Megawrasse One Up' Xlayer Shad

As cold, uninviting and dark as our winter afternoons become there's always some light at the end of the tunnel making the most of what's left of our sport-fishing year. Yes, fingers get cold, the bites begin to slow and more than ever you find yourself hunting around in the bag for that special lure that's going to be the game-changer of the day. My last couple of sessions on the salt have found me doing exactly that and it feels great when you finally tie on that winner and the action starts to happen. One soft plastic that had worked its way to the bottom of my box of 3-4" lures was one which was only dismissed partly due to its Frankenstein method of creation following a surgical evening  involving some expensive shredded soft plastics that had met their demise during some midsummer wrassing sessions. The lures in question were two of my favourite softies, the Sawamura One Up' Shad and the awesome Megabass X-layer with the magic ayu-green belly, both of which had had weedless hooks ripped from their bodies, chunks bitten from their tails and rattles ripped from within as hungry wrasse had set about their attempted disembowelment. As the year developed and the pocket dwindled I learnt my lesson and cheaper or more robust lures were set aside to fulfil the job in hand. Reluctant to part with my expensive wrassing leftovers I had trimmed and set them aside and when sorting through a box one evening I had decided to experiment with some melting together of random sections to create some new recycled soft plastics. One of my experiments looked like this..

The Megawrasse One Up' X-layer Shad

Anyway, perched on an outcrop and after working my way through a handful of 3" softies to no avail I finally rigged one up on a 7g Decoy Bachi jig head. After no bites for an hour my tasty little creation instantly provoked a response when two hungry garfish, one after another decided they were making it their lunch. Too much of a mouthful for either of them they both managed to shake the hook but nonetheless my One Up' Slayer had heated things up. Shortly after, I had another take; this time much more fierce and after a serious tug-of-war my jig head was spat back with the X layer half still intact and the One Up' tail presumably still in the mouth of a rather large and angry wrasse. The soft tail and join was obviously a downfall of my creation but after all they were leftovers, and luckily I had made 2. At these points during a day's lure fishing I'm still uncertain if it's my game-changing lure that has suddenly made the difference or if, the more likely scenario in my opinion; feeding time has commenced and the fish decide to go nuts. Anyway, after a few more knocks on the Mega One Up' Mk 2 I managed to land a few fish including pollock and this lovely Ballan.

As the tide began to push and conditions changed for the worse I was pushed back along the ledge and scaled down to have some last minute fun with the LRF gear and some Power Isome.

Another following session was less productive with a couple of wrasse favouring the awesome 2" Fin-S Fish in black glitter and a solitary but determined young pollock.

Finally and as things seemed to be slowing down on the salt I had a few hours roaming the riverbank yesterday in hope that the clarity had improved after the awful conditions in the past few weeks. The water was still on the muddy side and after my attempts at the perch and chub on small soft plastics proved fruitless, I was again flicking through my bag in hope of finding a lure that would provoke a response. After a good couple of hours with only a chubby or trouty knock on a small grub I decided to have a go for a pike and got about cuing up a Wave 4" Tiki Paddletail Shad in rainbow trout on a size 3/0 5g jig head. Not having used these lures before I was instantly impressed with the action and combined with the jighead it made a pretty good job of imitating a distressed or injured roach or trout which was exactly what I needed in the conditions at hand. I managed 3 jack pike on my walk back along the ground I had just covered all of which nailed the Wave paddletail with intent and didn't want to let go. This was the largest which put up a great scrap on light gear.

Wave Tiki Paddletail Shads were from AGM which I think were end of the line jobs. The Big Bite 4" Shad looks identical if you're up for giving them a try. 

I'm hoping to get out in the coming week so fingers crossed there'll be another report to come soon.. In the mean time, thanks for reading and good luck if you're getting out there too..