I think the original Xorus Patchinko is a fascinating lure that in some respects mirrors the increased interest in lure fishing for bass

Has there been a more successful and well known surface lure for UK and Irish bass fishing over the past ten years than the original Xorus Patchinko II? At 140mm long and around the 26g mark, there can’t be that many bass anglers who fish with lures who either don’t own a Patchinko or two, or have at least heard of this long-casting and at times lethal surface lure. I happen to think that in some respects the introduction of the original Patchinko into the UK in many ways mirrors how the interest in going lure fishing for bass has grown and grown, and unless anybody can tell me otherwise I am crediting Mick Ward at the Mr.Fish tackle shop over in Jersey for coming across the Patchinko and the French based Ultimate Fishing tackle company who created their own Xorus brand to make lures such as this…………..

I know that many of you here have been lure fishing for bass for many, many years, but I haven’t, and it seems that there are a lot of anglers in a similar boat to me - we somehow found or indeed are finding our way into how much fun it is to go light tackle lure fishing for these fantastic fish. At around the time when my interest in bass fishing really started to get moving, I stumbled across the red Tenryu rods and then of course the Xorus Patchinko surface lure - with thanks to Mick I might add. It fascinates me how “our” bass fishing has grown so much over the last few years especially, and anybody with at least half an eye open to what has been going on would have noticed how more and more anglers soon started talking about this very long-casting and easy to work surface lure called a Patchinko.

And as the interest in lure fishing for bass seems to have grown and grown, so has the interest in what we might term modern lure fishing tackle - with the Patchinko surely being at the top of the tree for surface lures. I have no way of knowing but I am guessing that there has been no better selling surface lure on the UK market over say the last ten years. There are any number of different surface lures which on their day can be lethal for bass, but I have always thought that a big part of the appeal of the Patchinko is how well it casts and covers water, how easy it is to fish, how well it can deal with surprisingly rough conditions if needs be, how perfectly its size and weight suits the sort of lure rods so many of us fish with, and obviously how it catches bass. There have been a few occasions when say four of us have all been fishing Patchinkos and I reckon the cumulative noise of these lures landing ended up putting the bass down, but how many times are that many anglers fishing the same lure over the same bit of water?

A surface lure from the US striped bass world

Let’s be honest for a minute here as well. I know that some anglers can get their knickers in a frightful twist about their favourite lures being the only original out there, but if you know anything about the US striped bass world and pencil popper style surface lures especially, you will realise where at the bare minimum the idea for a bass lure like the Patchinko comes from - with all credit due by the way to whoever came up with this exact design and dimensions. I don’t know who was responsible for the Patchinko, but I’d be gobsmacked if somebody involved with the process of bringing this lure to market hadn’t looked at some of the US striped bass surface lures such as the (considerably cheaper and been around for ages) Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper, or some of the Gibbs and Guppy surface lures, and thought hang on, surely we could take some of the ideas behind these styles of surface lures and create something more applicable on the size front especially to European saltwater bass fishing. Surely most lures out there at least have a basis in how current ideas and designs might be improved upon? Hell, I can’t be without the IMA Hound 125F Glide for example, but it’s still just a slightly different version of a diving minnow type hard lure which happens to be the perfect mix (for me) of size and weight and grip.

I don’t know how long the much smaller Xorus Patchinko 100 has been around but there are always plenty of reports of good bass coming to this lure, and it really surprised me how long it took Ultimate Fishing to come out with the Xorus Patchinko 125 which I reckon I find myself turning to more than the original Patchinko II these days. I can’t gloss over how the Patchinko 125 seems to be a better made lure than the original Patchinko II, and none of them are what one might term remotely budget lures, but if you were to go and buy a load of peeler crab for one fishing session and then think about how many bass you could potentially catch on just one Patchinko over the course of a single season, well that’s when the cost of some of these lures we might buy actually make a lot of sense to me. I can understand completely why some anglers can’t or won’t spend the money on original lures when there are some good imitations out there, but the Xorus Patchinko II is a bona fide classic bass fishing lure in my book, and I have a hunch that a lot of you here agree with me.

Interestingly enough if I go back through the photos I have shot of anglers with 10lb+ bass that were caught from the shore though, I am pretty sure I haven’t yet seen a “double” taken on a Patchinko. I am aware of plenty of 10lb+ bass that have come to the Patchinko I might add, just I haven’t yet been around a bass angler who has landed a bass of this size on one of these lures. I hear most about the 500G colour when it comes to any of the Patchinkos, but I have never actually owned the original Patchinko II in the 500G colour, I have hardly ever fished with the little Patchinko II, and I do own a Patchinko 125 in the 500G colour but I can’t recall it catching me more bass than the other couple of colours I have.

And again this is where the Patchinko kinda mirrors how the interest in going lure fishing for bass has grown over the last few years especially. I don’t know why more anglers are collectively enjoying the light tackle, more mobile approach to their saltwater fishing - I can guess at many different reason though - but like with certain lures almost achieving some kind of cult following due to internet based talk and reports and so on, I do wonder whether the growth in anglers going bass fishing has also been driven in a similar way by online activity and the way in which most of us here access information these days. How many anglers have seen reports somewhere online of bass being caught on lures and thought hang on, this looks like a bit of fun, I might have a go at that? And would a not remotely cheap fishing lure like the Patchinko II ever have taken off like it has without the rise in the whole sharing information and catch reports and so on online? What if Mick at Mr.Fish or somebody else in the trade had stumbled across a different surface lure which then almost grew a life of its own in a similar way to the numbers of anglers going lure fishing for bass has grown? Is the way that lure fishing for bass has been growing in a kind of online, modern campfire sort of way part of the reason why the big boy tackle companies have never really been able to get a handle on what is going on and how the market moves and changes? Has a lure like the Patchinko II grown such a life of its own that it will always sit at the top of the tree of surface lures that most bass anglers have or want, or can it be challenged? You all please stay safe and well, have a good weekend, and here’s me raising a cup of coffee to the time when we can return to the normality that perhaps we took for granted just a little bit?

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