Deliberately went to a lighter Seeker in some lovely surf yesterday morning, it worked!

Following on from Friday’s blog post about my brain churning away with how much more versatile the lighter Savage Gear Seekers are than I had initially realised, a very kind angler messaged me over the weekend to say that he had fished an area with no weed issues - shock horror because I have been bleeding with weed recently! - and he also found a few bass. This kind lad offered to tell me the area he had been fishing if I wanted to make use of the information, so Storm and I rocked up at 5am yesterday morning and had a go (thank you SO much to this kind lad, there are some mighty fine people in this world). It’s always a bit strange to fish a place you don’t know in the half-light, but I had Storm to protect me and I didn’t think I could go that far wrong fishing off a beach into what looked like better surf conditions than the forecast had suggested………….

With the relative size of the waves rolling it at me I clipped on what is my “standard” 30g Surf Seeker. From that starting point I will then adjust generally up to the 35g and sometimes the 40g if it feels like the conditions need something heavier. To be honest the washable lure box which I keep aside for specific surf sessions doesn’t tend to contain lighter Seekers than the 30g, 35g and 40g Surf versions, but with the way my brain is churning away I had stuck a couple of the 23g regular Seekers in there for yesterday’s adventure. As per this blog post from the other day, the Seekers in that lure box have 3/0 or 4/0 Mustad Kaiju single hooks on the end of them, now secured with a braid split ring instead of a regular split ring. It’s not remotely life-changing I might add, but I know it works.

Anyway, so Storm and I were wandering up and down a bit of beach yesterday morning, and after landing a couple of small bass - every single bass in the surf is worth at least double! - I got to thinking about playing around a bit. I wound my 30g Surf Seeker in and changed over to a smaller and lighter 23g regular Seeker to see how it would perform in what I’d call fairly “regular” surf conditions. Nothing particularly hectic, but it was definitely surf fishing, and as such I tend to approach it like that.

I have obviously fished with a 23g Seeker a bit in the past, but I can’t recall using one during a surf session as such, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well this size of Seeker flew out into what was a decent bit of headwind. Yes, other metals exist and no doubt work great, but I use the Seeker because it catches me bass and therefore it gives me a lot of confidence. What I did like the most though was how slowly I could straight-retrieve the 23g Seeker and feel like it was gripping really well in the turbulence AND how much more it seemed to be tumbling around with the water moving in so many different directions. I kinda like that extra bit of seemingly random movement to the lure, and whilst it might have been a complete fluke, the best bass I hooked and landed yesterday morning was on the 23g Seeker right after I had almost slowed my retrieve to a stop then picked it up again - whack! You can’t help but smile when a bass slams into your lure in the surf.

My fishing world hasn’t gone and drastically changed after yesterday morning’s surf session, but I did prove to myself how it’s worth trying a lighter Seeker even in the waves - instead of automatically going heavier. Of course I will face plenty more surf sessions where the heavier/grippier/punching better into the wind approach is actually required, but it did feel good yesterday as that 23g Seeker was being pushed around more by the conditions and I guess at the same time looking a touch more natural? It’s got me thinking anyway!

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