Gotta love how the Japanese have had a think about the cheb weight system, then came up with this - Decoy Switch Head

Last year I really came around to cheb-rigging some of the soft plastics I might fish, indeed it’s become my go-to method now for swimming the Savage Gear Slender Scoop Shad, plus I envisage myself using different cheb weights to rig up a bunch of different creature baits if and when this bloody rain gives us a break and the estuaries start clearing up. The system as such makes a lot of sense to me for various situations, but of course I have a lot to learn about it all………..

What I do know is the quality of cheb weights or heads seems to vary somewhat. I found some here which I had bought off an Ebay site some years ago, and the little wire clips were so weak I could literally pull them out of shape by hand. I binned the lot as you can imagine; what’s the point in even risking this sort of stuff? A lot of the gear does feel like it’s strong enough if you do hook a big bass on a cheb weight, and although I haven’t hooked any monsters yet when using cheb stuff, I haven’t had any issues with the ones I have been using - these (cheaper) ones here in lead, then these tungsten ones here and a tungsten kit here. Of course there are plenty of other ones which are most likely just as good, but I haven’t used them yet. I will refer you to a blog post here from last year where I detailed how I tend to rig these things on swimbait hooks (photo above, the weedless hooks with corkscrew attachments for soft plastics, I do prefer them over conventional weedless hooks for this sort of stuff). It’s still working well and I haven’t found the need to change. You can of course just use a conventional weedless/Texas hook and leave out the need for a split-ring in the setup, as per below.

14g Decoy Switch Head (that has been bashed around on the rocks a bit!)

The other day a Facebook post from those naughty people at Tacklewave Ltd. popped up on my feed, showing a variation on a cheb head that I had never seen before. Called the Decoy Switch Head, I had to get some to try out. Many of you know the Japanese brand Decoy, and now that Tacklewave has the UK rights to this very impressive tackle brand I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of this gear in our tackle shops and websites. It’s early days for me and these Decoy Switch Heads, but there are a few things about them that I am really liking so far and I will keep fishing them to be able to better compare them to regular cheb heads.

First up is the important fact that the through-wire connection clip thing is properly strong on these Decoy things. I got a packet of the 7g, 11g and 14g sizes (there are 3.5g, 5g, 7g, 9g, 11g, 14g, 18g, 21g, 28g and 36g available), and the first time you go to remove the wire clip from the actual weight you are either going to need pliers to do so, or the bend of a decent hook (be careful!). It takes a good pull to get that wire clip out because it’s really strong, but once you have got it out it then slides back in and out nice and easily, indeed when I have a lure or two rigged up and in my long-sided washable lure box I have taken to putting a random lure clip on the wire loop to stop it coming apart when it’s not clipped on and being fished with (as per the photo above). It’ll make sense if you use cheb style weights.

I have only fished a few times with the 13cm and 15cm Slender Scoop Shads on these Decoy Switch Heads, but I really like the way the lures are swimming when rigged as per the “Normal” way above. I think that Decoy are encouraging you to change the Switch Head around and into the “Reverse” position above either for bumping stuff along the bottom or in current, or for adding a slightly more erratic action to your lure. I have briefly tried this and it looks like you can add a bit more of a wobble to something like the Slender Scoop Shad when in the “Reverse” position, but I need more time. As for bumping along the bottom? To be honest I can do it just fine with the head in the “Normal” position, but again I refuse to dismiss Decoy’s thinking when I have had so little proper fishing time with them.

I don’t think these Decoy Switch Heads are going to change the world, but I do rather like them so far, and of course I do feel confident with the strength of that little wire clip. They are made from a lead alloy material and they are not exactly cheap, but I reckon I have lost one or maybe two cheb weights since I started fishing with them a lot last year. Tungsten cheb weights are not cheap either, but so few losses is not exactly going to break the bank. One thing I do need to do is buy some of the smallest 3.5g and 5g Switch Heads to see if the metal clips are still big enough to get lure clips and split rings into them (which I use when I fish with swimbait books), because on some of the smallest tungsten cheb weights I have tried, the metal clip becomes so small I can’t even get a lure clip into the front of them. I also wonder about the strength of the clip on regular cheb weights when it gets that small. You all have a good weekend, I am heading away for a week with my family which we very rarely get to do. I am not sure if I will be able to blog next week but I will see what I can do…………

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