Would you use a sinking surface lure? (Because surely a surface lure needs to float. Or does it?)

I talk to and listen to a lot of different anglers via my fishing and working in fishing, but there are a select few people who when they say something about fishing I listen that little bit more. A bloke I know has a lot of experience fishing (sinking) lures like the discontinued Bass Bullet as essentially a surface lure in heavy surf conditions, plus he has fished a hell of a lot for striped bass over in the US so he’s actually done it rather than unrealistically worship at their altar - and when I showed him the ridiculously long-casting and sinking surface lure that is the Samson Bomb 30g, he said something that I thought was rather interesting…………

I would imagine that Grant of Samson Lures took a lot of inspiration from the US striped bass scene when he designed the Samson Bomb, and I would also imagine with his global fishing experience the fact that a surface lure doesn’t have to float didn’t worry him for a second. I have fished for striped bass a bit from the shore in the US, and I quickly learnt to adopt their “rod tip up and between the legs and shake/tap it” style of fishing with heavy, sinking Pencil Poppers which as their name suggests are surface lures. As per my YouTube video below, it’s a really easy way to fish surface lures and it works just fine for our bass when our heavier/larger surface lures are at range especially.

But a killer surface lure like the Xorus Patchinko floats of course. Whilst we can work various surface lures in a bunch of different ways, you don’t need to do very much to most of them to get them doing at least something across the top. A sinking surface lure obviously needs a bit more to keep it up on the top and walking or splashing across the top, but the obvious payoff is that something like the 30g Samson Bomb covers an obscene amount of water and copes well with some hectic conditions. How applicable this is to a lot of UK and Irish bass fishing depends on various factors, but at the very least it’s interesting to be able to cover water like this. Using that striped bass style retrieve is worth a look because even with a sinking surface lure you can actually fish them pretty slowly if need be, and in some situations almost hold them in place while you keep them splashing. Grant in the video below knows his stuff.

So this bloke who I really listen to said something interesting to me when he saw my 30g Samson Bomb - along the lines of why not deliberately allow the lure to sometimes sink a bit before picking up the retrieve again? I can’t pretend that I have tried this very much because crosswinds especially make doing something like this hard to control, but again I think it has to be a method worth exploring because with the same type of lure you are getting a bit of sub-surface action combined with up on top and splashing away. I will admit to an increased interest in trying this out because I have some stunning sinking and indeed floating surface lures here which are due to hit the shops sometime in the near future, but as good as the floating ones all cast it’s almost silly how much water the heavier, sinking versions cover. Lures which cut through wind that bit better will tend to appeal to me because of where and how I do a lot of my bass fishing.

Me with a striped bass in the US, caught on a (sinking) Pencil Popper surface lure

Do any of you deliberately fish sinking surface lure? Do any of you happen to fish them with a bit of sub-surface AND surface action? Does the idea of a surface lure which sinks bother you because you could snag your (sinking) lure if you don’t get control of your mainline fast enough over shallow ground especially? Am I barking up a wrong tree by thinking of sinking surface lures as surface lures which can be fished on the surface but sometimes offer me something a little different?

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