On summer break before his Senior year of high school, Matthew Ikeda accepted my plea to test some of the oldie but goodie JDM whipping lures and give his feedback on an Anetik shirt. I had previously posted about the lures we had tested that day here.
Matthew:
A little while ago, Scott messaged me wanting to find a test spot for some JDM lures. We played around with a few options at first, but not wanting to show any landmarks, we chose a secret-not-so-secret spot that we were sure wouldn’t upset anyone. When Scott picked me up, he gave me an Anetik hoodie to try for the day. The sun was high and scorching by the time we arrived at the spot, so the semi-porous fiber of the shirt felt pretty good. I decided to start off with a Duo Tide Minnow Slim SSR, which was around four inches and in a pearl color. It casted well, despite there being a crosswind and its lack of an internal weight transfer system. In the murky water, the pearl color really stood out and because of its enticing side-to-side action, I felt confident using it.
This spot is extremely dependent on the tide, so I was wondering if the tide was right for the Papio that sometimes run through. I began getting bites from Kaku early on, but there was no sign of the target species. The tide was rising fast, so I was depending on the influx of water to bring the fish into the canal. I got my wish 20 minutes later, when I felt a violent take that nearly ripped the rod out of my hands. I set the hook and let the fish take its first run. With the headshakes, power, and quick movements of the fish, I was pretty sure that I had just hooked a nice Papio. As I brought it closer in, I could see that I was correct. It was a good-sized white Papio (GT), larger than any I had hooked at this spot before. I babied the fight on the way in, unsure of how secure the hooks were, but the Papio eventually got tired. I grabbed the line and pulled it over the wall, landing the fish. Scott took some pictures, recorded a short video, and it was released back into the nasty water.
We fished pretty unsuccessfully for the rest of the time, as the bite went completely dead. We were just wrapping up when I got another bite. I set the hook and my rod crumbled. Shocked, I reeled the fish in with half of a rod, and I was pretty disappointed to see that the fish was just a snagged tilapia. It really sucked because the rod was my go-to O’io rod for the longest time, and there was a lot of sentimental value to it. To break a favorite rod on such a trash fish sucks, but that’s fishing I guess. In all, it was a good trip but the broken rod kind of killed the vibes.
Reviews:
The Anetik Remix Tech long-sleeved shirt had great ventilation and felt soft. I never felt like I was sweating despite the midday sun. It fits my body well and is better at adapting to slightly different sizes than some other brands. It comes with a hoodie and drawstrings if you need to tighten it. One thing that the Anetik shirt does lack is a face covering. Nearly all of my fishing shirts come with a face covering (attached to the shirt) that I can cover my face with. If you need to cover your face while wearing the Anetik hoodie, you will need to buy a separate face buff, either from Anetik or another brand. However, Anetik shirts have some of the softest material I’ve felt while also fitting me perfectly, making it worth the hassle. The sizes tend to be small, so you may need to buy one size larger than usual. For example, I am normally a “large” but I needed an “extra large”. Rating: 9/10, just find a buff to go with it.
The Duo Tide Minnow Slim SSR is an intriguing lure. It has a thin profile that matches a lot of our young baitfish. Some other common lures like Rapala X-Raps have fatter midsections, which I’m not too fond of. It casts well despite not having an internal weight transfer system and moves well in the water without needing too much attention. It dives around 1-2 feet deep. Lighter lures like these are good, but are best suited for harbors, canals, and calm areas without wind and choppy surfaces. In other terms, I wouldn’t use it anywhere with waves and lots of water movement. Lures like these would probably struggle to cast directly against the wind, due to the lack of the weight transfer system. However, when used in the right areas, or casted downwind, it should be very successful. Rating: 8/10, need to use it in a calm area.
Again, nice fish! Me and the few friends brave enough to fly fish the canal have noticed the same, that it seems to bite best on an incoming tide, but closer to the peak. I believe because it’s an inlet, the tide has to be way up, and rising for a few hours, in order for the fish to be encouraged to go all the way up into the canal. Just a theory, though.
The white does stand out well, but a theory we fly fisherman have is black (believe it or not) actually has the best contrast in low visibility conditions. Check this link out, you may find it interesting!
https://riverbum.com/blog/fly-color-selection/
I like your theory as to why rising, high tide seems to work best for the big fish in the canal Jason.
And the theory about using black in off color water is interesting. Presenting a color they expect versus some unnatural color that stands out.
I’ve found that bone or whitish colored near surface lures work well in off color water, and clear bodied lures work well in very clear water. The theory behind clear bodied lures is that the fish can’t make out the full profile of the lure, they just see the commotion the lure makes and think it’s a small bait fish.
For lure testing, any high contrast lure that the video can pick out is best for viewing but maybe not for fish catching.
-scott
Agreed – there is also the saying that flies and lures are made to attract the fisherman, and not the fish 😉
That said, my belief is the fish can’t hit what it can’t see, unnatural or not, so i personally tend to err on the side of visibility in murky or low light. I suspect fishing at or near the surface where light penetration is better makes it less a concern. A friend who mostly targets cudas seems to prefer bright, colors like orange or chartreuse, so clearly more unnatural colors can also work. In the end we do not know what the fish really sees or is thinking when it decides to commit.
On a related note, some of my most successful flies for bones, both for sight and blind casting are often partly or even all orange. There are nothing natural where i fish that is all orange, yet i regularly out fish guys using more natural colored flies.
With swimming plugs, we’re definitely trying to trigger a reaction bite, so if the fish see the lure, and the swimming pattern looks like a fleeing bait fish but not too unnatural, that’s the best we can hope for.
Fly fishing with bones, you have to be more concerned about spooking the target fish than we do, because of how wary they are in vulnerable, shallow water, I’m guessing.
m
Yeah, for bones the fish definitely have more time to inspect the fly. I think when we target papio and kaku (any preds, really), we take the same approach, we just want something it can see and react to, and if it’s the right fish, a lot of the time that is enough.