I was going through some photos the other day and picking out some shots for a magazine feature, and if there is one thing I am fantatical about with my editing and storing of photographs, it’s keywording. This might mean nothing to you, but it’s essentially attaching specific information to an image so you can easily find it in an image library - I can then do a search with my software here to find what I need for various purposes. I’d be in a great big pile of poo here at home if I hadn’t been keywording all my images for many years now. From a fishing point of view it’s also pretty handy because I will often store the name of the lure a fish was caught on as part of the keywords, and from some recent image searches here on my hard drives it’s really stuck out how many of the bass that have been caught on hard lures either by me or people I fish with and end up photographing were taken on what I would call smaller lures………….

This bass was caught on the APIA Dover 99F lure

I know there’s always the saying that bigger lures or baits catch bigger fish, but I don’t personally agree, indeed I can’t really - not with what I have caught myself, and especially now with the bass I have seen caught over the years and the lures on which they were taken. There are endless different ways to skin the proverbial cat with lure fishing for bass and that is always a given, but I do like a good, smaller hard lure that casts really well and grips into bouncy seas if needs be. I like how fast I can move them in the cast and how “precise” it feels with the lighter weight and smaller size, and I like how the smaller lures can fish so well on regular lure rods in rougher conditions if needs be. A lot of us are seeing a lot of bait around at the moment, and it doesn’t half strike me how relatively small a lot of this bait is.

It was a complete no-brainer to me to latch onto the baby brother of my beloved IMA Hound 125F Glide, the IMA Hound 100F Sonic (100, 14g), but then a while back it seemed that both lures were off the market and not readily available. I give a lot of credit to the nice people who are importing IMA into the UK these days because they have gone and made my can’t do without Hound Glide available again, and I can also find the smaller Hound Sonic as well. I love this little hard lure and it’s one of my three holy trinity of smaller hard lures. If you know the Hound Glide then you know how its baby brother casts and grips and fishes.

I have seen a lot of good bass caught on the amazing little APIA Dover 99F (99mm, 15g), and whilst I never take photos of me with the bass I might catch, when I go searching for the Dover 99F in my image library I am pretty damn sure that some of those nice fish in there were caught by me and then kindly cradled by whoever I was fishing with at the time. If I’m on my own then the fish goes back with no photo, but whatever the case, to me there is something rather special about the little APIA Dover 99F. It absolutely flies, and it’s so grippy if needs be. Whatever it does in the water on a straight retrieve works for the bass, and it’s noticeable how many of the fish caught on this lure in my image library were taken when the water was really fizzed up. I see no reason why APIA would ever stop making these lures, but the way my head works I end up panic-buying a few of the lures which I can’t imagine being without - and this is one of those lures for me.

The amazing little Shimano Exsence Silent Assassin 99F

I’ll happily fish with either of the two smaller hard lures I have already talked about because they keep on catching fish, but if I had to choose only one of the holy trinity then it could well be the little Shimano Exsence Silent Assassin 99F. I don’t know how Shimano Japan have made such a diminutive looking little hard lure to be so adept at fishing in some many different conditions, but this thing is frigging amazing - so it’s even more annoying that it’s the one lure here which I am always struggling to find. I used to find the odd one on the Chesil Bait’n’Tackle website, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Shimano Europe wouldn’t know the right bass lures to bring into Europe if the right lures walked into a room together and collectively smacked the grownups in the face, so we’re screwed there. If you want any of these incredible little lures then all I can suggest is that you keep an eye on this Ebay “shop” here. I own precisely two Shimano Exsence Silent Assassin 99F lures and I’d love to add to my collection on the panic-buying basis yet again. This lure fishing thing doesn’t get any easier! You all have a good weekend, please stay as safe as you can, hope you’re out and about and finding a few fish……………...

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I really like some of the smaller, roughly 100mm long “grippy” hard lures, and for me there’s a holy trinity of tried and trusted I keep turning to

© Henry Gilbey 2023