I find it so exciting to “discover” lures which weren’t really intended for bass fishing, and then catch on them (the Slender Scoop Shad is in stock)

We need to take the word “discover” here with a pinch of salt, because it’s not as if I am heading out and discovering new worlds dressed only in an itchy, woolly mammoth loincloth! But I do get to communicate with you kind people and I really enjoy doing so - and from time to time in my working with a company like Savage Gear which encompasses all kinds of fishing all around the world, I go and stumble upon something which I think might work in our bass fishing world as such. You know I get a buzz from yapping about this sort of stuff………..

It happened recently with a rather good looking paddletail called the Slender Scoop Shad which is starting to arrive in the UK but which was never really intended for bass fishing. Fishing tackle companies which are big and sprawling have lots of different departments working on lots of different things, and at the end of the day I am merely a consultant who specialises in bass fishing. I am way down the food chain and I tend to work mostly with a few people where we collaborate on ideas for lures and rods and other items of fishing tackle. The people I work closely with also work closely with other people from other fishing disciplines, and whilst logic might say that every single item of fishing tackle should be examined for potential crossover market potential, in reality it can’t actually work like this.

So the Slender Scoop Shad is a good looking soft plastic paddletail which comes in a range of sizes and colours and was designed primarily for freshwater predator fishing - pike, zander, perch etc. (packets of four here and loose bodies here if that helps, the Gravity Stick 6/0 belly-weight hooks are working with the 13cms and 15cms versions). I knew nothing about this lure until, as I said the other day, a new YouTube video popped up in my feed. For whatever reason the lures jumped out at me straight away as having potential for my bass fishing - profile, sizes, colours, swimming action, very different to “my” Gravity Stick Paddletail etc. - and because I work with Savage Gear I was able to go to the people I know and ask to please get hold of some to try. This isn’t always that easy because it depends where the lures are in the process of coming to market, but because these Slender Scoop Shads were a done deal and about to appear on the market (as a freshwater lure), they were in stock in the warehouse and I was able to get hold of some to try.

Which then resulted in my first UK February bass as I blogged about the other day. I would obviously expect you to accept that I and indeed you can only catch a fish on a lure which we are actually fishing with and not thinking about, but when I do go and literally stumble on a new lure which was never intended for me but it goes and produces my first February bass? Damn right it’s going to get me excited. Making the call, heading out in February, and actually catching a bass on a lure out on the open coast is obviously the biggest collective thrill, but it’s also a real buzz to have done so on a lure that wasn’t really meant for me. My work with Savage Gear isn’t really about me trying to “discover” items of fishing tackle within their huge ranges (Savage Gear, Scierra, DAM etc.), but it’s something which interests me so I choose to try and keep a very open mind and a very keen set of eyes and ears.

As I said to a very good angler on Facebook the other day, I am one of those anglers who really enjoys heading out and experimenting with different stuff, and if I miss the odd fish because I’m trying a different way of rigging a lure and so on then so be it. How on earth can I keep on learning unless I am prepared to take the odd knockback along the way? I have no idea whether the Slender Scoop Shad is going to crossover into the bass fishing world any more than me liking the look of it and catching fish on it, but I do know that I have been talking to the grownups about various Slender Scoop Shad/bass fishing related things.

I’ve got a similar situation here with a hard lure I can’t talk about yet but which I really, really like. In an earlier guise this hard lure caught a few bass a couple of years ago but it just wasn’t quite right, and then somebody who I talk to a lot got hold of the lure and tweaked a few things. He in turn now knew he had a good lure once these changes were made although it wasn’t really the right hard lure for his markets. But because we talk and can communicate well about fishing and how bass are fished for a bit differently all over the place, he got samples of this tweaked lure into my hands and I loved it from the very first cast. We were on a video call this morning in fact, talking about this lure and also how we might take the lure and make some further tweaks to create a second version which does different stuff to the primary version. There are some items which Savage Gear USA do for example which I know would work for our bass, and so on. Going out fishing is always going to be my primary love, but working in fishing has always come a very close second and I love the whole package. You all have a good weekend and here’s to hoping that England can stuff Wales at Twickenham tomorrow………….

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