Last year, my ideal box consisted of five lures, two soft lures and three swimming fish. This year, it's a bit different: I still have two soft lures, two swimming fish and a vibrating blade, plus a joker, a jig. Of course, I didn't fish with just these five lures. Like every year, I tried a lot of different things. But the complicated weather conditions this year, with water often cloudy, pushed me to use vibrating blades.
Talashad
Like last year, the Talashad, which I've often mentioned in my articles, comes out on top. It's a lure made in Brittany, near Port-Louis, by the Astufish brand. An imitation sandeel, with heads of different weights, the 45-gram head being the one I've used the most. Mainly in search of pollock, I also caught sea bass, old cod, pout and even squid with it. As the fish were often on the bottom, I used the Texan rig version, with a new hook, large and reinforced. Some good fishing on detections too, with quite a few fish hooked on the way down.
Slug-go
The second soft lure is a 6-inch Lunker city Slug-go body combo in Alawife color (gray back and white belly) mounted on an Astufish profyler head (bullet head). Numerous bass caught on it as well as some nice old ones and a few lees, on scratch fishing, with good results on bottoms of 10 to 15 meters.
Deep Diver and 3 DB Jerkbait
As far as swimming fish are concerned, it's no surprise that the same fish as last year really stand out. Yo Zuri's 110 mm Deep Diver, the sardine and mackerel colors top the charts. Both on the tip of Brittany and on the Pornichet coastline, the bars couldn't resist. And this year, in the Brest harbor, we had a very good return of bonito. We fished on the hunt, trolling, with the aim of estimating the movement of the shoal and cutting it off. Quite a sporty technique, as bonito are fast fish. I was able to catch several dozen over several trips, with fish weighing between 2 and 4 kilos.
The 3DB Jerkbait in 110 mm from Yo Zuri is the lure of my box. It swims in the top layer and is a suspender. It works equally well as a trolling, casting or retrieving lure. Even if it doesn't throw very far, it does throw far enough to work the surface chases of bonito and bass, as it did this summer. He was also formidable on bonito and once hooked, very few stalls during the fights. Of course, I removed the hook from the middle of the body.
Spin tail Crazee
The newcomer to this ranking is a spin tail, a type of jig with a back attachment and a paddle tail, from Crazee. Fishing conditions were often turbid this year. In these conditions, the use of a jig with paddle often made the difference on bass and pollack mainly, with a few cephalopods too. The Iwashi (blue) and Hot Pink (pink) colors stood out.
Mini Ultra Calmero
The joker in the box is a jig, Yo Zuri's mini Ultra Calmero, a floating jig mounted in tataki method on top of a classic jig, itself mounted on top of a 60-80 gram sinker. The orange and pink colors worked well, with the bottom color generally for cuttlefish and the top color for squid.
As is often the case, we fill our lure boxes generously, but for once on the water, we only use a few. Every year, we say to ourselves that we're going to reduce the number of lures we use, but we can't help it, they're each prettier than the next, the angler is weak...
