Have we got all the different types of lures we need, or is there something yet to be invented which is going to help us catch more bass?

I don’t have a history of lure fishing for bass that stretches back to before I was even born, but I wonder if those of you here who have been consistently targeting bass on lures for a long time now ever look back to the good old days and the lures you carried and perhaps think about the ground you could not fish so effectively because you didn’t have the right lures for it? Or are we in a situation these days where we have less bass to fish for and we need to stack the odds in our favour as much as possible and be able to successfully fish all kinds of ground on the hunt for a relatively consistent level of sport?

As many “work related!!” lures as I might have here at home, at the end of the day I could most likely sort them into a few different categories which I guess haven’t changed that much over the years. Okay, so a shallow-diving hard lure these days might well be a casting machine that covers more water and swims considerably more shallow than say the famous old Rapala J13, but at the end of the day the amazing variety of shallow runners we can get our hands on now are essentially variations on a similar theme. What makes us go for one over the other then? Why do some anglers spend some serious dosh on say the Tackle House Feed Shallow when you could find a much cheaper lure out there that is arguably doing a similar thing? Why do I obsess about the IMA Hound 125F Glide when there surely have to be similar and cheaper hard lures out there that can do a similar job for me? Why buy Nike trainers when a supermarket own brand might do a similar job etc.?

Back when the XLayer was about the only specialist soft plastic I knew about

So again I come back to soft plastics because this is where I feel there is most room for innovation and improvement, and it’s not always to the lures themselves I might add. When I think back to me getting into soft plastics for my bass fishing and where I am right now, I have to give credit to a few different lures - the MegaBass XLayer, the Dolive Stick, The Fiiish Black Minnow, and the Savage Gear Sandeel. I have experience of the Black Minnow almost from the day they were launched here in the UK, but I came to the Savage Gear Sandeel fairly late on and a lot of you here have far more experience with it than me. The XLayer was the first soft plastic I saw fished with “properly” from the shore for bass and it profoundly affected my lure fishing outlook, and I certainly don’t need to tell you about my weakness for the DoLive Stick.

But even then if you stop and think about the two soft plastic paddletails I have mentioned above, at the end of the day the Black Minnow and the SG Sandeel are just that - paddletails. Their bass catching abilities to me are proven beyond doubt, but there are almost a ridiculous number of different paddletail on jig heads options out there these days. Some of them catch heaps of bass and cost far less than the Black Minnow does especially these days, but as far as I can tell, a lot of us bass anglers continue to buy the Fiiish Black Minnows and the SG Sandeels because we trust them so much in so many different situations. Hell, I think about all the fishing and indeed working time I have spent with Fiiish and their various lures and there are still a number of combinations I haven’t even tried yet. A lad I know caught a 12lb 12oz bass the other day (big respect!) on the 140 No.4 size Black Minnow body with the 140 No.4 10g “Shallow” jig head, and as much as I have gone through my memory bank, I can’t recall ever trying this particular Black Minnow combination.

But it’s still a paddletail at the end of the day, and as you are well aware, there are a heap of them out there. I still don’t think Fiiish the fishing tackle company quite realised how timely it was to come up with a paddletail which took away all confusion about which soft plastic body to use with which jig head and then which weedless hook, but perhaps this is more me overthinking how this “system” was incredibly clever and well thought out and hit the market at just the right time. For sure the actual rigging of the Black Minnow might confuse some anglers, but they catch a lot of good fish, and as much as Fiiish have a lot of amazing lures on their books these days, I wonder if anything will ever quite catch on for them like the Black Minnow did and I assume continues to do?

I don’t have years of bass fishing experience with the SG Sandeel, and I can’t talk about the different generations of these lures like some anglers I know can do. I also can’t talk about future plans we might or might not have for this lure - Henry you bad boy! - but because I don't have a long history either with this lure or Savage Gear the company, I hope one day to be able to sit down with the grownups and better understand where it came from as regards the ideas and sizes and intended species and so on. As a “whack it out and wind it in” kind of paddletail on a jig head it seems essentially perfect to me, albeit there is surely a lot more that could be done with the various rigging options and head designs and so on.

As ever I am talking about some of the lures that I trust for my fishing, but even then when you start looking at soft plastics like the Albie Snax which surely comes from thinking more about a senko - and so on and so on through any number of lures - what is next? I see no problems with refining and adapting various lures, but are we missing something which could seriously improve our bass fishing? Are we collectively missing a trick with how bass might feed in certain situations and we haven’t yet got a lure which covers this? Never in a million years would I say never in lure fishing, not with how much I have learnt and continue to learn, but a part of me does wonder if it’s some of the seemingly minor details that are being missed more than some brand new wunderlure. Apologies for the lack of blog posts this week but I was spending a few days away from it all with my family. You all have a good weekend………………

Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.