Fish Arrow Flash J 3'' Shad for black bream?

[Windknot]

I've seen a few photos of good bream that were taken with Fish Arrow Flash 2'' Jerkbait lures on this forum, so I know they work quite well on bream. I was interested to find out if the Fish Arrow 3'' shad would be suitable for black bream, so I bought some in the watermelon colour to try them out for myself. This particular model hasn't really been marketed as a bream lure, IMO. It's possibly a little on the large side and besides, most bream fishermen will stear well clear of paddletail soft plastic, generally.

It would be a pity to ruin the look of these lovely lures by sticking a big ugly jighead on the front of them. They're too expensive for that. You're paying the money because they look a hell of a lot like a real minnow. For this reason, I rigged up my first 3'' shad with a Nitro weedless Jungle jig, which doesn't interfere too much with the overall presentation of how the lure looks.

My first session with this lure was an eye opener, to say the least. I was getting hit after hit on about half of my casts. Every now and then, I'd get a massive hit, with line being taken under drag and all, but I just couldn't get a hook up. The weedless jig was simply too far forward and it wasn't prominent enough to do the job. I could see bream hitting the lure and they were just striking at the tail. The reason for the lack of hook ups was pretty apparent.

It was time to try something a little different, so I dragged out some Evolution jig heads that I had laying around, thinking that the double hooks located near the tail would increase my hook up rate. They did. The problem wasn't completely solved though, as I was still getting lots of hits to only a mediocre number of hook ups. I ended up removing the double hooks from the Evolution jig head and replacing them with a small treble. I traded some of the weedless capability of the double hook with the better hook up rate capability of the treble.

I must say, these lures look absolutely fantastic in the water. They glide to the bottom with a slight wobble and the little paddletail is going ten to the dozen. A slight lift of the rod, retrieve a small amount of line and it swims up, only to glide downwards again. I've found that the best tactic to use, is to allow the lure to sit on the bottom for extended periods, it seems to drive them wild. Many of my hits have ocurred while the lure was motionless on the bottom.

So, after using these SP now for a number of trips, I'm very impressed with them. If they're too big for my local black bream, or if bream simply don't like paddletail lures, nobody has told them so. They love them.

Has anyone else had good success with the 'shad' Fish Arrow?

[gtxrally]

Great review Windknot, and glad to see you trying something different.
Will definitely be trying the 3"jerkbait, but might have to try these as well.
DB

[stella fella]

Rig them HWS then crank 'em hard across the surface, particularly over weed beds, and then let them drop. Bream love it.

[The G factor]

I haven't used the shads but I've used the minnows and have done well on the bream on them. In genereal I've found bream love paddle tails around 3 inch. The power bait t tails were a great lure for bream. Definitely going to grab some of the fish arrow paddle tails for break and perch, I prefer light jigheads and slow lift and drops. Not a fan of rigging them with hidden weights as I like the straight nose down drop

[Zim man]

great review there Windknot, its true that we have not pushed the paddle tail for the bream (despite using them ourselves for bream) but after reading of your experience as well as our own, we may change.

did you have any difficulty using the evolution jigheads with the flash j shads?

thanks for the review and the report. they do a smaller paddle tail in pink as well which is something that we may look at bringing in as well.


cheers
rob

[Windknot]

Originally Posted by Zim man

great review there Windknot, its true that we have not pushed the paddle tail for the bream (despite using them ourselves for bream) but after reading of your experience as well as our own, we may change.

did you have any difficulty using the evolution jigheads with the flash j shads?

thanks for the review and the report. they do a smaller paddle tail in pink as well which is something that we may look at bringing in as well.


cheers
rob

No, there weren't any difficulties in using the Evolution jigheads. Of course, the weighted rod has to go to one side, or the other, of the reflective foil, but that doesn't seem to make any difference.

I suspect the reason why I get so many small hits when using these lures is that many of the smaller bream tend to 'nip' at the tail, which I believe is like a pecking order thing, or perhaps even a territorial thing. They don't seem to want to eat it, just scare it off. This aside, they still get plenty of full blooded strikes from the larger bream present and I have no doubt what their intentions are and that is simply to eat them.

I'm usually a hardcore hardbody freak. I will always use my fav HBs in preference to anything else, especially when I can, but these SPs may have changed all that. Due entirely to their effectiveness, they have just become my new 'go to' lure.