The Eurotackle Z-Spender

Because the Covid19 outbreak is hitting the economy hard and those who stand to lose the most financially are small business owners, I find it pertinent to use this space to promote my friends in the fishing industry. I very rarely use this blog as a platform to try to sell anything, but with trade shows getting cancelled and the economy absolutely tanking, I want to help my fishing friends out in any way I can and this is the best I can do. If we're at all friendly, have chatted on occasion, and you are small business owner who is worried about how things will turn out with this pandemic, please get in touch and let me know what I can do to help.

The Eurotackle brand first found its way into my feed through my now friend and popular multi-species fishing YouTuber Leo Sheng. I was immediately struck by the unique extremely small soft plastics Eurotackle was putting out. I'm not a conventional gear angler in open water but I was getting into ice fishing, so this stuff intrigued me and looked notably different. As more and more people I trusted started talking up Eurotackle, my friend Adam Chabot, a very adept ice fisherman, shared his success with a very unique scud imitation plastic put out by Eurotackle, the Gamma Scud. I promptly ordered some and another micro finesse plastic, the Eurogrub Jr, and had immediate success with them. Fast forward a couple weeks and I fished with Leo for a few days. Ben, the owner of Eurotackle, recognized me from Leo's posts. As it turns out, Ben operates Eurotackle out of his own house in the same town I live in! We got to talking and eventually got together to fish, having a heck of a day hammering trout.

RM Lytle Photo

I like Ben, I've seen what his creative lures can do, and he's as local a company as I can find, so even though I'm lot a lure fisherman, when I asked him if there was anything he'd like me to plug for him and he suggested the new Z-Spender 2" jerkbait I was happy to. I'm a streamer junkie when it comes to, well, most fish that are big enough to eat other fish, and there's really not much difference between that and slinging a slash bait or jerkbait. Sorry purists. The Z-Spender is a cool piece of finesse hardware and it will catch fish. Here it is in a big crappie's face:

I don't care what tackle you fish, if that doesn't get you even a little bit excited, we might not get along very well. Look at that thing, it is a hoss! Early spring crappies like this one can be fickle, and the Z-Spender is a great tool for coaxing them to strike. That goes for any predator species keyed on a smaller profile bait species like darters, shiners, or young of the year perch and herring.

Direct from Eurotackle:
"Unique in the micro jerkbait category, we made our 2 in Z-Spender 1/8 oz and perfectly SUSPENDING which makes it the only one with that specification in its size category.
The profile, one-of-a-kind erratic action, balancing system and realistic or original color patterns all contribute to the incredible fish-catching ability of the Z-Spender.
This deadly package is finished off with two Eurotackle custom treble hooks, designed to increase hookup percentages with superior light-wire penetration.
The lure will excel on Crappie, Trout, Bluegill, Perch, Walleye and Bass.
The Eurotackle Z-Spender is at its best when fished with 3lb. to 6lb. fluoro, with a sweet spot in the 4 and 5 lbs test range. Line diameter will affect the depth it is able to reach and the castability.
Twitch it, Pause it and set the hook!"

The Z-Spender and Z-Cranker in Natura Green UV.

Now, it must be said that I can't vouch for these lures having fished them. I haven't. But I've seen them fished, I've seen them in person, and I have fished some of Eurotackle's other products. I am impressed and I think they fill a niche that needed to be better filled with higher quality products. Eurotackle finesse lures do a better job at something fish haven't seen that much of yet in open water fishing and a better job at something already widely practiced in ice fishing. I like Ben and I like his lures. Give Eurotackle some love if you're looking for some finesse fishing products.

Until next time,

Stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon.

*All photos in this post courtesy Eurotackle unless otherwise captioned.

Going Vertical

Sometimes in salt, there just aren't surface feeds. Scratch that... most of the time there aren't surface feeds. If you go out and depend on seeing birds or breaking fish, or finding bass or blues casting around structure, you are likely to spend a lot of time that you could be catching fish, uh, not. If I'm not chasing down a blitz or actively casting to working bass, blues, albies, or bonito, I'm almost always vertical jigging, and if I'm vertical jigging I'm almost always catching something. I pull it off with a fly rod, relying on inordinate amounts of weight and tying flies on jigs, but I never turn my nose up at using bait, metals, or epoxy jigs on a spinning or conventional outfit either. It really surprises me to see how many people will just motor around hopelessly or sit around not fishing waiting for something to blow up, when they could easily be catching seabass, scup, fluke, or tautog, among other things.

He who sees the future.

A few weeks ago, after covering a bit of ground looking for fish active at the surface, Patrick Barone and I started drifting and vertical jigging a big bowl between a couple reefs. We both started out using jigs, and honestly I almost stuck to that for the rest of the day. We were absolutely slamming scup, BIG scup. Some of these fish were hefty enough to run drag on dogging runs back towards the bottom. I stuck with a crippled herring for a while, which is actually a pretty large metal to be jigging scup with but was working fine. 

Eventually though I caved and broke out the 5wt, hoping with a two fly drop shot rig I might be able to get a double. I know for sue I had a pair on a few times, bit I just couldn't manage to get both up any of the times I got the chance. I also caught smaller fish overall.

We left them chewing there. It was the best scup fishing I'd experienced both in size and in numbers. And they were also mostly very dark, beautifully colored fish, with some cool variations and a few lighter fish mixed in.

Later that week, my good friend Kirk invited Noah and I out after bonito, primarily. We had bonito up in the early afternoon, but to say they were being obnoxious would be an understatement. Despite a couple hours worth of crazy surface feeds and each of our best efforts to catch one of those picky little bastards, we didn't get any.

Once again, vertical jigging was what made the day. Kirk got a couple of really nice black seabass, Noah and I both got plenty of young of the year seabass and average sized porgies, and I even got a tautog on an un-tipped pompano jig.

There were incredible clouds of silversides around that afternoon, and such biomass often draws attention from more than just the typical players. In this case, we were seeing schools of scup underneath the silversides. It as quite a thing to see, and for me the highlight of the day.

If I haven't already hammered the point home...
Why sit around waiting for a blitz that might not happen or burn a ton of gas looking for one when the ocean floor is practically paved with fish, some of which you probably haven't caught, which are readily hooked with quite simple and inexpensive rigs on spinning gear and a little bit of outside-the-box thinking with fly tackle. I could go in depth on my own approaches, rigging, presentation, and such, but honestly it's not that hard. Dive into the idea of trying to catch these fish and it will teach you more than I could possibly do in writing.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

 If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Outfished

I don't like being out fished, particularly on a trout stream by my spin-fishing colleague. Dalton caught seven Brook Trout today on spinners. I managed one. Regardless of the fact that they were all stockers, they were pretty and fought well. One Dalton caught was pushing sixteen inches.

My lonely brookie took a size eight yellow bodied orange soft hackle. When they are attacking other's spinners, this fly is killer. I did get a few good fallfish on a March Brown, and was covering a rise when two beavers went through the pool and shut him off.

Here is the big boy:

Oh, The Hit of a Pickerel

Today I wanted to fish a pond that can only be fly fished from a boat or kayak. Unable to do so today, I traversed the shore throwing spinnerbaits and top water lures. I got one largemouth on the spinnerbait, and one on a jig. Both took next to a sunken tree. Quit a few bass took the Heddon Torpedo.

I love bass, but little can trump the attack of Esox niger on a topwater lure or fly. They come in from the side and turn as they hit, sending an arc of spray into the air. Often the come clean out of the water in the attack. Unfortunately they are good at missing the lure altogether. I lost all but one of the twelve or so that charged the torpedo.

I also saw a bunch of big common carp hanging out in the flats. Some were sipping seeds, Alder Flies (these big caddis like bugs were fairly active, blundering into the surface on occasion) and vegetation

Looks like I'll need to get the dog biscuits and spun dear hair dry flies ready!

It Was Tough

Today my Dalton and I fished a local pond from kayaks. I spent several hours using various fly patterns. I had one obvious carp take on a dragonfly nymph, but jumped the gun. The only option was to switch to a spinning rod and use a Rapala original. I landed a pickerel shortly, than both Dalton and I lost a total of five very good fish without making any mistakes. Why? Who knows. Next time ought to be better. We both are going to try to make it out to Moodus Reservoir. Then maybe I will get my big fly rod bass.

Multi-species at it's Finest

I went back to the lake today, this time with kayaks and my fishing partner, Dalton. We found a fairly and wavy water body, and went for shelter in the lee of an island. First cast with a Rapala Original floating minnow and a big walleye hit. I fumbled and missed. A few casts later and I caught little brother.

Nothing came for the next hour or two, so wen moved to where a pond connects to the lake and docked. Dalton used a wacky worm, and I switched to the fly rod and used a dragonfly nymph. I was rewarded with perch, and Dalton with a fine Pickerel.

After that we went to a marina good for bass. I went to a wacky worm, and boated a very light colored smallmouth and an equivalently sized largemouth. It was after that when we had to leave. The only species that was caught more than once was the yellow perch. That is quite an interesting afternoon of fishing! 

Boy Was It Cold....

I just got back from a short excursion, and am soaked and shivering. Why did I do that again? Oh Yes, that's right, largemouth bass.

I went down to one of my favorite ponds, carrying both fly and spinning rod. I tried flies first but got no response. I then picked up the spinning rod with a tiny torpedo. The fish approved. I managed a dink and one bigger bass. The larger gave a good fight but I kept him out of the weeds.

Regardless of weather and comfort, I love to catch fish! There is always a brief spell of warmth when pulling a gorgeous wild trout out of an ice choked stream in January or catching a big walleye on a cold, windy, rainy spring day.

Rules Can be Broken (in fishing at least)

Dull Grey

Today I went to a larger pond to see if the big bass there are getting more active. It was overcast, windy, and rained on and off. The first lure I tried was a roostertail, then a jig. Finally, I got bored. They say that top water lures are best when the water is dead calm. They say that bass won't eat a fast moving top water lure until the water is warmer than it was today. I have studied the down-south art that is bass fishing for quite a while, and everything that is said about early spring bassing was ignored when I tied on my next lure. I chose a Heddon Torpedo. The retrieve chosen was a bit faster than I use in the summer. I got a hit on the first cast. The same fish hit again twice before I hooked him solidly. He wasn't big, but he was appreciated.

Best Bass of the Year

On Tuesday I took advantage of good fishing conditions and went out to spin-fish for bass, pickerel, and walleye in a good pond I know. I planned to throw a spinner bait first and then jigs into the deep water for walleye. I put on the biggest honkin' spinner bait I own and lobbed it to good structure. I pitched it so it would pass a fallen tree and hooked my first fish, a scrappy largemouth. The next spot was by a concrete culvert, no luck there. On a whim I chucked it over the sunken tree so that it bounced over the log on the retrieve. I felt this and then a solid hit. As I drove the hook home I assumed that it was a pickerel, until a big bass propelled it's fat body into the air. It was clearly quite big. I landed it and then realized the absolute magnificence of this fish. It had evidently just devoured a bird, as she had a huge lump in her stomach and feathers in her throat. I snapped some pics and allowed her to return to her log home. I had no luck the rest of the day. I wish I could have hooked her on the fly, it would have been some fight, but I only fish the long rod there from a kayak.

 First bass of the day. Not bad, but there are big ones in that pond.