Learnt my lesson the other day and I have now put stronger split rings on my surf fishing lures

The more I do it and obsess about it, the more I am finding out how I can refine and improve my approach when it comes to surf fishing, and I got a bit of shock the other day when a bass that was only around the 3lb+ mark went and opened out some split rings on a hard lure I was using. I don’t find myself using hard lures much in heavier surf conditions especially, but under advice I had bought the rather nice looking Shimano Hirame Minnow III (125mm, 25g, sinking) a while back to try in the surf (it’s a Japanese flatfish lure), and I had it in my box the other morning. The more I fish with Shimano Japan hard lures, the more I am seriously liking them, and the bass specific ones I have here are incredibly well made and are still showing no signs of rust on any of the components.

When I am out in the surf I am using a heavier fluoro leader than I would for my “normal” bass fishing (loving this cheap as chips 30lb/0.56mm version of the Berkley Trilene Big Game Fluorocarbon), and when I go to land a bass I tend to wrap this thicker leader a couple of times around my hand and then I can often simply grab what is often a 2/0 or 3/0 single lure hook with its barbs crushed flat and literally reverse the hook and the bass drops off and swims away (I am loving how bigger single hooks on my surf lures seem to be preventing deep-hooked fish). Bigger bass often need a bit more support to get the hook out, but if there is one thing that all these surf caught bass seem to do when you unhook them out in the water is thrash around like crazy…………

The original fixtures and fittings on that Shimano Hirame Minnow lures, now gone!

And it doesn’t take a particularly large fish at all to go straightening out weaker hooks and/or split rings, as I found out on that Shimano Hirame Minnow the other day. It casts great, it seriously grips in, and a 3lb+ bass jumped on the end of it about my third or fourth cast with it which kinda made my morning. I got the fish close to me quick smart, wrapped the leader around my hand a couple of times, and of course this hard lure has a couple of (barbless) trebles on it. The bass was thrashing around and I went to get the hook out and luckily clamped my pliers down on the shank of one of the trebles just as it came away from the lure. I got the hook out of the fish which swam away just fine, and I then noticed that one split ring on the lure had completely opened out, and the other one was starting to - and the bass was only in the 3lb range.

Which brings me back around to firstly how hard bass fight in all that oxygenated water, and secondly how violently they can thrash around when you get them to hand albeit you need to bear in mind that I am fighting these fish as hard as I can pull them and I guess my bass are coming in a little “greener” than a lot of anglers - and I want this, because it is firmly my belief that green/lively fish (i.e. not fought out for ages and knackered) go back far better. I have seen it a few times now when not very big bass at all have started to straighten treble hooks and split rings.

Now the treble thing doesn’t bother me too much because I am now rarely using a treble hook in the surf anyway, and if I do, like with my single hooks (all details in a recent blog post here), I have gone bigger and stronger. I have now put a pair of size 2 barbless VMC trebles on that Shimano Hirame Minnow III hard lure for example, and on the end of my Savage Gear Seekers and so on I now have single hooks just as I described a while back here.

And I have also put some stronger split rings on all my surf lures, whether it be on the odd hard lure I might use, or two split rings (as the sea trout anglers so often use) on my metals and other similar lures I might turn to in the surf, unless they are rigged with assist hooks for deliberately working like that. For a fair while now my replacement split ring of choice has been the Varivas Avani Ocean Works Power (split) Rings in the 4mm/40lb size, and whilst I have never had a hint of an issue with these split rings in that particular size, I have gone a size up to the 5mm/60lb on my surf lures because I can’t see why not.

I have also rigged up a few Seekers with some bigger again Savage Gear Stainless Splitrings in the 9mm size (from their “Last Meter” range of bits and pieces), as per above and below, and they are working great. For sure they are pretty big, but they open up easily enough to get a big single hook in them, and importantly they then close up properly. I have had a load of bass on my Seekers rigged like this, so I know it works, and I can’t find any signs of damage to my hooks or split rings. I need to look after the Savage Gear Seekers I have in the 28g size especially, but as I put on my Facebook page the other day: “For those of you looking for 28g and 32g Savage Gear Seeker lures, it has just been confirmed to me that they are definitely going to be back on the market, and in all the original colours as per below............but not until Jan/Feb next year. My hassling of the grownups has paid off it seems, obviously I wish they were on sale right now, but at least I don't need to worry so much now if I lose one or two of the few I have here in my surf lure box.” Yippee!

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