Using a striped bass style retrieve for some of our surface lures (new video up on my YouTube channel)

There are a few, mainly sinking surface lures out there which are the right sort of weights and sizes that I find really interesting for some of our bass fishing where serious distance and being able to cover a hell of a lot of water can help. But these surface lures sink, and when you’ve got a hell of a lot of braid out there it can sometimes be a bit tricky to easily keep these lures up on the top and working properly. So I got to thinking………….

And because my brain seems to be wired to think about fishing around 99% of the time, I thought about how a lot of the US striped bass anglers tend to work their pencil poppers which tend to be pretty heavy surface lures which will sink like a stone unless you get them up. A certain angler over on the Cape Cod Canal who has been so incredibly kind towards some of us Brits and our sometimes fumbling attempts at fishing this unique location for stripers, well he’s putting out these pencil poppers some insane distances when required, and it simply wouldn’t be physically possible trying to work say a 3oz or 4oz surface lure on the rods they need to use like we might work a (floating) Patchinko on our much lighter and often shorter rods.

So I thought why not take this “pencil popper retrieve” and apply it to some of these mainly sinking surface lures which can cast some ridiculous distances. I think back to those missile like GT Ice Cream chisel plugs and how I would work them now I have thought more about how to do things for our bass, and then I look at these 30g and 20g Bomb surface lures from Samson Lures which I know came largely from the lad behind the company thinking about his trips to the Cape Cod area. A couple of the guys I know who fish the Cape Cod Canal were saying yesterday how much they like the far heavier Bomb lures for when they need serious distance for the striped bass, and that’s really interesting coming from US anglers who have access to so many different types of distance based, heavier and larger surface lures. It is literally a disgrace how far the 30g and 20g Bomb lures go on the right rods for our bass fishing.

There is also a particular size of the Savage Gear Surf Walker which I like how well it casts - the sinking 155 version - but to be honest it hasn’t become part of my armoury because I think something like the Patchinko “grips” much better in bouncier conditions. But this particular Surf Walker 155S absolutely frigging flies, and when I use this pencil popper style retrieve on it I can slow right up on the lure but still keep it nice and splashy (if you are thinking about buying a Surf Walker, make sure to get the newer colours which are really well made AND have got fantastic trebles and split rings on them). That high rod keeping as much braid off the water really helps with getting these sinking surface lures up and working properly, and yes, I can’t bloody wait to put my thoughts and theories and new lures into action! The video above I hope explains it all. You all have a good weekend, stay safe, roll on England v Ireland at the weekend and especially after that awesome France game which showed just how good a rugby match can be, catch you next week…………..

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