got lots of catching up to do. As ever I am sure that this trip will be a great mix of hard work and lots of laughing. I will keep the blog updated as much as I can, but please forgive me if it is somewhat sporadic at times..……..

You many not need or want a 9’ lure rod rated to fish lures from 7-28g, but if you have any inkling for a rod like this then I implore you to either find a way of checking out the quite incredible Tailwalk Saltyshape Dash Seabass 90ML 9’ 7-28g lure rod at the Art of Fishing tackle shop in north Cornwall, or else take a leap of faith and trust me here when I tell you that this rod is easily up there with the single best sub-£200 lure rod I have come across so far, the outstanding Major Craft Skyroad 9’ 10-30g (review here) - and in some respects quite possibly a little bit better again…….

I have tried over the last few years to find a 9’ lure rod rated within that all important say 5-30g range AND which comes in at a sub-£200 price here in the UK that I like as much as the Major Craft Skyroad 9’ 10-30g - but up until now I haven’t found one. I still think the 9’ Skyroad is that good. Sure, I have fished with better 9’ lure rods, but they have cost a lot more than £200. Personally I think that under £200 is an important price point for what we might term modern lure rods these days, and even then it’s not an insignificant amount of money to spend on a slim bit of carbon that you are going to contort again and again as you put all manner of lures out there in all manner of conditions.

Even if you don’t need a lure rod like this, and accepting 100% that lure fishing rods are incredibly personal things, I still would struggle to see how any lure angler who fishes for bass could not enjoy this rod. It’s just “right” - it’s nice and light, it’s got plenty of power but also plenty of feel for the soft plastics, I can’t help but like how this well balanced 9’ lure rod sits in my hands, and the fastish action on this Tailwalk to me is just about perfect for lure fishing. Having now fished with this rod a proper amount, I can understand exactly why Ben at the Art of Fishing has chosen this sublime Tailwalk Saltyshape Dash Seabass 90ML 9’ 7-28g lure rod to be the one rod on his website against which all the other rods are compared as regards the curve charts - this rod just like an all round 9’ lure rod should feel.

I guess the handle design could be a Marmite sort of thing - I have fished with these open kind of reel seats before on some APIA rods I think it was and I am perfectly comfortable with how this Tailwalk is configured. I thought it might be a bit of a problem to really get a good grip on the rod with wet hands, but it’s fine. OK, so I’d prefer a bit of duplon or cork for where the back of my reel hand sits on the rod, but I am coming to the conclusion that wanting this all the time on rods could just be me. I happen to like how that slightly open kind of design on the reel seat above where the reel stem sits naturally fits your hand when it’s closed over the rod, as per the photos above. Cian, I need my hand model back!

Casting sequence - 9' Tailwalk with a 6'' OSP DoLive Stick (15g rigged) - thanks as ever Mark

I don’t really like to try and compare lure rods, but then I can’t really get away from how this Tailwalk might stack up against my sub-£200 9’ yardstick of the last few years, the awesome Major Craft Skyroad 9’ 10-30g. The Skyroad is a great rod that works incredibly well for so much of our lure fishing here in the UK and Ireland - when put up against this 9’ Tailwalk you can feel how the Skyroad has more of a powerful throughish soft of action, whereas this Tailwalk has a faster action where you can really feel the grunt in the butt and mid-section, leading through to a wonderful tip. And the tip blends in perfectly if that helps. Yep, I can’t not bring out that word when trying to describe this Tailwalk Saltyshape Dash Seabass 90ML 9’ 7-28g lure rod - it’s as steely as you like, and I like steely lure rods. As I said earlier, every single thing about it just feels right. It’s as if a lure rod company got inside my head and built the sub-£200 lure rod that I really want to fish with, indeed it’s the sort of blank that is so good that Tailwalk could easily strip it down, rebuild it with Fuji Torzite guides etc., and flog it for a whole lot more.

Gotta love how Ben at the Art of Fishing is constantly working on his lure rod information

So there you go - finally I have found a sub-£200 lure fishing rod that I like as much as the 9’ Skyroad. Is one better than the other? Well I guess the action on this Tailwalk suits me a smidgen better, but give me a few casts to adjust back to the timing of the Skyroad and I find that one working perfectly for me as well. I reckon this Tailwalk deals with the heavier lures such as the Xorus Patchinko a little better than the Skyroad, and I put that down to the extra power in the butt section of the Tailwalk. Both rods feel as good to me when I am fishing soft plastics rigged weedless and weightless such as my beloved 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick, but to be honest all manner of lures within the casting ratings go really well on these two rods. Which one would I buy if I was after a lure rod like this for under the £200 mark? Either - they are both incredible lure fishing rods. Is that called sitting on the fence? Whatever the case, again it’s hats off to the people who make this kind of incredible lure fishing tackle available to us here in the UK.

When it fires out here in Kerry it’s quite something, and especially when you are fishing literally miles of the most perfect bass ground you could imagine yet John has never seen another angler there - and our lads caught some crackers yesterday afternoon. Stunning dark backed rock bass from acres of shallow broken ground, running hard against some tight drags, everybody caught nice fish, and the best of the day was Dave’s 73cm fish which was in as fine condition as a bass can be. Great call on where to go John!

And what were the lures that did the damage yesterday? Have a guess. Yep, the 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick - the lads had some fish swirl on their surface lures, but no actual takes. Clip on a DoLive Stick and bang, fish on, indeed Nigel landed three bass well over 60cms in about twenty minutes on those frigging killer soft plastics. Sorry I haven’t got more time to tell you all about it, but it’s hectic stuff out here in Kerry and this co-guiding work - and I absolutely love it. We haven’t sorted out our dates for 2018 yet, but if you would like a chance at bass like these and want me to notify you when we know our plans, please go here and fill out the contact form.

Have you ever been playing a decent bass and your leader parts for no good reason you can think of? There’s no reason for the actual leader knot to break if you use a proper modern knot to join braid to leader, and dodgy knots from leader to clip or lure are something that no self-respecting angler should be tying anyway - but how about your leader suddenly parting? Do you put it down to some unseen damage to the line that must have happened beforehand, yet we didn’t pick it up and then tie a new leader on?

Well what if it isn’t that always that? Bear with me here, because this thinking comes primarily from a discussion that John Quinlan and I were having about striped bass fishing and a good US angler they met out in Cape Cod earlier this year. OK, so striped bass can grow far larger than the largest bass we could ever hope to see in a million years of trying, but this lad was telling John’s lot over there that he is sometimes landing bigger, more powerful stripers that have very fresh cuts in their tails - which he puts down to those fish running away from the angler and then their tails sometimes slap against the leader which can cause those cuts and then potentially break either a weaker leader, or if your leader is too short, break the braid against which the tail would be connecting with as the fish ran hard. Think about the tail structure on a fish and how much bone is actually in there, and now think about a decent fish really working their tail to run away - surely it makes perfect sense that the tail is going to hit the line, and in some cases break it?

So the other day out here in Kerry, Dave hooks a good bass. He’s fishing a 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick on the end of a 20lb fluoro leader, with that powerful (and utterly divine) HTO Shore Game 9’6’’ 7-35g lure rod (review here), and I could see the rod slam down as the scrappy bass splashed on the surface took a decent bit of line in some shallow water. There wasn’t a hint of panic from Dave and he did every single thing right, and in no great time John had the fish secured on a small Fish Grip to then take the hook out and get a few photos, as per above.

Now I must admit that I didn’t notice this, but John did - there’s a spit in the tail (I’ve zoomed into the tail area for the photo above), and John said it was very fresh because he saw some blood. Now that’s a 73cm fish in absolutely prime condition which ran pretty well in shallow water - and to me it makes perfect sense that the fresh split in the fish’s tail most likely occurred somewhere in that scrap, either when the bass thrashed on the surface, or else when it ran hard, and of course it needs to move its tail to do so.

If you don’t use a leader then that is entirely up to you, but personally I can see no reason not to use one - for a number of different reasons as well - and I wonder if anglers not using leaders is primarily because they have had bad experiences of leader knots breaking. My reply to that? Have a guess! Learn to tie the FG knot, tie it properly, and get a 100% strength join. Simple.

But let’s say here that you do use a leader when you go bass fishing, and let’s say that a bigger, scrappy fish does indeed slap its tail hard against your line during the scrap - how long a leader do you use? For no deep and meaningful reason other than it seems to work for me and my own casting and fishing I use a leader around 3’ long these days, and as much as I would love to think I’m going to connect to a 90cm+ bass from the shore one day, in reality me thinks not.

Can a bass actually break the leader as I have described above? I’m not sure, and of course big, powerful stripers are a completely different proposition to our own bass, but let’s say you do go and hook that bass of a lifetime in shallow water where the fish is most likely going to run and thrash about a bit - does it make sense when you are putting a leader on to make sure it’s longer than the longest bass you might connect with? Notwithstanding an absolute once in a lifetime monster that’s swimming around and chows your lure………..

And as much as big bass can of course be landed on very light line if it all goes right, what happens if a decent bass repeatedly slaps its tail on a really light leader which creates that split in their tail, and which then exposes your line to a potentially sharp edge etc.? A mate of mine lost a decent fish the other day for example when his long, lightish leader parted for no other reason that he could think of, save for believing the line had been previously damaged and he hadn’t noticed - which it could have been, no arguing with that - but what if it was the fish’s tail that broke the line? If this can happen, is a fish’s tail more likely to break fluoro, mono or braid? I don’t know, but personally I’d be far happier if a fish’s tail slaps against some kind of leader material with is somewhat thicker than these ultra-thin braids so many of us love lure fishing with. Food for thought?

OK, so it’s always the biggest fish that isn’t actually caught, but both John and I watched open-mouthed as this donkey of a bass bow-waved behind one of our client’s surface lures and then smashed into it the other morning - and because fishing is fishing and it likes to give us a kick from time to time, it was this lad’s very first cast of the morning and the sodding bass didn’t hook up. Sod’s law? Holy cow I’d have like to have seen that fish, because whilst the best bass one of our clients landed on this trip was a fantastic 73cms long, John and I are still wondering just how big that donkey was that didn’t connect - I can still see it now coming up behind that small Patchinko…………...

I am driving home today after a couple of back to back co-guiding trips out here in Kerry. I did have the opportunity to not need to wake up at 4am this morning, but failed - far too much fishing stuff to think about! I do fancy my chances though of having to crawl into the back of my (epic) Berlingo for a bit of a kip sometime in the wee small hours on that long drive back from Fishguard to Cornwall, but I am absolutely bloody buzzing to get out bass fishing myself as soon as possible - and to see my family of course! I count myself very lucky to be doing this guiding work, but fishing guides don’t fish with their clients (and personally I would not pay a “guide” who did) - I need to go fishing!

We haven’t found numbers of bass over these two trips, but a lot of the bass our clients have caught have been quality fish, as per this cracker nailed by Chris above. We’d have loved some swell here in Kerry, but it’s generally been pretty flat, and of course that does shut down some options - there is so much ground out there though that there’s usually a more than viable option to chase bass. The more time I spend in this part of Ireland working with John Quinlan, the more I fall in love with it. The fact that we have to try and sell these co-guiding spaces aside, this part of Kerry truly is something very special indeed - as with anywhere it’s extra magical when the fishing is really firing, but it’s way, way more than that. If you see another angler out and about it’s a shock, and whilst John knows his local patch incredibly well, he would be the first to admit that there are several lifetimes of further fishing opportunities out here that are waiting to be explored.

Without doubt the most successful lure of this trip has been the OSP DoLive Stick, indeed it can feel a little repetitive asking our clients to clip one on again, but the simple fact is that these soft plastics work. Yep, I am sure that there are other soft plastics that can be rigged weedless and weightless that might work as well as the DoLive Stick, but if there are then I haven’t found them yet - and believe me, I have tried, and I have a box full of lures that didn’t work as well for me (the cheaper Deps Deathadder 6’’ is growing and growing on me, got some high hopes for it). I do tend to fish the DoLive Stick with a twitch, twitch, pause kind of retrieve (as per the video below), but to be perfectly honest the lure seems to work just as well on a very simple straight retrieve where it swims just below the surface with this outrageous little slalom sort of an action that bass seem unable to refuse. Whatever the case, I can’t be without these lures, and I imagine that a few more of our clients are feeling the same.

Similar feelings as well for the Fiiish Crazy Sandeel when we go pollack fishing - it’s almost a joke how readily those fish latch onto this lure. I take my hat off to Matt at Fiiish for designing what I believe might well be just about the most lethal pollack lure ever invented, and whilst over the right sort of ground the Crazy Sandeel can be deadly for bass as well, it just makes me giggle to show a client how to use it for pollack, and then see them absolutely nailed when a fish smashes the lure on the drop. What size we use depends on where we are fishing, but I am pretty sure the one we use the most is the 150mm body and the 30g head - bearing in mind that we sometimes go out on the boat and fish over fairly shallow ground. Anyway, have a good weekend and see you next week. Homeward bound…………..

I am sure there are other soft plastics like the OSP DoLive Stick out there that cast and fish as well for our bass, but if indeed there are then I haven’t found them yet. I got back from Ireland in the early hours of Saturday morning and I’m processing the trip in my head, and whilst we would preferred a bit of swell and life to the water for our co-guiding work, we didn’t get it - which then tends to dictate a quieter, more subtle kind of approach to work on catching a few bass. Naturally we can’t tell our clients which lures they have to use, but on the other hand we are here to help them as much as possible - and suggesting what lures we think might work is part of our job………..

I could show you a box I have here at home that is full of different kinds of soft plastic jerkbait style lures that I have bought over the years in an attempt to find one that can do what the DoLive Stick does for me. I am really starting to like the (cheaper) 6’’ Deps Deathadder, and I will be fascinated to see where it ends up with me after a load more water time. I love the fact that you can sometimes get it in a solid white colour that seems to work really well in more coloured water, and yes, I regularly dream about a solid white 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick. I don’t know anybody at the Japanese lure company OSP, but if anybody out there does, please could you ask really nicely on my behalf, and tell them that I will gladly buy them all! And don’t get hung up on that sandeel like wakasagi colour only, because plenty of other DoLive Stick colours smash our bass.

Your “typical” DoLive situation - our last morning with our first group of anglers, and only one guy wanted to get up early for a bit of fishing before the epic final Lions test match which we all went to watch. Obviously. So I met Dave at 4.30am and we headed out to find the water about as calm and as clear as you could ever find. Dave can seriously fish and he went through a few lures to see if we could interest a bass or two, but no joy, and to be perfectly honest neither of us was that surprised.

We were facing an ignominious return to the Thatch Cottage, so I suggested a bit of a move and a change over to a 6’’ DoLive Stick - and it went and worked. OK, so the fish wasn’t going to break any records, but in water that calm and that clear I just felt so confident that Dave was at least doing the right thing by fishing a DoLive Stick on a simple straight retrieve where it just does this ridiculously lovely little slalom. As much as I love fishing this lure with a simple kind of twitch, twitch, pause, wind, repeat sort of action, I can see myself doing a lot more of simply winding it in because it also works really well like this. Letting the lure do its natural thing?

Damn right I obsess about the DoLive Stick, and I make no apologies for it either. Hard lures are always going to a big part of my bass fishing, and of course there are many times when you can’t effectively fish with a soft plastic rigged weedless and weightless, but I do find myself clipping a soft plastic on more and more. It is fascinating to watch a client who has never caught on a lure like this go and catch a bass, because you can literally see that flood of confidence in such a comparatively sedate (boring?) looking lure wash through their body - it’s another option at the end of the day, and if we feel confident in the options we carry in our lure boxes then surely that helps us to fish that bit better?

It might just be a simple soft plastic that I far prefer fished with no added weight on the hook, but if I go rooting through my box of soft lures that don’t cut it for me like this thing does, then that combination of shape, weight, fall rate, castability, stability, and of course action does indeed seem to be fairly unique when compared to other lures which might look a bit similar - and it’s interesting how it’s another Japanese soft plastic (and not a US style freshwater bass soft “jerkbait”) in the 6’’ Deps Deathadder that seems to be able to do what the (Japanese) 6’’ OSP DoLive Stick is doing. It is also worth bearing in mind that you will find both these lures under the freshwater bass fishing section on their respective manufacturer websites. I am very particular about what weedless hooks I use with the DoLive Stick as well, and without a doubt a hitchhiker system of rigging helps them to last longer - and then repair tears etc. with that magical Mend-It stuff. My out and out favourite hooks for the DoLive Stick are these particular Owner ones here in 5/0 and here in 6/0, and ignore the photos of the hook on the website because they are wrong. Check the photo below for how this lure/hook setup should look once rigged.

Are we the only (sea) bass fishing part of the world that has so switched on to using these kinds of (freshwater) lures for saltwater fishing? Whatever the case, I can’t go bass fishing without these lures, and rest assured that if I come across any soft plastics that start to work as well for me as the DoLive Stick - and increasingly the 6’’ Deps Deathadder - I will tell you all about it on here. Like any angler I do what I can to protect where I fish for any number of different reasons, but for the life of me I will never understand why anybody would want to keep secret what lures and techniques are catching fish for them. Surely fishing is about sharing this kind of information so that we can all keep on trying new stuff and learning as we go along, and hopefully catch a few more fish?

I have never actually measured any of the bass I have caught (although a few have been measured by other anglers), but it interests me how more and more lure anglers seem to be doing so - which if done quickly I guess has to be better than hanging them from a weighing scale - and then I can’t help but wonder why the quoted length of a bass seems to be accepted as needing to be right to the tip of the tail. I ask mainly because when I see guides measure fish such as bonefish and GTs overseas, it’s accepted that the measurement is going to be to the fork of the tail, with say a 1m+ (fork-length) GT on the fly being a notable fish to aim for etc.

I don’t mean to be remotely pedantic here, and to be honest when you have that really handy BASS measuring tape with some useful indications of weight versus overall length on there then there is of course no reason to go and change things - but I do wonder if it’s simply more accurate to measure straight down the flank of a fish to the fork of a tail, rather than potentially getting a slightly wrong reading when trying to measure to the actual tip of the tail which of course it not in line with the middle of the fish. Does that make sense? Done correctly as above and you’ve got a perfectly accurate measurement, but done differently? Does it remotely matter anyway?

Is there a reason why we do it like this with our bass, or is it simply a case of how it’s always been done and therefore there is no reason to change? I must admit that I like how a lot of anglers are quoting the length of a bass these days, and whilst swinging a bass from a set of scales can’t exactly be very good for a fish’s welfare (and if you do want to weigh, please use a weigh sling or net or something like that to cradle the fish), I do also wonder about the time that I have seen some angers take over measuring their fish - which are for the most part out of the water.

I am not trying to rock any boats here, but as lure anglers especially seem to be changing the way that some things in fishing are done, I am just interested to know more about the way we measure our bass, and whether any of you out there have any thoughts of your own as regards the overall length (to tip of tail) versus the fork-length way of doing thing. In time will most lure anglers simply not even worry about an accurate weight for their bass and instead settle completely for a measurement?

Bearing in mind how much a double figure bass means though, and how as useful as that BASS measuring tape is, nobody would ever claim that the weight suggestions are completely accurate for the lengths, not when you aren’t taking into consideration the girth and overall condition of the bass. I’d love to be able to say that a 76cm bass I caught at night on an Irish beach was a 10lb+ fish for example, but it wasn’t - look how skinny the fish is in the photo above. Anyway, there we go - hardly earth shattering I grant you, but a bit of food for thought?

I make no apologies for another blog post based on the FG knot, not when it’s the best connection from braid to leader that we can use, and not when you’ve got clients snagging the odd lure in the bottom when pollack fishing and John Quinlan or I pull for breaks on the FG knots we have tied in their lines and every single time you get the leader back - either with the lure still attached after serious pressure, or with it having given on the knot that was tied on the leader to the lure clip. But have you ever had any problems with the FG knot? Perhaps it’s gone out of the blue, or like what happened to me a few years back, perhaps you give it a sample sort of pull and for some reason the knot just unravels out of the blue?

Well I reckon there are two reasons why the FG knot could fail on you - it getting scuffed badly on sharp rocks aside of course - and both I would classify as angler error, with means that both reasons can be easily avoided. Today I am the FG knot doctor! I must sound like a scratched record here, but what on earth is the point in spending good money on modern lines and then not using the best modern knot to connect your braid to leader, if indeed you use a leader that is? Sure, the Improved Albright or the Uni to Uni are decent connection knots, but the fact is that they are not as good as the FG knot.

To me it’s like spending decent money on say a lovely soft plastic lure, but then rigging it with a suspect weedless hook - it will most likely be fine for most of the fish you might connect with, but what about when that fish of a lifetime comes along? Why take the risk? There are any number of reasons for us losing fish, but I know that it’s not going to be my leader knot that fails on me - so one potential problem has been removed from the equation. How about sometimes getting expensive lures back from snags as well? Anyway, I digress…………..

With the braids and leaders we are likely to use for our own lure fishing, I put thirty turns into my FG knot, or thinking about it another way, fifteen complete cross-wraps - which is more than on the video above, but I just think that it’s required for lighter braids especially. A few years ago out in Morocco I distinctly remember pulling hard on an FG knot one morning (that I had tied the previous day) and it just unravelled and came apart easily - which of course freaked the life out of me. From that moment on I started to put those thirty turns on the knot (instead of the twenty or so I had been doing) and it has never, ever happened again (if you do the next step properly as well), indeed on the last evening of that Morocco trip I snagged a hard lure up good and proper, but got it back because I literally straightened the trebles out. The mainline if that helps was the awesome Sufix 832 braid in the 0.15mm size.

Look around the internet and there are any number of videos on how to tie the FG knot, but I still really like the one embedded into this blog post as the best one I have come across for the initial construction of the FG knot - but once I’ve done my thirty turns (or fifteen complete cross-wraps), I reckon this next step is absolutely vital to “set” the knot, and the bloke in the video does this later than I do. Oh, and if you can’t secure the braid in your teeth to get some tension, you can tie a loop in it to make it easier, or secure that loop around something that’s attached to you (small carabiner attached to your wader strap for example) , or even secure that loop around the handle on your reel to get tension, and tie the knot like that, as per the video above (thanks to the French guy who left a comment on my blog and made me aware of this technique, love the music!).

So what is this next step? Tie that first half-hitch around the leader and braid, tighten it down, and then pull the living hell out of the knot - to me this is absolutely vital, and if you don’t do it you risk the knot failing on you. This step properly tightens up those cross-wraps so that they literally “grip” onto your leader, and after that real tightening phase you can finish the knot off. I’ve done that one half-hitch so far, so now I will put a couple more in over braid and leader, then I cut the leader as close as possible, put two more half-hitches around the braid only, and then do a three turn locking knot around the braid (which is basically a three turn half-hitch - put three turns inside the loop you form instead of just the one for a half-hitch), pull it tight, and leave a bit of a tag as per the photo above. That’s the FG knot done for me, and I’ve done it in a gale of wind and on a rocking boat with no problems at all - and it just works.

I was rooting through the Sufix European catalogue the other day and came across what they refer to as a “castable fluorocarbon line” in this Super 21 FC stuff, and straight away I am wondering why on earth it can’t also be used as a leader material? I like the fact that you can buy 150m spools, the breaking strains and diameters make a lot of sense to me, and the prices are really good when compared to some of the specialist fluorocarbon lines that are sold specifically as leader material.

So I got hold of some and then emailed my Mr. Sufix contact and asked him whether I was barking up the wrong tree by trying this Sufix Super 21 FC castable fluorocarbon out as a leader material, to which his reply was no, not at all, it works great, although of course it’s not made from exactly the same raw materials as their their somewhat more expensive Sufix Invisiline, plus it has various things done to it after extrusion to make it into a castable fluorocarbon mainline (that Sufix Invisiline is a pure leader material, I have used it plenty over the years, and it’s an outstanding line). Yes, I am obsessed with Sufix lines, but why wouldn’t I be when no Sufix line has ever let me down in all the time I have been fishing with them? I also really like the fact that their two different 8-strand braids are well under the £20 mark here in the UK, and that they are becoming properly available once again (Sufix 832 here and Sufix Performance Pro 8 here) - and of course it helps that these braids are just awesome mainlines.

Anyway, this is a remarkably easy review to write, because this Sufix Super 21 FC works perfectly as a leader material for species such as bass, pollack and wrasse, and I know this because I have now used it plenty myself, plus I used it for our clients over in Ireland the other day when I was tying on new leaders for them - and it just works, end of. It’s strong, it works perfectly with the FG knot, it knots great to the lure clip, I like how it’s a bit stiffer than regular mono which I think makes lines like this work so well as leader material, and to be honest, as much as I tell myself that I do really love “pure” fluorocarbons, in reality when I use a line like this Sufix Super 21 FC I am left wondering if I do actually need to spend any more money than what this stuff costs. This much cheaper fluorocarbon leader material does exactly what I want it to do.

If a 150m spool of this line doesn’t last you for a season of saltwater fishing then I’d be surprised (used as leader material), and at the £9.99 price for the sort of diameters/breaking strains we would use here in the UK and Ireland, Super 21 FC just makes a whole heap of sense to me as a leader material. There are a bunch of numbers on the spools, but if you do want to try this fluorocarbon out then go with these figures here when choosing which one to use (and I have based the UK prices on what the outstanding Art of Fishing tackle shop is selling this line for):

0.28mm - 5.4kg/12lb
0.30mm - 6.3kg/14lb
0.35mm - 8.1kg/18lb
0.40mm - 9.0kg/20lb

So there you go. Yet another Sufix line which is working perfectly for me. Nice and easy on a Monday morning!

So when did you last have such a bad blow up with your braid that either you had to change spools over, or else if you weren’t carrying a spare spool you couldn’t actually carry on fishing? Granted, this might never have happened to you - and for the life of me I can’t remember the last time it happened to me - but I am haunted by this feeling that some day I am going to be in the middle of the most epic bass fishing session you could ever imagine, and my extreme over excitement is going to cause me to do a particularly bad cast, blow my reel up beyond all hope, and then I will be left thrashing myself with my lure rod - unless there’s a spare spool loaded up with braid, sitting in my rucksack, calling to me………….

And this is one reason in particular I like to carry a spare spool for my spinning reel - and therefore yes, it niggles me that with some spinning reels you get a spare spool in the box, yet with some you don’t. As I said, I can’t actually remember having to use a spare spool, but I also like being able to use the same spinning reel with a couple of different breaking strains or makes of braid for example - which I can’t do if my reel doesn’t come with that spare spool in the box. I could buy a spare one of course, but firstly I don’t see why I should have to, and secondly they are often next to impossible to get hold of anyway. I must give credit to Ben at the Art of Fishing for actually stocking a few spare spools for some of the more popular Shimano spinning reels - check here.

Anyway, I have been fishing a lot more with this utterly sublime Shimano Exsence C14+ 4000XGS spinning reel (review here) - I liked it a hell of a lot when I wrote that review, but I like it even more another couple of months down the line. Why? Because it just feels right when I turn that lovely chunky handle, and so far I haven’t had a single problem with it. This Shimano Exsence C14+ 4000XGS is so my kind of lure fishing reel and I am sorely tempted to buy another one it’s that nice to fish with - but yes, it still niggles me that this reel doesn’t come with a spare spool in the box.

I mentioned in my review of this reel that it reminded me very much of the Shimano Sustain 4000FG spinning reel, and the other day an idea suddenly came to me in a blinding flash of light - and apologies here if this would seem remarkably obvious to you - would the spool from the Sustain by any chance fit onto the Exsence?

By jove it does, as per above! I have heard of the spools of various Shimano spinning reels fitting perfectly onto other Shimano reels, and this is one of those cases - lo and behold if this Sustain 4000FG spool fitting onto the Exsence C14+ 4000XGS doesn’t now sort out my problem of not having a spare spool with me when I am fishing with it. OK, so none of this will apply to you if you don’t own these reels, but at least my finding this out may give you cause to swap some spools around on your spinning reels and see what might fit. Chances are you aren’t going to need to carry a spare spool with you, but is it worth taking that risk?

Disclosure - if you buy anything using links found in this blog post or around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you any more to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.

Whilst there is of course no denying that bass stocks are under huge pressure from many different angles, I refuse to believe that what has been a very up and down season so far around here is purely down to overfishing. I hope I am not burying my head in the sand, rather things seem so different to last year that if this current lack of bass numbers was solely down to commercial pressure then I would be almost beyond worried if that makes sense………..

How has the bass fishing been around you so far this year? I keep my eye on as many fishing reports as I can, and unless I am mistaken it seems that some parts of the country have been experiencing some pretty good fishing, whereas in other parts it has sometimes felt like a bit of a desert out there. One set of tides and you’re finding a few fish, and then a week later and it’s as if something is seriously wrong. I dread to think how our catches would have been so far this year if we weren’t into night fishing.

Take yesterday morning for example. Mark and I found what could only be described as perfect conditions for this part of the world - every single thing was spot on (check the photo above, and believe me, for around here it doesn’t get much better - green water, bounce, nice tide, very little weed, you name it, that’s perfection), yet we managed one piddly little bass between us. Granted, it could have been down to some crap angling, but in reality at this time of year we really should have seen a few bass, and this has happened too many times for it not to at least get the brain churning about what might be going on out there.

Things kicked off sort of when you’d expect it to around here, as per above, and for a while it seemed as if we were on for a good few months, but the last while has been some tough fishing - how about you though? What are you finding out there? Are you experiencing anything close to what you might term “normal”, or are you struggling, or are you seeing more bass around?

As far as I can tell, bass aren’t coming close inshore for a bit of a laugh - surely they are coming in to where we might catch them because there’s a good food source around? And then they don’t come in if a decent food source isn’t around, or rather they are off somewhere else where their food source happens to be. I hear so many different things about who’s catching bass and where, where the shoals of say sandeels and mackerel might or might not be, and so on, but in reality I simply don’t know what is going on - my head tells me that we aren’t seeing many bass close inshore around here at the moment because their food isn’t around. Why though?

Does anybody actually know, or are we simply guessing? Is it a case of nature doing what it does - overfishing notwithstanding - and us as human beings clutching at straws when nature doesn’t then do what we kind of expect it to do, but because it’s nature, it doesn’t always work like that. And so on.

Are we as anglers sometimes guilty of going to the same marks at the same times and in the same sorts of conditions, and then when things don’t go to plan - like now around here - are we clutching at a few more straws? I have no doubt that the bass fishing will properly switch on around here sometime (or at least I bloody hope it will), but if there is one thing that the current up and down nature of it is telling me, it’s to change various things up and see what might happen - which might of course prove to be beneficial for the future……………..

If you on the lookout for a lighter lure rod to use for bass fishing - and no doubt other lure fishing as well - then I would strongly recommend that you take a long look at this amazing new Favorite Skyline SKY-862M 8’6’’ 6-21g lure rod. A lure rod this light in my opinion almost has no right to feel like this - it’s so damn fast it’s almost a joke, it will properly put 21g lures out there if needs be but then also properly fish the much lighter stuff, I don’t know how they manage to put a tip like this on a rod that’s got so much grunt lower down, and I just love how this Favorite Skyline SKY-862M 8’6’’ 6-21g lure rod is the next level up in power over the slightly lighter Favorite SkyLine 862ML 8’6’’ 4-16g sibling that I reviewed a while back.

It’s when you start working various lures that this slightly more powerful version of the lighter Favorite Skyline suddenly and seriously comes to life, indeed it’s quite remarkable how outstanding this magic wand of a 6-21g lure rod is when you are imparting action to soft lures especially. Do nothing but whack and crank and you might as well save some money and buy something cheaper that isn’t giving you this much, but bringing lures to life and I can’t really see how an 8’6’’, slightly lighter lure rod is going to get any better than this Favorite Skyline SKY-862M. Bloody hell this thing is special, and I will do my best to tell you why.

OK, so I am obsessed with the OSP DoLive Stick soft plastic lure, and especially the 6’’, but increasingly the smaller and long casting 4.5’’ FAT version. I like how far these things cast and I tend to like working them with a kind of twitch, twitch, pause, wind a bit, twitch, pause and so on sort of retrieve, but then saying that, I watched our clients over in Ireland the other day land some fantastic bass on the 6’’ DOLive Sticks by simply winding them in at a slowish sort of pace so that the lure swims with the most outrageous slalom sort of action. It’s when I feel totally connected to a soft plastic “twitchbait” like this that I know I am using a decent lure rod, and I can’t think of a better combination than this particular Skyline rod plus DoLive Stick, senko etc. I like a fast lure rod, and this thing’s as fast as they come, but the tip on it is just something else it’s so good.

Yet again I have shamelessly "borrowed" this screenshot from the excellent Art of Fishing website!

When I’m working the lure, obviously the tip needs to work with me to help impart life to it, but I don’t want to feel that a lighter lure rod like this is “collapsing” into the lure if that makes sense - we need a tip to help us work soft plastics especially, but I can’t stand any sort of floppy stick of a lure rod. I could watch the way the tip on this Favorite Skyline 862M bends into the rest of the rod all day long, but better still I am in love with how it feels in my hands - absolute precision, maximum feedback, and the feeling that with the rod I am alert to any kind of interest at the lure end. I’d love to be able to better explain it, but at the end of the day it just all feels wonderfully “together”.

I've put a GIF together of this Skyline being cast (thanks as ever Mark!), hope it works ok on your device

There’s no point in me telling you what you should or should not be doing with this lighter lure rod - I think the casting weight and rod length gives you all the clues you need. As for whether you would ever want or need a lure rod for your bass fishing like this depends on many factors, not least where you tend to do the bulk of your fishing, what sea and weather conditions you tend to face, and what lures you tend to like fishing with.

I got a bit of a shock the other night when I fished with this 6-21g Skyline and also the lighter 7-23g Major Craft Skyroad which I really like (review here) - I would fish for a while then change rods but use the same lure, and whilst I have a serious thing for the lighter Skyroad, I could not believe how different these two rods are when you cast them. The overall steeliness blending into that utterly sublime tip on the Favorite Skyline is very different to the more through action on the light Skyroad, indeed it showed me how the lightness of the Skyroad is right through the rod I suppose (and I really, really like the 7-23g Skyroad), whereas the Skyline is so much about the tip working with a lot of steeliness - and yes, the more expensive Favorite Skyline is more “precise” than the Skyroad, as indeed perhaps it should be for the price.

The grip and handle design on this 6-21g Skyline are the same as on the 4-16g version I reviewed a while back, and whilst I generally like what is going on but had reservations about what sits under my reel hand, over time I have come around more and more to what I think is some sort of textured carbon underneath. The build quality on these not cheap Skyline rods smacks of quality and I do really like a set of Fuji Torzite guides that just never seem to show any signs of rusting. A rod bag makes little difference to me, but I like the fact that it’s neoprene, plus you get a couple of neoprene rod straps included which I think is a nice touch.

If you read my previous, lighter Skyline review then you know my feelings on these lighter rods - I am increasingly enjoying fishing with them, and this is largely down to me fishing more and more soft plastics rigged weedless and weightless especially. This 6-21g Favorite Skyline seems born to fish surface lures like my beloved IMA Salt Skimmer, and I have absolutely blasted some 20g GT Ice Cream type lures I have here in an attempt to stress the thing out a bit, but to be honest the rod just keeps on going, and I put that down to the power present in the butt and mid-section. Because of where I fish and the conditions I often face, I can’t use a lighter rod like this all the time, but when a lure rod is as utterly sublime as this new Favorite Skyline SKY-862M, then I can’t help but find as many excuses as possible to fish with it.

I knew nothing about Favorite rods only a few months ago, but holy cow have the few I have fished with so far been some impressive bits of kit. I wonder where this mightily impressive company might go with the bass type lure rods they are increasingly making available, indeed that sub-£200 Favorite Shooter SHT-962MH 9'6'' 15-35g rod (review here) still sits in my head as one of the most impressive “next step up” bass lure rods I have come across. In my lure fishing fried head I am dreaming of a say 9’4’’ 7-28g version of this awesome Favorite Skyline SKY-862M 8’6’’ 6-21g lure rod - now that would be something else…………...

If there is one thing my wife and I try to instill into our two girls - apart from having good manners of course - it’s to ask if they don’t know. What’s the point of bumbling through life but not asking questions? Surely life is about wanting to learn and understand more and more interesting stuff? Yapping away is easy, but how many people do you come across who can talk the hind legs off a donkey yet never ask any questions? My girls are who they are, but I am not going to have two children who aren’t interested in the world around them, and to me there are direct parallels with fishing here…………..

Do you actually watch people and how they behave, or do you breeze on through regardless? I reckon at 44 I know myself pretty well by now, and I know that I ask a lot of questions - but how can I not? How can I spend time around anglers from all over the world and not ask lots of questions? How ignorant would it be to sit there and not want to learn about all kinds of fishing, as well as understanding more about what makes various anglers tick? Surely we become better anglers because we strive to learn, indeed there seems to be a direct correlation between anglers who are struggling and anglers who simply don’t ask questions.

I simply can’t abide ignorance and I can’t stand it when somebody waffles on at me about themselves and their own experiences but never asks a single question back. You know the type of person or indeed angler I am talking about here - they’ll tell you how it is or it isn’t, but they can’t recognise that it’s they themselves who could do with asking some questions so that they can improve their own fishing. So they don’t get better and so on.

I guess it’s human nature. Some of us strive to keep on learning new stuff, and some of us don’t. It has always amazed me when I go on some of my photography trips and you’re spending time around professional fishing guides who are the ones spending the time on the water and for the most part are incredibly knowledgeable and experienced - yet I see some clients who might have paid serious fortunes to do this fishing essentially putting no questions to these guides. Pay your money, turn up, do your fishing thing, and go home - but how could anybody not want to learn as much as they can when they are in this kind of environment? Surely that is part and parcel of the overall experience?

I have always loved spending time around anglers, indeed I would put this part of my job up there as perhaps the biggest thrill in some respects. I meet all kinds of anglers from all walks of life and with all kinds of skill levels, but in truth it’s too many times when I stand there and wonder why on earth more anglers don’t ask more questions, or to put it another way - why they don’t try to learn more and become better and more rounded anglers. I don’t mean go pumping good anglers for their best locations, rather I am on about actually talking back and forth, and not just I did this and I did that and I am such a frigging hero but I plainly have no interest in what you do sort of thing. Surely fishing mirrors life, or is it the other way round?

Needing something is one thing, but wanting something is completely different, and for all the shiny fishing tackle I either own or that passes through my hands and ends up as a review on here, there is always something else out there that I haven’t seen yet but could be “the one”. Damn right, I don’t actually need a new lure rod or spinning reel or whatever, but for some of us there seems to be this twisted little part of our brain that likes to play with us and our weaknesses for the shiny stuff. Read on and I will describe to you how a grownup man with a wife, two children, a mortgage and a Citroen Berlingo couldn’t get to sleep the other night because he is churning forth the eternal question in his head: “Do I really need it?” And then the little voice from the darkest corner of my mind pipes up: “Obviously you don’t need it, but you want it, don’t you?” Help……………

On Wednesday I am passing by Wadebridge so of course I have to drop into see Ben at his scarily impressive Art of Fishing tackle shop, and especially because he’s texted me earlier in the week to tell me (ruin me?) that he’s got a couple of new lure rods in that I really should see - and note here that he’s mentioned lure rods and nothing else. I can just about deal with that. Sure, I end up wanting far too many of the rods that pass through my hands for review purposes, but I am getting to the stage that I have been lucky enough to have fished with that many that I don’t then want every uber impressive lure rod that I get to try out. Or at least that is what I tell myself.

Anyway, so I open the door to the Art of Fishing, say hi to Ben, and we get down to the serious business of waggling some new lure rods. Crumbs. But it’s ok, I am breathing fine, I haven’t got that sense of panic like I get when I walk into a BassPro store in the US and know that I will never actually have enough time to see it all. I love seeing Ben’s amazing array of lure fishing rods and he is kind enough to let me sometimes take the odd rod away to fish with and write reviews if I want to. All is cool and of course I also re-pick up some lure rods that I have waggled before.

Have you ever read that Stephen King book “Needful Things?” I have read most of his books over the years, indeed “It” by this author is in my top three books of all time, and yes, I can’t wait to see what the soon to be released film is going to be like - loving the look of the trailers. Anyway, the plot of “Needful Things” from Wikipedia is as follows: “A new shop named "Needful Things" opens in the town of Castle Rock, Maine, sparking the curiosity of its citizens. The proprietor, Leland Gaunt, is a charming elderly gentleman who always seems to have an item in stock that is perfectly suited to any customer who comes through his door.” OK, so Ben at the Art of Fishing is not elderly, but do you get my drift here?

So we’re waggling rods and talking about world peace and currency exchange rates etc. OK, so that last bit is a lie, but we are purring over lure rods like a couple of junkies dealing smack in a dimly lit car park - and then Ben casually goes over to his counter and drops this question into play as easily as my hands might literally stroke a new lure rod: “Henry, have you seen the new Shimano Twin Power reel?” As he is oh so casually asking me this question, he is pulling one of the sexiest looking spinning reels out of a box that I have ever laid eyes on……………

“No Ben, I haven’t, but I am guessing this is it? The thing is Ben, I just don’t think that it’s really worth spending so much money on a spinning reel with how long it’s going to last compared to cheaper spinning reels which these days are mostly so damn good”.

Or some horseshit along those lines, and please excuse my French here.

I do actually mean that about expensive versus cheaper spinning reels by the way, but you need to understand what has happened here - like the purveyor of fine filth that he is, Ben has almost matter of factly put a brand new Shimano Twin Power XD C3000 HG spinning reel into my hands, and like the tackle junkie that I so obviously am, without even realising I am turning that handle and cooing over the (to me) perfect reel handle and how ridiculously smooth and together and light and sexy the reel is.

The regular part of my head is saying to me that of course I don’t need a new spinning reel when I have enough already, and that how on earth could I justify spending that sort of dosh on a reel that could probably stop a horse dead in its tracks and is of course far more than we could ever actually need to catch bass and so on. That logical stuff is easy, but the simple fact is that I am holding (caressing?) in my hands one of the loveliest looking and feeling spinning reels that I can recall picking up. I know it’s not going to stay that Shimano out of the box smooth for ever, and yes, you don’t get a spare spool with it, and yes, it’s way overgunned for a fish that might reach 10lbs if I am lucky.

But all that logic is completely beside the point now, because I want it. Sure as night follows day I don’t need this new Shimano Twin Power XD C3000 HG spinning reel, but I am weak around nice shiny fishing tackle, and the seed is now sown - and I can’t unsow it. On Wednesday night I simply could not get to sleep with churning the “obviously don’t need it” thing through my head, while the little voice threw endless reasons why I do actually now need a reel like this at me. I am lying there in bed mentally turning that perfect reel handle as I fish perfect bass mark after perfect bass mark, and it’s gone 1am before I drift off - to then wake up at 5am with this blog post bouncing around my brain. Welcome to my head dear readers!

You all have a good weekend. I am off to the Isles of Scilly on Sunday with my wife and Storm our sheepdog. Our two girls will be in France with their French friends and it’s the perfect chance to spend a few days in one of our favourite places on earth, and yes, obviously, the fishing gear is coming with me. I will blog when possible, but it’s me taking a few days off so things might be sporadic next week. How many more nights though will be consumed with turning that reel handle?

I make no apologies for reviewing the extraordinary Sufix 832 braid for a second time, indeed I thought a second review nearly four years after I did the first one might be of interest to those of you here who don’t like paying through the nose for your mainlines (and I include me here), and to those of you who do a lot of lure fishing in and around rough ground where as much abrasion resistance and overall toughness as you can get from your mainline can only be a good thing.

Yes, I have a serious thing for Sufix fishing lines - as per here - and via various Skype calls and emails back and forth with my Mr. Sufix contact I feel that I am now gaining a better technical understanding of their lines. And yes, it does make me feel good about my stumbling around and coming to my own conclusions that this technical stuff is marrying up with my experiences of these lines out in the real fishing world. Does that make sense?

Anyway, Sufix 832 8-strand braid - sure, there are slightly thinner, limper, smoother, quieter through the guides, and perhaps ever so slightly longer-casting “Japanese style” 8-strands out there (including Sufix’s own Performance Pro 8 that to me is as good as any uber-smooth Japanese 8-strand braid that I have ever fished with, whatever the price, and of course the outstanding Daiwa J-Braid, review for these two lines is here), but what I can’t get away from with this Sufix 832 is how tough it is, and to be honest I am more than happy to give up a little bit of that silky smoothness to get a braid that feels like it’s bombproof, and which just keeps on going and going and going……………..

I’ve got a spare spool here for the Shimano AR-C Aero C14+ 4000 spinning reel, and on that spool is 120m of 0.15mm (9.2kg/ 20lb) Sufix 832 in the white colour - now I fished with that particular spool on that reel back when I went to Morocco in December 2013, and from memory that line was used plenty before that trip and then plenty after it as well. The line has been sitting on that spool for nearly four years now and it feels as good as new, and perhaps more importantly I still can’t break it in my hands when I tie an FG knot to a leader. Pretty damn impressive if you ask me, indeed Mr. Sufix has told me on a couple of occasions now that their slight “problem” if you like with their Sufix 832 is that it lasts too long.

So this is direct from the horse’s mouth: “832 is a US designed braid, strong and for brutal fishing, lot of casts and catches. Unbeatable in abrasion resistance thanks to the Gore material included”. Sounds to me like it’s a braid which could have been designed for a lot of the sort of lure fishing that you or I might do. Did you know that one of the main reasons for your braid suddenly starting to snap out of the blue can actually be due to internal abrasion caused by fishing with it a lot - but do we not assume that those “breaks out of nowhere” are surely caused by external nicks and damage that we don't see? As per the slide above (with thanks to Sufix for letting me use them), the 832 braid is incredibly resistant to external and internal abrasion - and yes, I know what the “competitor braid” is, and yes, I have been asked not to say.

And yes, I grant you that machine testing for abrasion resistance (as per above) is different to being out fishing in the real world as such, but for the life of me I can’t recall any Sufix 832 braid that I have ever fished with not doing its job. I was reading my four year old review here and thinking about the wind knot problems I had occasionally found when using 832 on the smaller Sustain 2500, but with the complete lack of any issues I have had ever since I have to assume that this particular spinning reel just didn’t get on with this particular braid. Is that possible? Was I doing something wrong? Well I can’t see any other answer when I have now used it on other smaller spinning reels without a single issue.

Don’t get me wrong here - I love a silky smooth Japanese style 8-strand braid as much as the next lure angler, and I am in the lucky position to have fished with a lot of different ones over the years. I can’t get away from the realities of a lot of our lure fishing though, and whilst we are not about to hook fish from our shores that are going to strip all the line from a reel due to their sheer size and power, our mainlines can in fact go through a hell of a lot of grief at times because of where we so often do our lure fishing. And for all the deliciousness of a silky smooth 8-strand, in reality I know I’ve got a modern, tough as hell braid here in Sufix 832 that after a hell of a lot of experience with it now feels to me like it’s just about the perfect mainline for my lure fishing - and whether that be for bass, wrasse or pollack. For sure I will keep on trying other braids out when they come along, but it’s going to take something pretty damn special for me to not keep a spinning reel loaded up with Sufix 832.

But what about the diameters, strengths and different colours that you can get this Sufix 832 in? Well I would refer you to the Sufix Europe catalogue right here - and do please ignore any USA line ratings if you come across this line across the pond - and if you want to get some of this braid then go by the diameters and kg breaking strain. My thanks to all of you kind people who have purchased any of your fishing tackle through my affiliate links - the two lure fishing specialists I know of who are starting to major in Sufix fishing lines are here and here if that helps. But it also goes without saying that you can find this braid elsewhere.

I’m out in the US

It never ceases to fry my brain when you see so many fish around

APIA Foojin'AD Flow Hunt 810ML 8'10'' 7-32g lure rod review - not cheap…...

An interesting way to cast big lures on light braids without breaking your line

I know the FG knot is an incredible connection between braid and leader, but I didn’t know that if tied correctly it can be a 100% strength join

Off to Ireland to do a couple of weeks of co-guiding work today - Kerry bound………..

Tailwalk Saltyshape Dash Seabass 90ML 9’ 7-28g lure rod - £179.99 UK price (have I finally found a sub-£200 9’ lure rod that can live with the 9’ Skyroad?)

Casting sequence - 9' Tailwalk with a 6'' OSP DoLive Stick (15g rigged) - thanks as ever Mark

Helping your clients catch bass like this is the best job in the world

Do you use a leader that is longer than the longest bass you could ever hope to catch?

Is it sod’s law that what might well have been the biggest bass of this Ireland guiding trip smashed a surface lure on the very first cast of the morning?

The OSP DoLive Stick - what the hell is it about this lure that makes it so lethal for bass?

Is there a reason why we measure bass to the tip of their tail and not the fork-length?

If you’ve ever had a problem with the FG knot, then these might be the two reasons (angler error? Never!)

Sufix Super 21 FC fluorocarbon review (150m spools for £9.99) - why spend any more on your leader material?

0.28mm - 5.4kg/12lb

0.30mm - 6.3kg/14lb

0.35mm - 8.1kg/18lb

0.40mm - 9.0kg/20lb

It niggles me when you don’t get a spare spool included with a spinning reel, but I’ve found a solution for this sublime Shimano Exsence C14+ 4000XGS

How’s your local bass fishing been? Strange year so far?

Favorite Skyline SKY-862M 8’6’’ 6-21g lure rod review - £279.99 UK price

It always amazes me how many people or indeed anglers don’t ask questions, and therefore don’t keep on learning and improving

Obviously I don’t need it, but that’s missing the point - I want it, which is another thing entirely……….

Sufix 832 8-strand braid review - under £20 for a 120m spool here in the UK (is there another 8-strand braid that's better suited to the rough and tumble of lure fishing?)