First things first - I obviously wish that so much stuff wasn’t so blatantly copied these days. I hate it that a legitimate company can spend time and money designing and making a product only for it to get ripped off and sold at a far cheaper price, but of course I also understand that we all want to pay less for the goods we buy. I don’t make anything physical myself but I have had plenty of experience of my photographs being used without permission and/or payment and it’s a horrible feeling when something is essentially stolen from you…………

So the other day I bought a brand new to the market Shimano lure on Ebay and I paid £14.80 for it, delivery included (I haven’t linked to it because I can’t find it listed at the moment, but it’s this lure here). Did I need this new Shimano Exsence Shallow Assassin 99F Flash Boost? Of course not, indeed I already have a very similar version of this lure and have been using it and loving it for a couple of years now - the Shimano Exsence Responder 109F. It casts great, it swims nice and shallow, bass love it, and whilst I wash my lures down after use I still can’t find signs of rust on the trebles or split rings. I do like smaller lures and this thing’s a cracker.

But this brand new and very similar lure to this has recently been launched by Shimano Japan, and because I am a hopeless lure tart I had to buy one when they became available. Why did I buy this new lure? Because it looks nice and shiny with that flashing sort of plate thing inside. I wanted to see what this new lure was like, and no, I didn’t need it at all but what the hell and all that. It duly arrived and I have taken it out fishing a few times and to be perfectly honest it looks like it’s doing essentially the same thing in the water as my original Responder 109F - except that it’s got an extra shiny bit inside! Who ever said that some lures perhaps catch more anglers than they ever do fish?! Hell, I work in fishing and I still can’t help myself around the shiny stuff.

I have talked a bit on here about some of the outstanding hard lures that Shimano Japan make. As I said, I tend to wash my lures in freshwater after use and of course some of the lures have signs of damage from hitting rocks and so on, but these Shimano Japan lures are some seriously well made bits of gear that cast great and catch bass. So I was a little surprised to find signs of water inside my newest Shimano Exsence Shallow Assassin 99F Flash Boost after its first outing, as per the photo above, and to be honest I haven’t actually used the lure very much yet. Should this water have found its way inside this lure? I don’t reckon so. I can also see a few early signs of rust around the split rings and hooks which I can’t find on my other Shimano lures yet.

I keep an eye on a Spanish lure fishing blog here, indeed this is the guy who urged me to give the Whiplash Factory Spittin’ Wire surface lures a go. I saw a post of his the other day and I noticed that he had found a copy of the Shimano Exsence Shallow Assassin 99F Flash Boost. I could not believe that a copy of such a new Shimano lure could be available to buy so quickly and I ordered one for the princely sum of $6.99 delivered because I was genuinely interested to see what this ripoff was like. Again, I don’t need the lure but it wasn’t exactly going to break the bank to have a look at one.

And it arrived yesterday morning, so I crushed the barbs and took it out fishing with me as we unsuccessfully tucked away out of the worst of the (yet again) building weather. Many hard lure copies I have seen seem to have had a few ball bearings chucked inside and sometimes they cast well and sometimes they don’t, and I have also seen plenty of dodgy looking trebles and split rings. I don’t include the outstanding Hound Glide copy here by the way - it’s a peach and I think it has better hooks on than the original.

I had a few shakes of this Shimano copy and it sounds and feels like it’s got the same tungsten weight transfer system inside which I think is some kind of moving weight on an internal pin. I can’t say for definite but the hooks on this Shimano copy look pretty good as well, but time or a particularly large bass will tell for sure! Bearing in mind here that I have only had say twenty casts with this Shimano copy but I know enough about the original lure now, it’s alarming how similar this copy actually is - it casts the same (very well), it swims the same, hell, if you handed me the copy I couldn’t tell the difference save for there is no Shimano name on it.

None of this is meant to prove or disprove anything by the way, and I haven’t used this copy for any meaningful amount of time yet - but I find it staggering that such a good looking copy which seems to be scary-close to the original can be sold for so little money. First impressions are as I said - the two lures are incredibly similar - but with how well the rest of my Shimano Japan lures are fishing and lasting I will be interested to see if this copy can keep going. It niggles me that my first ever Shimano Exsence Shallow Assassin 99F Flash Boost lure has got a bit of water inside it but to be honest I am perfectly happy sticking with the Shimano Exsence Responder 109F because do I really need that extra flashy bit inside which looks nice? How on earth does a fishing tackle company protect their ideas and hard work though? It’s not remotely right that I have a $6.99 copy here, but what if another angler buys one because they want to save some money and lands a great big bass on it? You all have a good weekend and I’ll catch up with you before Christmas…………..

Oh, and please don’t shoot the messenger here, but yesterday I was alerted to the fact that Veals Mail Order who I do affiliate link to do some really handy Gift Vouchers which may or may not be useful as last minute Christmas presents and so on. What, blokes scrabbling around to organise a relation’s Xmas pressie because we nearly forgot? Never!

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A tale of two lures - an original Shimano hard lure and a direct copy

© Henry Gilbey 2023