Westin W4 Super Finesse (lure) bag review - around £65 (I’ve given up trying to get another HPA Chest Pack, can’t find them anywhere)

I am very particular about how I carry my chosen lures when I am out bass fishing, but in my defence I have specific needs. I have explained many times that I always carry a waterproof rucksack with assorted cameras and lenses plus the various bits and pieces I take fishing with me - but not the actual lures. I want the lures that I want to fish with to be readily to hand without needing to jump through various hoops and contortions to get at them. I don’t want my lures away from me in my rucksack which will be back from the water when I am fishing, or stuffed in various wader and/or jacket pockets. I want them by my side, in a couple of washable lure boxes, or in those specific HTO Double Latch 20.5cm lure boxes I use for the creature baits………….

Yep, I want never gets, but the simple HPA Chest Pack has done a great job for me for years. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close, and I am so used to it’s almost automatic to be able to reach for a lure box or go to place the lure box back in the bag on my left hand side. Whenever I have had to get a new HPA bag after about a year and a half of heavy use, I have always ditched the useless belt and shoulder strap and replaced them with a Simms neoprene belt (the Grundens Vector & Bedrock wading belt does the same job) and an old neoprene camera (shoulder) strap I have been using for years. I just don’t like using these side-sitting bags without a shoulder strap. I know it adds to the cost of a lure bag, but I have used that belt and shoulder strap on multiple HPA bags now and those two specific items are still going strong when the actual bags have given up.

The problem is that I can’t find the HPA Chest Pack in stock anywhere in the UK, and the French HPA website always seems to list it as out of stock. Over the years I have tried a few different “can sit at your side on a belt plus shoulder strap” type lure bags without enough success to make me change away from the HPA one, but then about halfway through last year I stumbled across this Westin W4 Super Finesse (lure) bag and thought it was worth a punt.

I wasn’t at all sure about this bag when I first saw it in the flesh, but I gave it some time and I’ve grown to really, really like it. For sure it’s more expensive and also larger than the HPA bag (which I always wished could have been say 10-20% larger overall anyway), but this Westin W4 Super Finesse bag comes with a couple of decent tackle boxes inside the main compartment, plus a folding bits and pieces tackle box which is absolutely perfect for the various hooks, jig heads and cheb weights I carry with me for the creature bait stuff (I just found out that you can buy the same sort of box here). I can think of numerous ways to use this folding bits and pieces box, it’s really handy.

You can of course use this Westin lure bag as is, but I took one look at the belt configuration, tried it on for size, then had a bit of a think, got rid of it, and clipped on a couple of simple stainless steel carabiner style clips so that I could use my own Simms neoprene belt instead. Much better if you ask me, but you really don’t have to do this. It’s probably just me. The shoulder strap again is okay, as in it does what it’s meant to do, but I have recently replaced it with that old neoprene camera strap which refuses to die, and I do prefer to “wear” the bag like this. Again you don’t need to do this, but I know what I like and I know how I want things to work for me.

So I was a bit skeptical of this Westin W4 Super Finesse (lure) bag to start with, mainly because it’s a bit bigger than I am used to, and I fancied the open and close double-zip setup to last about five minutes. I am very happy to be proved completely wrong though because I can’t find any signs of damage on this lure bag at all, and I am pretty sure I have yet to wash it down in freshwater as well. Westin says “Easy access top cover – easy to open with just one hand”, but this isn’t actually the case. If you pull the double-zip right back to access your lure boxes then most of the time you’re going to need to sort of reach around and “jiggle” the furthest zip away from your body to get them to line back up and close properly. Not a deal breaker at all and it works just fine, but I could think of easier ways for opening and closing the bag to be configured.

I thought the larger size would annoy me, but it doesn’t at all, indeed I really like how easy it is to fit your lures or lure boxes or whatever you might carry in a side-bag like this and easily get at them. None of this having to slightly squeeze in a couple of washable lure boxes just so as you need to do with that HPA Chest Pack. Nope, the larger main compartment is really handy and I have grown to appreciate this over time, and partly because I can get the bag to sit just right on my left hand side so that it doesn’t annoy me one single bit. If a lure bag gets in my way when I am fishing, wading, scrambling over rocks, moving through trees like a ninja, yomping back up cliffs etc., then it’s a goner in my book. I remember having to chop bits off an expensive Japanese lure bag many moons ago because it got in the way when I was lifting my legs up to get back up cliffs, but I don’t get any of that with this Westin W4 Super Finesse bag. I actually like this Westin bag to sit slightly lower on me (on my left side) than I typically would with the HPA Chest Pack.

Which all proves to me yet again that you need to give fishing gear proper fishing time before you can really know what it’s about. I tried to get a decent side-wearing lure bag made with Savage Gear and I did get some primary samples which worked well but needed various modifications, but the project died a death for whatever reason. I can’t find a way to carry my fishing lures that I like more than a decent lure bag sitting at my side, hence me always keeping my ears and eyes open. I know that I don’t want a waterproof lure bag for various reasons, I don’t get on with those sling-style bags which I can’t use anyway because of always carrying a rucksack, and I am a bit particular about what I want as I said!

Thanks to David Trickey of Labrax Mafia lures for the kind use of this photo

This Westin W4 Super Finesse bag isn’t perfect, but it’s very good, and I think it’s even better with the simple modifications I have made. I also created some drainage holes in the bottom of the main compartment so that the bag can drain if I am deep-wading or out in the surf etc. - I used these simple eyelets here, if I can make them work then you definitely can! - and none of the areas around eyelets have shown any increased wear and tear (don’t go doing this if you don’t need to though). There are various pockets around the bag into which you can put things like a measuring tape or that little bits and pieces folding tackle box which comes with the bag. As a nice and easy, doesn’t annoy me at all when I am fishing or moving around type of side-bag for carrying my lures, I am really pleased with this Westin W4 Super Finesse (lure) bag. It has to fall apart one day with saltwater use especially, but about half a year of decent use and it’s all holding up very well so far. You all have a good weekend, here’s me hoping that last weekend’s England rugby disaster was a mere blip on the path to World Cup glory next year!!!

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