I can now tell you about this new missile that is the Savage Gear Sandeel Pencil 150 lure

When I first saw the Savage Gear Line Thru Sandeels and way before I started doing some work with the company, I wanted to see some fixed-hook versions of these stunning looking lures because I don’t need the line-through feature that’s designed for sea trout for my bass fishing and I far prefer being able to clip lures on and off. I know how well the lad I do my co-guiding work over in Kerry has done with his clients in the surf on the little 125mm/19g SG Line Thru Sandeels especially, so I was over the moon to help influence this lure coming out as a fixed-hook version - the Savage Gear Sandeel Pencil 125 - and then hammer a load of bass in the surf on the samples I got hold of last year. Interestingly some of our clients also had a few bass on these lures by fishing them like needlefish at night - whack ‘em out and wind ‘em in, how often is less actually more in fishing?

The next version I was itching to see was a fixed-hook version of the larger 150mm/27g SG Line Thru Sandeel, and I am now able to break my silence that was demanded of me by the grownups at SG HQ and tell you that this brand new Savage Gear Sandeel Pencil 150 (150mm, 30g, with a rattle inside) is now on the market. I am obviously working on various things with Savage Gear these days which I can’t yet talk about, but it’s taken a lot of mature behaviour to not shout about these new Sandeel Pencil 150 lures! As you can imagine they absolutely frigging fly, and I have a strong feeling that they are going to end up producing bass for me in far more situations than I had originally envisaged. I am literally feeling ill with excitement at getting this lure into the surf zone, but with how it swims so nice and shallow at varying speeds makes me think about all things night fishing and needlefish-like and so on as well………………

If you end up with any of these new lures in your possession you will notice how they are rigged for sea trout fishing, as in the single treble at the back which is rigged in two split rings is a freshwater grade hook, plus there’s a relatively small single hook included as well. Lure fishing for sea trout is a big thing in Scandinavia especially, and as much as the line-through concept comes from this market, there are plenty of sea trout anglers who don’t want the extra faff of having to rig lures like this plus they also want to be able to clip on and off when needed. I’m not quite sure how the original SG Line-Thru Sandeel ended up trickling into the bass fishing world, but I guess with how sandeel like the lure is it was only natural - for the time being in the world of selling fishing tackle though I guess the grownups still see these particular lures as predominantly sea trout lures. If I continue to get at least a little bit of my way then some things will change, but I take this new Savage Gear Sandeel Pencil 150 lure and I remove that (trout) treble. I am not saying either hook won’t cope with a lot of bass fishing because they most likely will be just fine, but with how hard bass hit and scrap in the surf especially I personally feel happier with upgraded components.

You will see from the various photos on here that I am currently rigging my Sandeel Pencil 150 lures in a couple of different ways - either with a 3/0 single lure hook on the end with the two split rings (this hook here), or a pair of #6 trebles. I have found that a #6 treble on that middle point is the right size because the hook point doesn’t reach over the top of the lure body and snag in place. I have also rigged one up with a #6 treble in the middle and a #4 treble on the rear and as far as I can tell the lure swims just fine like this. As ever all my barbs have been crushed and I envisage using the 3/0 single hook rigged versions in the surf as per this blog post here. There are a few different colours available which I actually need to get hold of because I only have the samples you see here and I badly want a few of the very natural looking Sandeel pattern. I might or might not have also sprayed a sample I have in a solid white colour for various night fishing related reasons although I do like how much white there is on the “Matt White Tobis” pattern above, with the smaller Sandeel Pencil 125 for a size and profile comparison.

It was interesting to get a quick hour or so trying for a sea trout over in Denmark the other day with Mads from Savage Gear. He fishes so much with his beloved 19g SG Line Thru Sandeel and whilst we only got a couple of hits in our brief session, he has been showing me photos of some of the sea trout he has been catching over the last few months and damn do I want to have a proper go at this! I was fascinated to see how quickly that little 19g lure could be fished just sub-surface for the sea trout, and how often they put spin-stops in their retrieves where the lure suddenly stops and starts to shimmy down and backwards. I had a few bass in the surf doing exactly this last year, when you get hit right as you pick the lure back up after the stop, and I’m going to use this type of retrieve a lot more with this heavier Sandeel Pencil 150 lure in heavier conditions. I really like that both the Pencil 125 and the 150 have rattles in them.

So there you go. I can finally talk about a lure that I have been wanting to shout about for a while now. I am upfront and honest about my doing some work with Savage Gear these days, but as with any other lures or fishing tackle I am excited about, I’d have been shouting about this new Sandeel Pencil 150 lure regardless of my working relationship with the company. It’s a complete no-brainer of a bass lure to me and I hope that my bass junkie brain is going to assist with bringing more lure related stuff to market with these people. I’ve got some stuff here that I am so excited about and I’d love to show you photos and talk about it and so on, but I have to be grownup and I can’t but I want to!

This brand new Shimano Lunamis 9'6'' 10-45g lure rod has arrived and it’s a weapon! I combined a dog walk with chucking a few lures on the new rod to get an initial impression - Patchinko, 40g metal, and a DoLive, casting straight into what felt like a F5/6 wind, very similar in fact to what I might face when surf fishing. I need a lot more time with this rod of course, but it feels pretty damn serious - very powerful, more so than the equivalent Dialuna and especially in the tip, it effortlessly consumes a 40g metal as hard as I can hit it, loves the Patchinko, and was making a pretty good fist of a DoLive into that wind albeit I’d not be buying a rod like this to fish the calmer, quieter conditions. I can't wait to get this new Lunamis out in some proper spring surf conditions and bouncy seas out on the rocks and it feels great with the Penn Slammer III 3500 reel on it. Time will tell, but initial impressions are that this rod is rather interesting.

And of course roll on the rugby at the weekend and crossing all fingers that we beat Ireland at Twickenham on Saturday, indeed the abuse I will get if we don’t is not worth thinking about! You all have a good weekend, and as ever, roll on spring and being able to rid ourselves of this wretched cabin fever and how much it costs me each off season. If I was remotely mathematical I’d be exploring a formula that deals with the correlation between weather, time of year, tide size, water clarity, and money spent on fishing tackle. It ain’t pretty………….

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