I take my hat off to the bods at HTO headquarters who came up with this good looking new Kamikaze 125 surface lure. I had a bit of input into some of the newer Savage Gear surface lures for example, but I would never lay claim to being anything to do with their principal designs. To come up with a really interesting new surface lure such as this HTO Kamikaze 125 comes with full respect from me. As you can see from the shape, it absolutely flies, and if I am going to go to the next size down as such from something like the ubiquitous Xorus Patchinko II (140mm, 27g), I want that thing to still cast just very well and cover me a hell of a lot of water…………..

And from a brief tryout this HTO Kamikaze 125 just does that. Look at the rear-weighted design and this tells me that covering a lot of water was at the forefront in the minds of whoever created this thing. I see no reason why this surface lure won’t catch a heap of bass for anglers who choose to add it to their lure box, and I really like the range of colours on offer. I note that there is a “nod” to that deadly 500G colour from the Patchinko range, and why the hell not? A lot of UK and Irish bass anglers trust the colour so to me it makes perfect sense to include it in the range. As far as I can tell there are eight different colours in the range, and the yellow-back version you can see here in these photos is the “Chart Flashing Plate”.

The one issue I did notice straight away was that the middle (or is it technically the front?) treble hook was getting hung up on the back of the lure a lot of the time, so I have changed from what I think is a #4 treble hook supplied with the lure to a smaller #6 in that middle position. The rear treble is obviously just fine, and I have crushed all the barbs. Time will tell but this HTO Kamikaze 125 looks really well built and I very much like the fact that I am seeing this surface lure for £12.99. We all know how good the Xorus Patchinko surface lures are, but damn they are not cheap these days. How often do you lose a surface lure though, and if that one lure catches you a heap of fish? I think back to how much I used to spend on bait like peeler crab and endless boxes of frozen squid etc.

The 11.2cm/23.5g Savage Gear Bullet Mullet, rigged with a pair of 4/0 Mustad Kaiju single hooks - striper chow!

I guess I am drawn to something like this new HTO Kamikaze 125 because it is the sort of length and weight of surface lure I will tend to turn to the most. For sure I love the regular Patchinko II and it surprised me just how long it took Ultimate Fishing to come out with that deadly and smaller Patchinko 125. I like all three sizes of the Savage Gear Slap Walker surface lures, but without doubt the middle 12.5cm (125mm)/20g version is my favourite. It absolutely frigging flies and we turn to it a lot as our surface lure of choice for the guided trips John and I run in Ireland. It’s such an easy lure to work and bass smash it! I also really like the Berkley DEX Strider 120 (120mm/20g), and it did really well for me when I was chasing striped bass on the east coast of Canada the other day. One surface lure I don’t hear much about but which I know is really good for calmer conditions especially is the very long-casting Savage Gear Bullet Mullet, and again I had a bunch of striped bass on the 11.2cm/23.5g size in Canada - rigged with a pair of 4/0 Mustad Kaiju single hooks with the barbs crushed, as per the local regulations out there. I vividly remember the lure being repeatedly launched clean out of the water by some very angry and somewhat inaccurate striped bass one morning!

I really like how our bass fishing market can now obviously support the design and launch of a new surface lure like this rather lovely HTO Kamikaze 125. That 125mm length and 18g weight suits so many of the lure rods we might collectively turn to. I work something like the Slap Walker 12.5cm or Patchinko 125 against this HTO Kamikaze 125 and I like how I am getting subtly different actions via what I would class a standard sort of WTD retrieve. Of course you can mess around then with different types of surface-retrieves, but you get my drift. We have never had it so good as regards the modern fishing tackle we can get our hands on. You all have a good weekend, see you next week.

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The new HTO Kamikaze 125 surface lure (125mm, 18g) - I really like surface lures around this size and weight for our bass fishing

© Henry Gilbey 2023