Penn Spinfisher Fixed Spool Reel: SSV3500 Spin

So, another season and another new reel! What I hear you cry? Are you mad? What happened to all the others you've had?

Truth be told, is that the supposedly waterproof Alcedo lasted longer than most, but ultimately failed (twice). First time the spool jammed (and what else I don't know). Secondly the handle broke (rivet actually wore out, therefore unfixable). Italia fishing charmingly charged me £4 to send me my old handle back. Thirdly, the spool head lifting mechanism, that basically is a piece of metal with a groove in it for a pin on the main cog, shattered into pieces. This last one can only be down to poor quality alloy casting.  Quite a mess, as you can see:

The wrecked gears of a two year old Alcedo Aluminum MTC Match Reel

Now I could send good money after bad, thinking along the lines that having one wrecked reel will do for spares for the new one. But what if this is a design fault? Can't buy spares for them. To be fair to Alcedo, their Marine Spin reel (also reviewed on this site) has fared much better and is still going OK. But I felt it was time for a change.

Never really got on much with Penn fixed spools in the past. Always seemed a bit like dinosaurs from another (all metal) age; strong but too heavy, with a somewhat agricultural line lay and gearing.  But last year Penn released a new watertight version of their Spinfisher series.  The new spec has one or two nifty features, and I feel the time has come to have another look at their latest reel.

Penn SSV3500 Spin

The baby of the series is still a pretty hefty beast. Penn seem to think their sizing should be a size larger than everybody else's for some reason, so for most of us a 3000/3500 size reel might be around the 300g mark or less. Not the SSV3500, on my scales this reel comes in around 412g mark (without line), so around an extra 4oz will be in your hand all day when casting. But does this matter, if we get five years out of it?  Is the extra weight a sign of robustness? Only time can tell, and I must admit that I don't really notice the extra weight so far.

SSV3500 between the Abu Cardinal Saltwater 174i (left) and the Alcedo Marine Spin 5000 (right).  The Penn reel is heavier than both and just marginally smaller than the 5000 sized reel.

The Penn SSV3500 feels smoother than previous Spinfishers that I've owned. Annoyingly, there is still a bit of play on the reel handle, something that you don't tend to find with brand new reels around the £100 mark (admittedly the SSV3500 is just short of that) but overall the reel is smooth and feels hefty and strong. The reel has the usual number of bearings, though Penn do stress that these are sealed and corrosion resistant.  However, I've never had the bearings on a reel fail.  For me, it's always the internal gears that go first, and saltwater ingress is the problem there. Hopefully the 'watertight' construction of the Penn SSV3500 will stop that being the first point of failure.

The reel's drag is also sealed and seems smooth.  This is important, as the reel has no reverse, it's in permanent anti-reverse mode.  If you like to play fish using the reverse rather than the drag, this might not be the reel for you.  For me, I grew up trout fishing and have always played fish using the reverse gear of the reel. This was partly down to the poor quality of fixed spool drags 30 years ago. They were unreliable, sticking things that were best screwed down tight and forgotten. But modern sealed drags are different. They are reliable and smooth, and the arguments for maintaining a reverse gear on the reel are not as strong. Finally, it must be said that playing trout out on a mountain river using your reel's reverse is one thing. Trying to control the heart stopping plunge of a big pollack at sea using a reel's reverse gear is not going to happen.  What is certain to happen is a breakage of something!

There is one killer feature I love on this new reel (other than it being watertight): a friction stop on the spool head when the bail is open. This is such a simple idea, but it effectively stops any chance of the reel handle swinging round and triggering the bail arm to close during a cast.  For the vigorous casters out there, we've all had to suffer snap offs with expensive braid and watched our expensive Japanese plugs disappear into the distance. I reckon this should cure it. Yes, it's a friction stop. So you can force the handle to turn and it will trigger the bail arm to close as normal, but it encourages you to flick the bail arm over yourself after casting which I have always considered a good habit to get into.

The reel itself comes with a nice parts plan and helpful instructions on filling the spool / line lay (more below):

Ah yes, the line lay. This is probably the only weak point of the reel. Never been a strong point of Penn's in my opinion compared to the Japanese competition, and frankly it is a bit "rustic" if you get my drift. To be fair, Penn do supply some washers with instructions on how to fix the line lay if it tapers in either direction. But I'm mystified why they can't build it so that the line lay is straight? Most decent reels just work straight off, with no adjustment needed. I'm not sure what's going on here, and sure enough, I filled up my reel with 13lb Grauvell Teklon Gold Mono that has a diameter similar to most 8lb mono and the line lay ended up tapered with a slight gap under the top lip of the spool and narrow at the top than the bottom:

The less than stellar line lay of the Penn SSV3500.

I did as suggested and fitted a narrower washer to the base of the spool and we'll have to see if it rectifies the line lay over the course of the next trip. It might not be an issue, but it does seem a bit odd to have to do this on a brand new reel.

So do I recommend the Penn SSV3500 for sea kayak fishing? Not yet, it needs to last a couple of seasons first! But from the spec, the reel ticks most of my boxes for sea kayak fishing.  It needs to be watertight and saltwater proof. These are the absolute minimum requirements for sea kayak fishing, as our reels get splashed every minute or so when trolling, either by paddles or waves. There's no way to avoid this, so any reel has withstand this treatment. Then there's the price. True, the Penn isn't the cheapest reel out there. But it is the cheapest watertight (not waterproof) reel out there.  Penn do have a good reputation for making reliable, robust reels, albeit at a weight cost!  But if you're considering a new reel for sea kayak fishing, there are very few around that can do the job if you want one that you can use for more than just a season and I'd definitely check it out.

As always, I'll update the review at the end of the season (which is pretty soon now) to let you know how the reel has performed on the sea.

Saltwater-proof spinning reel? First look at the Alcedo Hokkaido Marine Spin 5000

Some of you who know this blog will be wondering if I'm not a glutton for punishment, after previously having difficulty with another Alcedo reel that claimed to be waterproof.  Thing is, firstly their agent for the UK did replace the reel after it jammed, clearly having got saltwater inside. Secondly, the reel was pretty good otherwise.  When I got the replacement, I ignored the silly "you'll void your warranty if you open it up" warnings and applied plenty of good quality reel grease to anywhere I thought the brine could get it.  And so far, it's held up much better than its predecessor.  Not that difficult, I suppose, given the first lasted less than a season.

So why, you might ask, have I gone out and bought another reel from them?  Well, Bill (their agent) did say that they were working on making a saltwater resistant reel (notice the careful wording).  The new reel, the Marine Spin 5000 is pretty much the same reel as the Aluminium MTC, other than its supposed saltwater resistance.  Which means it could be a good thing, given that the Aluminium MTC failed in just a few weak places.  That reel was never waterproof, which is why when the salt got inside, it was doomed to fail as the materials weren't saltwater proof.  The spool jammed, the reel pretty much seized up solid.

Yeah, the handle's big, but it's not that big!  Sorry for the weird "phone camera" perspective!

Anyhow, here we are again.  The Marine Spin is a bigger reel than the Aluminium MTC, so it should handle the hard work of many hours plugging and soft lure work, particularly as some of the lures get up to an ounce  or two.  Surprisingly, the reel is only 100g heavier, which means it works as an ideal replacement for light jigging work where you would generally use a multiplier. Hence I guess the enormous power handle, which looks purpose made for jigging and was one of the reasons I bought it, having lost my previous set up over the side!  But I've also come to the conclusion that even with a spiral ring placement on your rod, using a fixed spool to jig rather than a multiplier is just a lot easier.  The problem to date has been the reliability of fixed spools is nowhere near that of multipliers, particularly in hard marine environments.

Weasel words or the genuine article? We'll see in a few months time.

The Marine Spin 5000 certainly looks the part, handsomely finished in orange and black.  It feels pretty beefy and it should be with a compromise gear ratio of 4.9, which isn't the fastest nor the slowest but should be low enough for winching those scaly beasts up from the depths.  The reel is perhaps not as smooth running as the smaller Aluminium MTC but is perfectly acceptable.  I might feel differently if this was going to be my main spinning reel, but it going to be mostly used for jigging for cod and pollack, so it won't get the huge number of hours of use that a spinning reel gets.  

The handle looks great for hanging on when those heart-stopping pollack-thumps strike without warning.  The clutch seems silky out of the box.  We'll see if starts to stick after a few months of being drenched in paddle and wave splashes.

The line lay with 33lb braid (15kg Power Pro Depth Hunter) is good, no evidence of bedding even when pressure is applied on the retrieve.  The drag seems particularly good, but they always do straight off the production line!  Let's see how smooth it is after a few dunkings in the brine...  :-)  

Although Alcedo, like all reel manufacturers, like to shout about how many bearings etc. the reel has (it has 8), the only thing that really counts for sea kayak fishermen is whether it can keep out the salt.  That remains to be seen.  My new Shimano boat rod has a long handle (so long I took 4" off it - see here), which keeps the reel pretty clear of stray waves.  Of course, when sea kayak fishing, reels always get splashed with sea water, particularly if you're doing a lot of trolling.  They have to be able to withstand that one basic requirement and I'm hopeful that the Alcedo Marine Spin 500 will do just that.  

Like always I'll be reporting back on the reel at the end of the season with an update on how the reel has performed.  

5 trips update!

So far, so good.  Reel has been dunked and splashed in saltwater and is still turning smoothly.  It gets rinsed with freshwater after each trip but I'm pleasantly surprised.  The drag remains pretty smooth (slight stickiness on higher kg loads, but hasn't failed me when getting hit hard by big pollack) and it's proved itself capable of winching up some big cod..  No visible signs of rust anywhere yet and the body coating has taken a far battering.  

The end of season update will follow in the winter months.

End of season update

Done ok this reel.  Slight stiffness on picking it up after the winter period, but used it all through 2014 so far and it seems fine.  Had several dunkings in the brine, still holding up.  Thumbs up so far!

Battered but hanging in there, so far so good after its 2nd season.

Shimano Vengeance Slim Boat Rod 6-12lb: review

After losing both rod and reel over the side, it is time for a new rod.  There isn't a huge choice out there for sea kayak fishermen.  Most of the UK market is concerned with boat angling, which implies you're fishing 4 feet or more out of the water, hence the standard length of eight and half feet.  Rather oddly, the Japanese and French boat rods are often much shorter, between 7-8ft, which makes them a good length for a kayak.  Unfortunately, many of these are very expensive, in order of several hundred pounds and for kayak fishing that just spells madness, as it's (ahem!) always possible you might lose it over the side in a moment's carelessness or through no fault of your own.

Slim?  American slim you mean?!

Sea kayak fishermen ideally want cheap rods that can stand a good deal of rough treatment.  As we all know, there's no worse environment for tackle than on a sea kayak.  If the salt doesn't get them, then the sand and grit will!  The second requirement is length.  You can't use a long rod (i.e. 9ft or more) comfortably on a kayak, as you are so close to the water it can make trying to land a fish nigh on impossible except by grabbing the line and hauling it in by hand.  The maximum length you want is just enough to get the tip of the rod past the nose of your kayak, for those cases like when you're trying to free up a snag on a quick drift, when you quickly need to move the line over to the other side.  For my new kayak (Stealth 575), this unfortunately means I'll have to fish with something around the 8ft mark. Far longer than I would generally recommend.

The handle is far too long on this rod.  Think about it, for a 6-12lb rod, do you really need the extra length to stick in your belt so that you can winch fish up?  No, the handle need be no longer than your down to your elbow.  As you can see, the blank is anything but slim, particularly at the tip.

My final requirement was that the rod should be less that £70.  Even that is pushing it a bit. After all, we're talking about a stout stick to haul cod, pollack and mackerel out of the North Sea, not some state of the art carbon wand to flick feathers at an overfed trout in a chalkstream! Given all of these, there isn't much out there. Again, many rods are broken at the handle, rather than mid-length.  This is supposedly for reasons of action.  Please see my argument about winching cod up.  Most of us are just not that bothered.

So what did I end up with? Shimano Vengeance Slim Boat Rod 6-12lb from Gerry's (great service, BTW).  For £44 you get a bog standard parabolic action boat rod.  Surprisingly for a UK rod (well OK, a Japanese rod!), the rating is actually pretty close to what it says.  Most UK boat rods are way too stiff and strong.  Would I recommend this rod for sea kayak fishermen?  Yes.  It's not great, it's cheap and cheerful. You pays your money, you gets what you asked for, see?

Pros:

• Rated 6-12lb, and it actually is 6-12lb!
• Duplon / EVA foam type handle
• Cheap

Cons:

• Handle is way too long.  I had to cut 4" off mine to make it usable in the kayak.
• Slim?  This rod blank is not much slimmer than any other boat rod.
• Two piece?  Not really, one very long piece, one short piece.  Makes storing and fitting it into the boot of your car difficult.  In fact it won't go in my boot.
• Soft parabolic action.  Why do manufacturers think this is what boat anglers want?  How does a soft through action help when you're trying to jig a cod lure 100ft down?  It doesn't.  Give us tip action rods, please!

You might think there are more cons than pros for this rod.  But as I say, it's about the best out there for the price.  There isn't much to choose from in all honesty, so until a rod manufacturer sits down with some experienced sea kayak anglers and asks them what they want, I guess we'll still be in this situation for the next few years.  Things will change I hope, but kayak fishing is still relatively young as a sport.  It's time will come!

 Tight lines to all those fishing.

UPDATE!

Well after just several trips over a few months, the tip eye broke its lining.  Unbeknown to me, I lost three full rigs and about a hundred yards of expensive braid due to the broken tip eye lining having a sharp edge and cutting through the line.  Very unhappy, as you can imagine.  And I wasn't that happy with the rod to begin with!  Not impressed with the quality, but I guess you get what you won't pay for and it ending up costing me half the price of the rod in lost tackle.  I look over the rings shows that many of them have also started to rust.

Given the poor quality components, I'm changing my recommendation on this rod to "Don't buy".   It's just not tough enough for kayak fishing.

Weedless jigging rig for cod and pollack

This time of year is prime for the spring cod run in the north east, before the dreaded May "bloom" kicks in and kills the fishing somewhat. If you've visited this blog before or searched for cod rigs, you'll know that I gave up using the traditional pirk plus hokkais combination some years ago.  Even when you rigged the pirk with an assist hook, you still ended up with quite a bit of tackle losses as a result of fishing close to the bottom, especially if on a fast drift or over a big swell.

Lots of different ways to store a pirk
plus hokkai rig - simplest is just to wrap
it round and tie it with a rubber band.

The bog standard pirk plus hokkais rig used all
over the north east for cod.

Tackle losses are to be expected in such conditions, but after I replaced the pirks with a big jelly shad (5") and a heavy lead head, I lost far less tackle due to the shad tending to rest on its head or side when it hit the bottom, so the exposed hook had less chance to get stuck into anything.

I also found the big shad attracted a better stamp of fish.  This fish had a few goes at a Storm Giant Jigging Shad before ending up in the yak.  Sometimes if you feel a nip, it's wise to reel in and check they haven't bitten the tail of your jelly lure, thereby rendering it useless.

Unfortunately, although we lost fewer rigs overall, that improvement tended to be offset by the far greater initial cost of the big shads compared to a traditional pirk.  Even with home cast lead heads and cheap jelly bodies, we still weren't curing the problem because no matter how well designed the lead head is, if the hook is exposed, there is every chance that you come up against the kayak fisherman's worst enemy: the pot rope!  Even if your fishfinder shows these up in mid-water, on a fast drift / tide it can be hard to get your tackle up in time to avoid them and the fishfinder doesn't always pick them up when they're close to the bottom.

Homemade shad heads: expect heavy tackle losses and arm yourself with enough for the year!

My plan this year is to go with all jelly lures and by rigging the whole lot weedless, to hopefully end up with a snag proof rig that'll avoid the bottom snags as well as avoiding the pot ropes.

First stage is to look for a replacement for the hokkais.  Hokkais are simply a better form of the old fashioned mackerel or cod feathers.  Yes, they have glowing beads and a few glittery bits, but basically it's the same idea that is very difficult to rig weedless.  Luckily, over the last decade or so, ultra light rock fishing has become popular in Japan (and here too).  This has meant we now have an excellent choice of tiny paddle tail jelly lures that can be rigged weedlessly.  These are the Reins Rockvibe Shad 2" UV Super Glow B63 and the slightly larger 3" Neon Wakasagi:

These are from the Reins freshwater range, with the right hook they can be rigged weedless.  

So that's hopefully going to cure the pot rope snags.  It's true that these won't have the resistance that hokkais do, but even hokkais get torn up after a few mackerel.  The tiny paddle tails are cheap (10p each) and easy to replace.

Now to cure the shad problem.  I still want a big paddle tail, but there's not much out there that can be easily rigged weedless.  But early last year, my prayer's were answered when the first "daddies" of the Fiiish Black Minnow range came on sale.  At 16cm, it's quite a long lure (a near perfect launce imitation in my opinion), and with a maximum head weight of 60g it remains to be seen whether they'll keep their depth in a really big tide or an uptide drift: 

The big daddy of the Fiiish Black Minnow range, 160mm with a 60g offshore head. The perfect launce  imitation?

As we know big launce love baby sandeel and sandeel imitations (I frequently catch them on hokkais), it makes sense to rig them so that it gives the appearance of a launce chasing a smaller sandeel.  Generally it's the bottom sandeel imitation that the pollack grab, while the bigger cod nearly always hit the bottom shad.  I stick to just three sandeel imitations, any more than that and you're asking for trouble when the mackerel hit it in numbers.

That's it!  Hopefully a cod and pollack jigging rig that is snagproof on the bottom and against pot ropes.  Of course if you're travelling at pace, I would still expect the tiny paddletails to snag up against a rope as the soft lure only barely covers the hook point. We'll see. I'm confident it'll catch, and I'm confident it'll be better than the rig I was using last year, where every hook on the shad or hokkais was exposed.

And that's what it's all about isn't it?  Trying to do things better, to make it easier to catch more fish.

Tight lines for the coming season!

Savage Gear Hang Lure Bag: a decent lure bag for kayakers?

Some of you will have seen my review of the ill-fated and badly designed Sukara Lure Bag from last year.  The Sakura bag was designed for boat fishing, so it is less than ideal for kayaking, sitting a bit too high on the deck making hard to secure the bag to the deck in the event of capsize and which might impede trying to get back onto the kayak after such an event.  So less than ideal, but the Sakura bag scored low in several other areas.

Despite being advertised as a "lure wash bag", the Sakura bag failed to get lures dry after rinsing the salt off.  Plugs stayed wet for days unless the clear plastic tubes were physically taken out of the bag and left somewhere the air could circulate through them.  The bag also had some annoyances, such as a lack of space for soft lures, no dedicated small pockets for clips etc, and nowhere for items like the pliers.  The mesh bag on top was difficult to access and exposed to sea water.

However, I lived with these issues, using the bag all last season.  What rendered the bag unusable was that even with rinsing, all the zips corroded and eventually broke off.  Leaving me with a useless piece of junk that lasted less than a single season.  Not impressive.  So, a new lure bag needed for the kayak.

Before I begin, I must state that in all honesty, I have hunted widely across the internet and I've yet to find a purpose-designed lure bag for saltwater fishing from the yak.  One that allows easy access for both soft and hard lures, that prevents lure tangles, has exterior pockets for small items like clips and pliers, and most importantly of all, allows easy rinsing and drying of those expensive lures.  It goes without saying that it should be completely saltwater proof.  Which generally means no zips.  It would help if the manufacturer also provided something to fix or tie the bag onto the kayak - but now I'm really asking too much, so let's see what I found instead!

Savage Gear Hang Lure Bag - first impressions
The bag's a nice colour for freshwater fishing though for sea fishing I generally prefer something more visible.  The size looks like a reasonable compromise, this is not the bag to store racks of 200mm butterfly jigs or pirks, but it should take most hard lures up to 175mm.  Anything longer than that can still be stored in the separate plastic lure box that comes with the bag (see below).  The bag comes with a shoulder strap not shown in the photographs.  I'm afraid I can't report how comfortable it would be to wear over any distance, as the first thing I did was remove the shoulder strap!  But I'd be surprised if it was great.  At the end of the day, it's a big square box banging against your hip, so it's never going to be particularly comfortable.

The bag has a single Velcro fastening.  While I generally approve of Velcro in saltwater environments, the design of this "flap" does mean that you can't get a really tight closure on the bag.  In theory it should be fine for larger lures, and I don't see anyone using the lure tubes for anything other than lures over 65mm.  Smaller than this and you probably want to store them in the box, as there is a slight gap when you pick up the bag (especially by the handle, less so if you use the shoulder strap) between the lid and the top of the tubes.

On one side of the bag is a large open pouch made from a hook-proof mesh / netting material.  This pouch looks like it'll be great for items like pliers or a priest, as it can be accessed quickly and easily.  But if you do capsize, anything that's in there will end up decorating the sea bed.

  

On either end of the bag are smaller pockets. At first I thought these might be handy for pliers, as one of these will face me when fishing. Unfortunately they are an odd shape, quite narrow with one of them obscured by the shoulder strap fitting, a pair of pliers "disappears" out of reach, so probably not particularly useful.

Inside the box, there are the standard lure tubes.  This time with heavier duty plastic than with the Sakura bag, with both square and large triangle tubes.  This seems to be the only solution anyone has come up with storing long hard lures.  However, hanging lures vertically isn't great for access.  Savage Gear, to be fair, have cut some of the tubes at angles to try and let you see a bit more of lure, but the solution is still a poor one.  In addition to this, tubes are hopeless if the bag is dropped or banged, as half of them fall to the bottom of the tubes.  One solution to this by American manufacturers is to cut "v" grooves into the top of the tubes, so the hooks will rest in there and not swing around the tubes quite so much.  Savage Gear haven't bothered, in my drop test, most of the lures ended up at the bottom of their tubes.  Another issue with big tubes is the waste of space, which encourages you to try and put two lures to a tube.  Tangled treble hooks await.  But what can a man do with 30 or 40 hard lures to store?

One feature I do like is the inclusion of the traditional lure box.  This is much better than having just tubes - gives you somewhere to put soft baits and other small terminal items.

The lure box is well made, with removable partitions inside, giving you quite a bit of flexibility.  I put loose items and shook and dropped the box.  No damage and no "migration" of even small items, like clips and split rings to other compartments.  Good strong box that I suspect is pretty waterproof at least against splashes and I'm pleased to see this included in a hang bag.

With the box out, you can see the mesh used for the body of the bag.  Like the Sakura bag, I guess the idea is rinse your lures in the bag.  My experience with this is not a happy one; lures just don't dry out.  But the mesh on the Savage Gear Lure Hang Bag does look like it will let the air flow better, so we'll have to see.  

One thing I don't like about the lack of a stiff partition between the section of the bag is that once you take the box out, the bag loses all rigidity and the lure tubes are prone to falling over.  This is certainly going to be a nuisance on the kayak, where things need to stay put.  Just a little stiffening of the central partition would have made all the difference here.  You really don't need anything that can make life complicated on a kayak, and if the tubes fall over in rough weather while you're trying to find a lure in the box, well, you can guess the rest...

The large triangular tubes are good for grouping lures of a similar type together, there seems to be enough space to separate them as this little shoal of Megabass Zonks demonstrates...

The square tubes cut at an angle don't permit sharing so comfortably, and this looks like a tangle waiting to happen.  If there were "V" notches cut into the tops of the tubes, it would help hold the lures in place.

The underside of the bag shows how the strap passes underneath the section carrying the box - something to bear in mind if you take everything out of the bag after a rinsing (i.e. don't put the tubes in that partition).  The strap is probably the best place to try and sew a couple of loops on so that the bag can be secured to the kayak.  However, the lack of fastening points on this bag, coupled with the lack of rigid sides, are perhaps the two weakest features of the bag for kayak fishing.  The whole bag goes a bit floppy when the box is removed.

Verdict
Without doubt the Savage Gear Lure Hang Bag is an improvement of the Sakura Lure Bag for kayak fishing.  It pretty much beats it in every compartment, though perhaps that isn't such a great compliment given how badly the Sakura Lure Bag dealt with a salt environment.  However, the Savage Gear bag is far from perfect for kayak fishing and it has one or two areas that could be improved.

Particularly for the kayak angler, I'd like to see the whole bag a bit more rigid with the addition of some fastening points on the bottom  of the bag to let it be securely attached to the surface of the kayak.  I'll obviously end up creating my own solution for this as I did with the Sakura Lure Bag, but for example,just a simple loop (or doubled section) on the carrying strap that goes under the bag would let you tie it to the kayak to prevent it getting washed overboard.  This is an important consideration; after all, these lure bags can easily contain several hundred pounds worth of lures and it would be nice to see manufacturers think more about the different contexts in which lure bags might be used.

Of course, if your kayak has a large central hatch, none of this matters and the Savage Gear Lure Hang Bag is probably a good choice.  For example, it fits perfectly into the front hatch of my new Stealth Pro Fisha 575 kayak.  These days I have replaced the triangular lure hangs with another box for my softs, but the bag itself is a good size for that hatch.

The good:

• versatile combination of lure tubes and a quality lure box (excellent for soft lures)
• zip-less design, therefore presumably salt proof
• good size for kayak fishing
• mesh netting should let air pass through bag to dry lures after rinsing (not tested)
• large mesh panel on side will be handy for quick access to things like camera, pliers, etc.

The bad:

• no fastening points on base of bag to attach to kayak
• no stiffener between partitions means bag loses rigidity when box is removed, in fact the bag is something of a liability without the box in it
• lure tubes lack "V" notches to help lures stay in place
• slight gap between lid and top of tubes when lifted by the handle

I'll be updating this review at the end of the 2012 season to let you know how the bag performed, until then, tight lines to all those fishing!

Duo teaser!

It's that time of year when my sponsor dips generously into their pockets and sends me a mysterious box.  I always love seeing this box arrive at the main desk, with quizzical looks from all around, especially when I pick it up and shake it to hear those tungsten weights rattle!!

This time I put in some special requests for both sea and freshwater lures, and sure enough there was a pile of beautiful fishing jewels wrapped in newspaper for me!  I quickly got my phone out, put a few on my desk and started snapping pictures...

Starting with the incredible Spearhead Ryuki in 45S and 50S.   I intended to use these for trout up in the dales, but when I saw that Ayu pattern, I have a feeling these will be dynamite for bass on those hot days when nothing seems to work!

You can really feel how compact these are in the palm of your hand.

Micro-popping PocoPoco for sea bass?  How about miniature Ikakko squid?  These are tiny (35-45mm), and the white model glows in the dark - nice!

Got some very exciting colours to compare in the LD models.  I've been wanting a dark lure to pitch against a silver one for sunny clear days for some time.  Should be an interesting trial.

Of course, you can't always get out in kayak.  For those days when you're dreaming of the distant horizon, you need the Tide Minnow Advanced line.  145mm of lure bullet!

There'll be opportunity to do a comparison between body shapes and lure lengths, as this overhead shot of the Tide Minnows LD and SLD-F show.

Finally, I borrowed another lure from Duo's freshwater collection, Deep Feat.  This is going to be one of several trolling lures behind the kayak that I'll test this year - it can be an invaluable way to find the fish.  It goes deep, as you can see by that huge bib.  Fitting with some saltwater trebles, I'm sure this will be a killer for pollack and bass in the deeper water.

So this season is some way off, but that gives me plenty of time to get a large bag of split rings and treble hooks, and pair of decent split ring pliers, and get to work fitting these up in preparation for some field tests.

Bring on those summer bass months!

Zombie lures?

Well, I for one had some of the best Christmas crackers I've ever seen this year.  And guess what, inside my cracker our guests had put a Japanese bass plug!  But wait... what is this?

My only experience with Ryobi in the past was with a fixed spool reel around the age of 13.  It fell to bits within weeks, and I moved onto Abu Garcia and that was that.  Fast forward 20 years and I was cajoled into buying a cordless Ryobi Hedge Trimmer and Strimmer.  Despite my previous bad experience and suspicious nature, I relented and we bought it.  It turned out to be a hopelessly underpowered piece of kit. I still have it.  The hedge trimmer will just about tackle a few feet of winter flowering jasmine before giving up in despair at the clematis.  So, you can imagine my foreboding when a gift in the form of a "Japanese" Ryobi sea bass plug fell out of my Christmas cracker!  Still mustn't judge a book by its cover, or look a gift horse in the mouth, etc. etc...

On first appearances, the plug looks like a straight copy of something familiar, such as the IMA Komomo II, a Feedshallow or the Duo Terrif. But on closer inspection it seems to be a strange mix of all of them.

Then on an even closer look at the packaging, the outward appearance to be Japanese is discretely defined as "Designed and engineered in Japan" with "Japanese Owner" hooks.  I'd love to believe even that, but I don't:

I've certainly never seen rust on a brand new Owner treble hook before, and I can't imagine it lasting in salt water long. But there's a first for everything - who knows, it might yet turn out to be a killer sea bass plug.
;-)

Anyone out there have experience of this plug?

Tight lines for those fishing.

Kase Pro Aluminium Lip gripper for sea bass

I've tried several lip grips for sea bass, as handling them in the kayak is one of the least enjoyable aspects of fishing for them. Not only do the smaller fish come armed to the gills with sharp spines (literally - even the gill plate itself has a spike on it!), they can often have what can only be described as a bit of "an attitude" on being landed. Larger sea bass lose that spike on the gill plate, and the spines on their dorsal fin are also less needle-like.  So handling big sea bass is no problem, it's the school bass you have to watch out for and schoolies (2lb-3lb) tend to be what we catch the most.  When your kayaking, it can be heart stopping experience to watch a thrashing fish of any size with three sets of razor sharp treble hooks flapping about between your legs. And I'm not just talking about the prospect of repeatedly puncturing those expensive waders or drysuit!

My first set of lip grippers was the Berkley TEC Pistol Trigger Grip fish handling tool.  Unlike the glowing review on TackleTour.com, my experience was largely one of frustration.  The first fish they had to deal with was a 10lb cod.  Guess what - the Berkley Trigger Grip couldn't get round the lips of the fish!  But worse than this, when I finally got to test it on some smaller sea bass, the bass twisted and spun wrecking their mouths as the jaws of that particular tool do not rotate.  Black mark number two against the Berkley.  I finally gave up on the Berkley when after two trips, despite rinsing it down after each trip, it started to stick.  Yep, the jaws would jam open just at the critical moment, and you would have to try and shake them or knock them against the fish to get them to close.  I was close to throwing the Berkley Trigger Grips in the sea in disgust at one point, but thought some lubrication would sort out the problem.  It didn't.  The tool is just not saltwater proof.

My second try out was the Lipper Fish Gripper.  This looked promising - it's basically an ultra-cheap set of plastic molegrips for fishing.  And they float.  Unfortunately, being plastic, they are too big and clumsy to fit in the small mouths of little bass, and it's the little spiky ones we need to control!  So after that I pretty much gave up, as I couldn't face paying £100 plus for the Eastaboga grips.  And the beautiful Japanese lip grippers for smaller fish that you can find online are even more expensive than the Bogas.

But this year, after contemplating various waterproof / bite proof gloves, I had another go to see if our favourite online auction store could come up with a cheap Chinese version.  Guess what?  It did!  The sellers claim that the Kase Pro Aluminium Lip Grips are Japanese designed for smaller mouthed fish, such as sea bass and sea bream.  Well, after finding them on auction for £37 including P&P I took the plunge. You should be able to pick them up for between £30-40 including UK delivery (Bazlur, who has commented below, has said he was able to find them on ebay for $30 USD - though delivery charges to your country may be different).

The Kase Pro Aluminium Lip Grips come with a stretchy curly cable clip to fasten to your PFD.  Although they are named as aluminium, the item description talks about them being made from a magnesium alloy.  It's not clear which it is.  They are certainly lightweight and strong, and hopefully rust proof.  The grips come with an EVA handle that rotates (not terribly smoothly, but at least it does swivel), allowing the lip gripper to move in the same direction if a fish spins on you, so preventing one way of the lip grippers from ripping holes in the lower jaws of a fish.  The lip gripper's jaws are narrow when closed, but open plenty wide enough for lipping sea bass.

The lippers also come with a rather (over-the-top?) set of scales inside the handle, capable of weighing up to 30lb.  Guess this might be useful for some, for example if you're the type that likes to accurately set your drag.  But given these are specifically meant for smaller fish I think the scales are too strong, and as most of my fish are under the 10lb mark I doubt they will weigh accurately on these.

One interesting feature, which may or may not be a plus point depending on how you use this type of tool, is the long thin "nose" on the upper jaw.  As the upper jaw of the grips doesn't move when you open them up it allows you to get into the mouth of the fish easily before releasing the trigger, even if a fish has its mouth almost closed or the lower lip is blocked by the lure and its hooks.  The fine point of this upper jaw looks like it will be a big help in lipping the smaller fish.

 

All in all, the Kase Pro Aluminium lip grips seem pretty well made and I've only a couple of minor gripes.  The plastic trigger (correct, they don't mention that bit in the item description) could perhaps be better finished, but it's not really an issue.  Perhaps the inside edges of the jaws are a little sharp - rounder edges would damage fish less that you want to return.  I'll confirm how much damage they do at the end of the season (please see below).  But other than that, the spring on the jaws seems good and strong - hard to see this one jamming open - and the jaws lock in the closed position thanks to a one way cam.  Hopefully this set of lip grips is a solution to the risk of getting a stray treble hook embedded in a finger from a lively bass, or the more common problem of my hands looking like I've been uprooting brambles all afternoon, when I was supposed to have been fishing!

Update: It has come to my notice that there is a minor design flaw with these lip grips, in that the swivelling EVA handle can sometimes fail to swivel if the lower threaded alloy ring on the handle is tightened up too far against the EVA.  Unfortunately, just turning the EVA handle on its own can "grip" the lower ring and make it tighten in the same direction, eventually causing the ring to tighten up so hard against the EVA that it stops it turning altogether.  This could easily have been solved if the manufacturers had put a threaded locking nut or ring for the lower alloy ring to tighten up against instead of tightening up directly against the EVA material itself.  The design flaw is more a minor annoyance than a major issue, but I still wanted not to have to keep re-adjusting that lower ring to make the handle swivel, so I put a small spot of araldite on the threads of the lower alloy ring to lock it in a position so that the EVA handle can continue to rotate freely.  This seems to work and the handle rotates without a problem.  Once it's done you can re-calibrate the scales as usual.

Mid-season update on damage to fish: As I mentioned earlier, I'd report back on whether the sharp edges on the inside of the jaws damage fish mouths, and I'm afraid to say that they do.  Sometimes if a fish wriggles about vigorously they can even put a hole through the fish's jaw.  However, the culprit is the sharp edges of the "hooked" inner part of the jaws.  By filing these angular corners smooth and round, the grips work just as well and do far less damage:

By filing off the sharp exterior edges, you stop the tool from putting holes in things it shouldn't, like dry bags and dry suits.

By filing off the sharp interior edges, you stop the tool putting a hole through the fish's lower jaw.

Sealed fixed spool spinning reel for under £100?

Review of Alcedo Aluminium MTC

Alcedo Aluminium MTC 4 year warranty

One of the great problems with kayak fishing is the terrible treatment that is given to your equipment.  Sand, sea water and fish slime are the culprits.  Many kayaks are classed as "wet" rides, in that even with scupper plugs, the sea water comes into the kayak and swills around your feet and where you sit.  Where you keep your tackle will also end up sitting in a puddle of sea water.  Quite often when the fishing is fast and furious, you are equally drifting at speed over shoals of banked up fish.  The quickest way to get back over the shoal is to put your rod and reel between your legs and paddle like mad to get up drift of them.  So both your rod and reel will just end up if not submerged then doused at regular intervals.

This kind of exposure to salt water is a killer for reels.  It reduces shiny new pieces of tackle to rusting, clogged up, scratched up pieces of rubbish only fit for the dustbin.  Worse, it does this in as little as a season.  Given the risk of capsize and possibly losing tackle overboard, many sea kayak anglers choose cheap and cheerful reels and accept they have to be replaced every year.  The only other option is find a reel that is genuinely salt water proof.  But that means fully waterproof.  Just having non-corrosive components or rust-resistant bearings, or even a waterproof drag isn't good enough.  Neither is the old adage of rinsing the reel under a tap when you get home.  Once sea water gets inside a reel, just rinsing it under a tap won't get that salt out.  Instead, the salt gradually attracts moisture to it, and it will eventually rot 95% of gear mechanisms out there.

So what's the solution?  As I said, it has to be a fully waterproof reel.  There are several American manufacturers out there, such as Van Staal, but these reels retail at £400 and more, so they're not an option for kayak fishermen who might lose them overboard!  Van Staal also have their critics in terms of line lay and their noted "agricultural feel".  

However, help is hopefully finally at hand.  Thanks to cheap Chinese manufacturing costs and resourceful Italian design, Alcedo are now offering a waterproof spinning reel that not only retails under £100 but also comes with a 4 year warranty!  Well I had to try one, and I have to say I am very impressed.

Along with excellent line lay, it comes with two aluminium spools with one extra shallow for low diameter braid.  The proudly declare the reel's fully waterproof body and drag system on the body of the reel.  Notice that red stuff over one of the screw heads?

That's the warranty seal.  You even try to open it and bang goes the warranty.  Great - hassle free reel that I just return to claim the warranty!  It seems too good to be true, but the reel's specifications don't stop there.  Very fast retrieve (6:1), ultra-light body casing in aluminium (yes, not plastic like every other Shimano or Daiwa!) which is itself coated in a strange rubbery coating that makes it easy to grip even when cold and wet. 

Not many manufacturers declare their warranty on the body of their reels, do they?  Push release spools show a final warranty seal:

All in all, I can't find anything bad to say about this reel.  Each time I pick it and turn the handle, it feels incredibly smooth and rock solid.  The proof will come at the end of the season, and that's when I'll update this review to let you know how it looks and feels then.  Despite being an incredible reel for its price and in comparison to what else is out there, to justify its price tag to kayakers it needs to last for several seasons and be at least as good as a brand new ultra cheap reel by the end of it.  Only by doing that will it beat the "buy cheap and chuck it" philosophy.  At it's current pricing, the reel would need to probably need to last around five seasons, in order to outlast another favourite among kayak sea bass anglers: the ABU Cardinal Saltwater 174SWi.  This has become my back up reel, it's on its second season and is still performing OK for a third of the price of the Alcedo. 


Mid-season report:  the reel has had quite a few outings now, including an overnight trip where the reel wasn't rinsed off with fresh water at the end of the first day.  Two main problems emerged after that trip.  Firstly, the quick release button on the spool jammed, meaning I couldn't get the spool off.  Eventually after a light tap with a spanner, the button seemed to allow the spool to come off ok.  Secondly, some rust is visible under the rotating head in the join / groove between the head and fixed main body.  The reel did seem a little stiffer, and made a slight rubbing noise initially when I picked it up after the last session.  Added a little T9 lubricant and it seems to have gone.  So far nothing major, but I can see the reel is wearing, the clutch is a little less smooth, one of the body screws has rust in it and so on, minor niggles but I'm a bit sceptical it'll last the 4 years of its guarantee at this rate.  Then again, I can always return it if it does fail.  I'll give you a more thorough analysis of its performance at the end of the season!


End of season report: well, it's not quite the end of the sea bass fishing, but it's the end of the season for this reel, as after a gap of a few weeks I took the reel out of my tackle bag and found that it had completely seized up.  I couldn't even turn the handle! 

The spool also seems to have jammed on and the reel is in a pretty sorry state.  So it seems that it failed to last even a single season of sea kayak fishing.

The photograph below shows what looks like some form of corrosion, even though the reel body is claimed to be aluminium.  From the seal there, it looks to me like sea water got into the casing somehow, so the company's claim that the reel is waterproof doesn't look too good:

Warranty seal intact, unlike the case seal from the look of things..

But the reel is boxed up and ready to return.  We'll see if I get a replacement and if it lasts any longer.  It could be that I had a bad one, or it could be that they just aren't tough enough for sea kayak fishing.

Luckily I still have  a cheap "chuck at the end of the season" reel to fall back on.  Disappointed with the Alcedo though.

Update: I have been in contact with Italia Fishing's representative for the UK who tells me that the reel is not salt water proof, and whereas you or I might infer waterproof means salt waterproof, it doesn't and here is his explanation:

The reel is not guaranteed salt water proof I am afraid,only the inner gears have sealed warranty.  I suspect you will find that the inner gears are perfectly sealed and waterproof, that doesn't however make the reel salt water proof.  It was originally designed in Italy as a fresh water reel( bassing) and the Italians are a little concerned as to its salt water use.  There is definitely one bearing sitting exposed inside the rim which you must not let dry out and will seize if not maintained when the reel is submerged in the salt.

So there you have it.  Unfortunately it is impossible to keep a reel dry on a sea kayak.  In rough conditions, waves will wash over any reel held in the rod holders on a kayak and there's nothing you can do about it.  This reel did seize up completely, and given it's a known issue with the reel, they could provide a little more information about how to protect it if it's to be used in a salt water environment.  However, they have honoured the guarantee provided that any future reel is not submerged in salt water.  That's impossible for me to ensure, so I'll see if I can find a lube that will protect that particular exposed bearing and make it last a little longer than just a few sea kayaking trips!

3 year update:  Well the replacement reel is just about holding together, but then this happened:

Yes, I kid you not. The somewhat cheap and nasty rivet holding the plastic grip to the metal reel handle just wore away, meaning that you could just pull the handle straight out of its socket!  Naturally I wrote to Italia's fishing representative once more to complain, and he quickly pointed out the 4 year guarantee only applies to the inner gears.  But for the cost of its postage, he could get me a replacement handle as I was "a valued customer"!  Guess what?  Yep, you probably already guessed.  He sent me back the handle from the first reel I returned to him, charging me £4 for the postage!!  Well, I guess my even my corroded old handle is better than no handle.  But this particular reel or supplier no longer inspires much confidence.

Shortly after this, the reel finally died suffering internal gear failure.  I haven't replaced it.

Metal gears should never fail like this.  Poor design.