RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag review - around £95 here in the UK

I guess you don’t realise how used you are to doing something a certain way until you change it up a bit. I am so intrinsically used to having two of the Savage Gear washable lure boxes sitting horizontally in a zip-opening style lure bag on the left side of my body that to be honest it kinda threw me for a while when I started testing this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag. I was intrigued when I saw some photos of this thing online, and as with the Major Craft rods I am able to try, it’s another big thank you to the kind people at Tacklewave UK for getting me access one of these RBB Surf Supporter II lure bags to try out……………

We are basically talking about a wide, padded and very comfortable back-support style belt upon which sit two lure box size pouches on either side of your waist. On the side of the pouch which sits on your right is a pliers sheath and ring for securing a lanyard to, plus there are extra pockets on each of the pouches and some D-rings dotted around the belt for securing fish-grips and maybe a net and so on to the belt. The pouches can be moved around but you can see where they are intended to sit because of the little bit of velcro behind each one and then on the corresponding part of the actual belt. I have a feeling that you might be able to take the pouches off the belt and secure something like the HPA Chest Pack lure bag to this belt, but I haven’t actually tried this yet.

So what is this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag like to wear and use for my fishing? I am not a slim person, but there is plenty of room with the belt to secure it around me when I am wearing BCWs with a couple of layers of technical clothing and a waterproof jacket or smock on top. The belt lends itself to being done up nice and tight so it doesn’t move around, but what was very noticeable from day one with this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag was how comfortable it is to wear. I did wonder whether no shoulder strap would make the whole thing feel a bit heavy - remember how used I am to a lure bag setup at my side together with a shoulder strap - but I needn’t have worried. With one washable lure box in the left side pouch and a second washable lure box in the right side pouch, plus pliers and a small tub of SG Balls Clip On Weights and hook sharpener in one of the pockets, you feel literally no extra weight at all when you wear this RBB Surf Supporter II.

I find it very easy to move around and yomp up and down cliffs with this thing around my waist. It doesn’t annoy me when I am actually fishing save for the fact that I am aware that I have a pouch on my right side whereas I don’t when I am using my regular lure bag setup. The more time I spend with this setup the more I get used to it, but without a doubt I am far more used to a couple of lure boxes sitting on my left side. I like the way the pouches open and close with zips and not velcro, but I find opening and closing zips down and up a little bit more fiddly than horizontal or across versions which you find on the HPA Chest Pack. Hope that makes sense?

I can’t be doing with any kind of lure bag setup which doesn’t drain if you are deep-wading or fishing in the surf and so on, so I was really pleased to see that the two main pouches on this RBB Surf Supporter II are designed to empty of water via some drainage holes at the bottom. I can sort of understand how some anglers might want a waterproof hip bag if they are never wading out beyond their knees and never have waves coming in at them, but personally I don’t want one at all for my own fishing. Anything I carry at my side is meant to get wet in my book, indeed I find the inherent buoyancy that you get with a waterproof hip bag really unstable with how it offers another air-filled “target” as such when you are deep-wading or if waves are rolling in at you on a beach. If I am out deep enough I want that bag at my side to be able to fill up and then drain when possible. Same principle with the washable lure boxes. This might sound a bit daft, but my opinions come from a lot of fishing with different lure carrying setups, and I was genuinely really surprised by how much I disliked a waterproof (air-filled) hip bag when I tried one. Anyway, this RBB Surf Supporter II drains nice and quickly which I really like.

One minor and slightly OCD niggle I do have is if you use the type of washable lure boxes I do which in turn means that your soft plastics lie across the box with horizontal slots. The two pouches which take your lure boxes can only fit the washable lure boxes in when you place them in a vertical position - they go in horizontally in say the HPA Chest Pack - and this means that my soft plastics sort of “crinkle” up a bit in the horizontal slot lure box. Does this matter during a fishing session? Not really, but it’s just that little bit less easy to pick out the one you want when you lift a lure box out of the pouch and the soft plastics are a bit scrunched up. This might well not apply to you if you don’t use the sort of washable lure boxes that I do I might add. You also can’t squeeze two of the Savage Gear washable lure boxes into the one pouch, but again how you use these side-pouches depends on how you store your lures for actually fishing.

I can see this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag working really well for a number of bass anglers, but you do need to secure the belt up pretty tightly to make sure it doesn’t slip down and get in the way. Do it up properly and it’s a very easy contraption to work with, but if you don’t tighten it up and it moves around a bit or slips down then I find it annoying. I actually think that the need to tighten this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag up really lends itself to surf fishing for me. For most of my bass fishing I am not going to change over from my “two lure boxes at my side” in something like an HPA Chest Pack or various samples we have been working on - but I will be pressing this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag into serious surf use because I think that whole needing to wear it tight lends itself so well to this.

I don’t know how much you end up wading out in the waves, but if you don’t have a belt securely tightened up over the top of a waterproof jacket or smock - or perhaps the smock can secure around you like the Guy Cotten Efficient C130 Smock does - then you will find when you wade a bit deeper that more powerful waves will hit you and the water can then wash up and inside your jacket and then down into your waders. It’s horrible, and especially early in the morning when you wade out for your first cast! I am going to press this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag into service for my surf fishing because it lends itself so well to preventing any water getting in and under my jacket or smock when you secure it around you properly. The wider design of the actual belt also helps it work better with those shorter-length, wading style waterproof jackets that many of us use. In the more hectic surf conditions when I need a belt to work like this I also tend to carry just the one vertical slot washable lure box with me which will be stuffed full of Surf Seekers, Sandeel Pencils, various casting jigs and a couple of IMA Hound 125F Glides. It then sits on my left hand side in this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag and all feels far more normal to me.

For sure this is not a cheap item of fishing tackle and I also can’t tell you how it might or might not last longer-term, but we are talking about a typically well thought out and designed Japanese product. As far as I am aware there is nothing on this RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag which can rust, but I would imagine that as with anything which spends time in and around saltwater, the odd wash down with freshwater will never hurt. I used to get a fair bit of pain in my back when night fishing with lures especially - a stretchy kind of back support really helped me out - and I am obviously no doctor. I am going to hazard a fairly good guess though that the wide design of the belt lends itself to a decent bit of back support for those anglers who require it. You all have a good weekend and when this blog post goes live I will be heading out to the open coast to see if the change in wind direction does what I hope it might do for my local bass fishing…………….

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