Whatever anybody says about what lure fishing rods are meant to work best for certain types of lures, techniques, locations and conditions, I would always argue that fishing rods especially are very much personal choice things, and it doesn’t matter at all if you disagree with every single thing I say here today. One angler swears by an 8’6’’ lure rod whilst the next person will tell you that you have to have a 10’ plus rod for steering fish around snags - something I have never understood by the way - and then you need soft tips for soft plastics or stiff tips for surface lures etc. If you are a regular angler like me and you definitely aren’t an expert then you are going to use whatever works best for you, but keep an open mind at all times because if there is one thing that lure fishing forces us to do, it’s to keep on learning and adapting…………..
Now I haven’t exactly been into lure fishing in the surf for years and years, but I do love it, and with how well bass fight in all that fizzed up water I reckon any surf fish is worth double the scrapping value of say an estuary fish. Note the words “tend to” please, because it’s obviously not the case every time. My mate Mark had a bass about 3lbs on the beach on Wednesday afternoon in some of the most perfect but horrible conditions we could hope to find around here in south east Cornwall, and from the looks of how that particular bass went in some proper turbulence, I’d take that one 3lb fish any day of the week. You are entirely free to obsess about big bass all you like, but for me it’s always about so much more than just the size of the fish we might catch. Fishing with lures in the surf for bass is awesome, and whilst you can press any number of lure rods into action just fine, the way I am made is to delve into the details and think about what could work better for me.
I know that a lot of us are very much into various Japanese (sea) bass lure rods from any number of different companies, and plenty of these tackle companies make rods with the word “surf” on them. I don’t understand a single word of Japanese but I do like watching some of their bass fishing videos on YouTube - what do you notice about these surf lure rods though? I happen to notice that firstly these rods never seem to be pressed into service in what I would call hectic surf conditions the like of which I’d be looking for here in the UK and Ireland, and then much of the Japanese surf based lure fishing is about targeting flatfish when the wind isn’t howling in at you. I copped a bit of a forum based earful the other day because some years ago I was raving about the awesome Major Craft Skyroad SKR-962 Surf 9’6’’ 5-28g lure rod which I had pressed into service for my bass fishing but because there was a diagram of a flatfish on the rod I was apparently some kind of idiot for having done so. This is exactly what I am against though - if a rod works for you, get on with it and ignore the fishing police who love to tell everybody else what to do. I loved that rod for bass fishing but I haven’t yet come across a Japanese “surf” lure rod which does it for me in the surf, indeed a kind person got me access to a specialist lure rod with the word surf on it a while back from a serious Japanese rod company and it didn’t do it at all for me in the surf.
As I said at the top, these thoughts here are no more than my opinions. I will tend to default to a 9’ lure rod out of choice but in the surf I do err towards something a bit longer. This isn’t for distance because I reckon I can get a lure out there plenty far enough on a 9’ lure rod and surf fishing isn’t all about distance at all anyway, rather it’s that I find (the right) longer lure rod that bit easier and more efficient to cast repeatedly into hectic conditions. I guess it’s a lever thing, indeed as perfect as I think this incredible Shimano Exsence Genos S90MH/R 9' 8-48g lure rod is, and it’ll bang metals out there all day long plus it feels just fine with a Penn Slammer III 3500 spinning reel on it, ideally I still prefer a bit of a longer rod in the surf with how a longer lever works. And yes, science was never my strongpoint at school.
If you do any surf fishing then you may well be doing things very differently to me, but if I take our Wednesday afternoon session when for about an hour they were about the most hectic onshore conditions I feel I can effectively fish for bass with lures (proper, proper wind, rain and associated waves, and frustratingly I can’t really get my camera out when such a strong wind is blowing rain right in on the lens and the photos you see here are when things had calmed down somewhat) then I still feel no need to go above a good 40g metal, and at the moment I am not one for trying to bang great big heavy paddletails out into a Force 6-8 wind blowing right in at me. For sure I will turn to various soft plastics when possible, but if I look at my surf lure box then for the time being I haven’t got a hard or soft lure in there over the 40g mark. We are also talking about bass and not a fish like tarpon, so at the end of the day I don’t need a beast of a fishing rod for my surf fishing. I do want a tip on this rod which doesn’t flap around in the wind and drive me loopy but I want a degree of finesse and feel to fish lighter lures when possible, and I also want a rod that is easy to punch lures into hectic conditions again and again without ripping my shoulders off.
Which is why I still say that the distinctly non-Japanese HTO Nebula 3.00m/10’ 12-42g lure rod is one hell of a weapon for surf fishing. I think the far more expensive Shimano Lunamis S96MH 9’6’’ 10-45g (review here) is a better quality fishing rod and I love it for rough conditions out on the rocks especially, but in the surf I find the cheaper 10’ Nebula easier to cast again and again when the wind is in my face and the rod is helping me by really bending well on a cast without much effort. Such a fine but non-flappy tip then lends itself really well in my eyes to metals as well as various soft plastics if I can get away with it. The Nebula is miles away from any Japanese lure rods that I have fished with which were meant for a bit of (Japanese) surf fishing, but it matters not because it works well for me. When I first started really getting into a bit of surf fishing I naturally went looking for very powerful lure rods because it made sense at the time, but the more I have fished like this, the more I am after something quite specific.
And this is why I have come round to the decidedly non-budget HTO N70 Labrax Special 9’4’’ 7-42g (review here) and 9’9’’ 8-44g (review to come) as being seriously awesome lure rods for how I go about surf lure fishing. Mark was fishing with the 9’9’’ on Wednesday and I had the 9’4’’ with a Slammer 3500 strapped to it, and we were fishing the new 30g, 35g & 40g Savage Gear Surf Seekers into some truly awful weather. Mark had a couple of bass on the 30g Surf Seeker and yet again it proved to me just how certain lures can cope so well with conditions in which I am always amazed that fish can move about and feed in. I have talked before how I think that I can feel the rips when my Seeker suddenly feels a bit heavier and you could mistake it for a bit of weed as it really bites into the currents, and the other day there were rips all over the place with all that turbulence.
If you are ever in a fishing tackle shop and manage to see either of those two N70 rods I alluded to above and are able to waggle them against that very manly Shimano Lunamis S96MH 9’6’’ 10-45g, as sure as experts have been doing it since before they were born you’re going to go yeah, this Lunamis is for real men because it’s such a weapon. These N70 rods are like wolves in sheep’s clothing though, because in the hand they feel full of finesse and precision, but now clip on a 35g Surf Seeker and bang it out into plenty of wind smacking you right in the face and it’s bloody incredible how these rods perform. I said the other day that I am nothing to do with HTO and their new N70 lure rods, but along with their 10’ 12-42g Nebula they have gone and brought some lure rods to market which have helped define in my head what makes the sort of surf lure rods I want to be fishing with. Surf fishing isn’t always about blasting metals out there of course, indeed if I can do it in the conditions I will try and work as much water as I can with something like these new Gravity Stick soft plastics. Surf fishing doesn’t always mean distance.
You might completely disagree with me here and say no way Henry, I want the biggest, baddest lure rod I can find for surf fishing - and that’s great. Use what you want to use and enjoy it. If I was to start playing around with much bigger metals or paddletails and I started catching consistently bigger bass then you will be seeing a blog post somewhere down the line about suitable gear to get these types of lures out there, but I was standing in the shallows of that raging sea the other day and I was marvelling at how efficiently I could fish it with my 35g Surf Seeker especially and the type of lure rod that in some respects isn’t remotely what a surf rod should be. But that’s the whole point of this blog post is it not? You all have a good weekend because judging by the weather forecast and what is going on outside my window at the moment, summer is definitely over!
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