A few paperclip style lure clips which all do the same thing really rather well (this is what not being able to go fishing does to me!)

I remain eternally grateful to an Irish friend of mine who introduced me to the Breakaway Mini Link paperclip style lure clip a number of years ago now. Quite why I hadn’t cottoned on to this wonderfully easy to use lure clip has always slightly baffled me, and especially when I was so used to using the larger Breakaway Fastlink Clips on my pulley rigs for years. But for some reason the smaller, lure style Breakaway Mini Link wasn't on my radar until this mate of mine kindly gave me a packet to try. I was sold from day one, and for years now they have been my perfect lure clips for my UK and Irish bass lure fishing………….

The HTO Lure Link lure clip on the Savage Gear Gravity Shallow 10cm 14g lure

But I haven’t actually bought any more of the Breakaway Mini Link lure clips after I put this blog post up here about some inconsistencies that were appearing in some of the packets. I won’t bore you with what was going on - read the blog post instead - and to be fair to Breakaway the issues might well have been sorted now. I don’t know though, but I do know that since that blog post I have either been using the Breakaway clips I had left here, or I have been using the HTO Lure Link paperclip style lure clips I bought which let’s face it are basically the same - but I haven’t found a single inconsistency in any of them yet. I only found out the other day that there is another version of this clip which is exactly the same if you go looking around and can’t find the HTO ones - the TronixPro Small Quick Change Link.

These are quoted breaking/opening strains, I have no idea if they are true, but I have never had any strength related issues with the Breakaway or HTO clips when I am bass fishing

I was also made aware of another version recently, the Cox & Rawle Quicklink Clips in the Small size. I haven’t seen or used these particular clips myself, but I completely trust the guy who told me about them. If he says they are good then they are good. I was fishing with a friend the other day and he told me he’d been using the Seadra Speed Lure Clips for a few years now and that they were also a perfect lure clip. As with the Cox & Rawle ones, if this lad can get all his lures and weedless hooks on and off the Seadra Speed Lure Clips and he hasn’t had a single issue after landing plenty of good bass then that’s more than good enough for me as well. The Seadra version is ever so slightly longer than the HTO or Breakaway version, but it’s so minor it’s pretty much meaningless.

You may well not use lure clips for your own fishing, or you may prefer the snap-style clips which seem to come in so many different sizes and also variable quality it seems. I always like the idea of how freely your hard and soft lures can move on these type of lure clips, but with the paperclip style lure clips I can clip lures and off without having to look - whereas with these snap style lure clips I feel that I need to visually see that “arm” snap back properly into place. For this I need glasses these days! I am still kinda drawn to these clips and how small and unobtrusive the good ones are for something more finesse like this creature bait stuff especially that I am determined to get to grips with. The Owner 5121 Hyper Welded Quick Snap P-20 lure clips are very small and lightweight but they are hard to track down here in the UK.

I was nothing at all to do with the similar Savage Gear Salt Round Snaps, but I have fished with them a bit and for the quoted sizes versus breaking strain they are much the same as the Owner clips - very small and unobtrusive. I also know how strong the Fiiish Perfect Link Lure Clips are (soft southern hands?), but I always found them really difficult to open and close. I don’t know why the Savage Gear Salt Round Snaps are easier to open and close, but they are, and they are bloody strong for their size as well. The tiny little XXS size is quoted at 30lbs, and via a bit of pushing and pulling I see no reason to doubt this. It’s way more than we need for our bass fishing, but if your fingers and/or eyesight needs a slightly larger version (which is still pretty damn small) then the XS version is quoted at 46lbs.

But for 99% of my current bass fishing it’s going to be a paperclip style lure clip for me. I have zero interest in cutting and retying my fluorocarbon leader every time I want to change a lure or weedless hook or jig head etc., so lure clips for my bass fishing are essential. I can’t see how much easier and efficient a lure clip can get than those paperclip style ones I talked about above. I hope this might help a few of you out if you go looking for lure clips………….

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