Reviews
Name: Ace Softhead Hell Tail, Length: 300 mm, Weight: 144g
By: Dirk Van Nieuwenhove
I would like to introduce you to the Ace Hell Tail. I know, I know, what’s
so special about that? The Ace Hell Tail is a lure that has earned its reputation
a long time ago and it shouldn’t need an introduction! But this is no
plain Hell Tail. We are talking about a new Hell Tail that has been constructed
entirely from soft plastic materials. The body is about 4” long. The
internal frame, the treble hook and the weights have been inserted in this
lure in an ingenious way. You can even change this body if you want to. We
received a spare plastic body. If this isn’t standard procedure, you
can easily buy the spare bodies at your local Gordon Griffiths dealer. This
makes it easy to change colors or to make the weirdest color combo’s
you can imagine. It’s also quite useful because now you don’t need
to throw away your lure when it has been sliced too often by pike’s teeth.
Attached to the body we find a large single hook that you can easily sharpen.
On this hook a large single tail grub has been attached. The large grub keeps
the hook in one line with the lure so it won’t snag weeds. These large
grubs are available from the local tackle store as well. This adds up to a
total length of 12” (300mm).
Cast it:
This lure looks huge, but what about the action? Because that’s the most
important thing about a lure. How does Miss Pike feel about it? I started out
by using the Hell Tail for casting. The moment I attached the Hell tail to
my leader, I immediately noticed how heavy this lure really is. It should be
easy to cast this lure a mile away. Despite its heavy weight, the Hell tail
sinks slowly to the bottom. The best thing you can do, is to start retrieving
the lure the moment it hits the water. The Ace Hell tail will run about 40-50cm
deep (1.5 to 2 feet). You can easily control the depth at which the Hell Tail
runs but lowering or raising your rod during your retrieve.
If you just plain crank it back, the Hell Tail swim back at you in a straight
line. The Hell Tail maintains its running depth at which you started your retrieve.
The tail ripples and shivers through the water. If you add soft twitches during
your retrieve, it will head for the surface nose first which makes for a totally
different retrieve.
If you fish it with long pulls of 2 feet long, it will sort of glide left and
then right when you make the next pull. It will dive slightly then but still
you can easily keep it up in the top 4 feet feet. I must admit I’m not
that fond of casting such a heavy lure all day long. After 10 casts or so,
you get the feeling you’re getting a decent workout in the gym. So you
can cast it, but it isn’t all that comfortable.
Troll it:
I like the Hell tail better when I troll it. I feel you get the best out of
this lure when you fish it that way. It has the same magnificent action as
when you cats it and you can bring it to live the same way as you would for
casting by occasionally giving some twitches with the rodtip. You can easily
fish it at different depths. I would say it’s a first class lure for
trolling. I even tried fishing it like a jig from a boat. Its tail flutters
and ripples while it sinks to the bottom. I have good faith in this new lure
from Gordon Griffiths and I am convinced it will produce quite a few good
fish in the future.
Name: Ace Fat Flipper, Length: 125mm, Weight: 52g, By: Henk Roos
The Fat Flipper is yet another magnificent lure made by Gordon Griffiths. With
its weight of 52g it’s really suitable for making long casts, yet it
doesn’t tire you out. You can use the Fat Flipper all day long. After
500 casts, you can fish it just as easily as you did after the first cast.
It’s really comfortable to use this lure all day long.
The Ace Small Fat Flipper is a floating jerkbait. It glides side to side with
ease. Not a lot is needed to make this lure perform its extraordinary action.
This makes the Fat Flipper highly suitable for people who are new to jerkbait
fishing.
Furthermore, the Ace Fat Flipper is, like we are used to see from Gordon Griffiths,
extremely durable and it has a beautiful finish. Gordon Griffiths used awesome
color patterns that come in a variety of color mixes. The lacquer is extremely
tough and it resists pike’s teeth easily. The split rings and the treble
hooks are of high quality so you can use this lure right out of the box without
having to make some adjustments first. This isn’t the case for many renowned
lure brands. The Ace Fat Flippers are one of my favourite jerkbaits already!
Name: Ace Fat Flipper, Length: 15cm, Weight: +/- 90g
By: Dirk Van Nieuwenhove
The new Fat Flipper from Gordon Griffiths is a brand new jerkbait and I have
to say: it’s worth it! I was offered the chance to test a prototype of
this new jerkbait and I must admit I was impressed. The name seems to suggest
that it is nothing more than a fatter version of the well-known regular flipper
but it’s nothing like that at all. Contrary to the smaller version this
model suspends or sinks really slowly when you attach it to your jerkbait leader.
I used a 9” leader with a heavy-duty coastlok snap to fish this jerkbait
and it more or less suspended after every tap I gave with the rod tip. The
Fat Flipper is easy to use and you can aim for the horizon if you want. But
once in the water, the fat flipper seems to move without any water resistance
so a heavy rod is not a necessity. If you fish it with soft, gentle twitches
of the rod tip, you can fish it like a glider. It swims left and right like
a glider in a glide path of about a foot wide. If you fish it with long sweeps
of 1-2 feet long, the lure flashes and darts and it creates a lot of flash
in the water. The maximum running depth is about 4 feet deep, but if you should
opt for a heavier leader, I think the Fat Flipper will sink slowly and you
should be able to fish it deeper than 4 feet.
The Sweet 150
This is a new jerkbait from the collection of the Fishing Pool from England.
It's a diving jerkbait with a length of about 9" and a weight of 150g.
It has two razor sharp, size 5/0 eagle claw trebles. It's a fairly heavy
jerkbait as you can tell. It has also been finished with a tough epoxy coating.
The action of this diver is something to behold. It has a natural swimming action and when you fish it with long sweeps/pulls of about 2-3 feet long, it has a flanking action coupled with a slow zigzag action. It's possible to get this diving jerkbait down to about 7 feet when you fish it this way. I'm sure it has good potential for fishing over deeper stretches of open water.
You can also troll this jerkbait when you keep down the speed of your trolling motor. When you troll this bait, it has a slow side-to-side action coupled with a diving motion. The glide path is not really wide but it resembles that one a trolled glide bait. One great advantage is that you don't need to tune this bait because it runs perfectly true out of the box.
Given the size and weight of this lure, I feel it's a bit too heavy for casting methods and I would like to see a version with three smaller trebles to improve its hooking rate. A lighter and thus smaller bait is also a good possibility. I'm sure that a lot of good-sized pike and muskies will be caught on this bait while trolling.
The Sweet 66 Shad
After having reviewed the '150' Shad jerkbait, my request for a smaller lure
was met. Apparently this smaller version of the '150' Shad was already in
production at that time so we deemed it worthwhile to review this new jerkbait
as well. The Sweet '66' Shad is a 14cm long diving jerkbait that weighs approximately
60-65g. '6' stands for 66g, just as it was used to indicate the weight of
the '150' Shad (it weighs 150g). This diver is a suspending lure and by using
a different set of trebles and a different leader, you can turn it into a
sinking lure. The color shown in this picture is called "firetiger" and
it has a thick coat of glitters underneath the real color pattern. Like just
about any lure from Fishing Pool, this lure is coated with a thick coat of
epoxy lacquer. When fishing this jerkbait, you can attain a depth of approximately
3-4 feet deep.
If you fish this diver with short pulls of 1-1.5 foot long, it will dive and at the end of the pull it will veer off to one side. So you can consider this one to be a diving glide bait. When you make the next pull, it will veer off to the opposite side. You can get this action out of the lure when you use a 9" leader made from 0.8mm diameter stainless steel wire, a solid splitring, no swivel and a set of size 1/0 gamakatsu treble hooks.
When you weight the Sweet '66' Shad to sink slowly by using a 9" leader made from 1-1.2mm diameter stainless steel wire, a solid coastlok snap, no swivel and a set of size 2/0 gamakatsu trebles, you can fish it like a sinking glider. You can twitch it back to the boat or retrieve it at the same speed throughout the retrieve. In that case it will swim in a wide S-shaped glide path.
This jerkbait is made in a convenient size so you can use it in a wide variety of circumstances. The relatively low weight of this jerkbait means it can be fished on lighter tackle.
The Sweet '66' Shad has a tough finish and this color pattern has a lot of flash due to the glitter coating so I can imagine it will be a killer in both clear and stained water.
I appreciate the fact that you can alter this lure's buoyancy by switching leaders and trebles. This makes it a very versatile lure. Because you can also turn it into a sinking lure, you could probably use it for slow-trolling when you would use a trolling motor (electromotor).
I wish to add for our Belgian and Dutch visitors that this is a great lure for our Polder drains and canals!
Good luck fishing! Dirk
NEW JERSEY ANGLER MAGAZINE
TIMBER COVE COMPLEX #183
8529 RISING SUN AVENUE
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19111
215-722-2313
July 28, 2004
Dear Phil,
Your baits are terrific, in both form and function. I had a great time fishing
them and putting them to the test in both fresh and saltwater. I prepared
an informal report for you. Feel free to quote me and use my name.
FLIPPER 200mm/110g
Great bait with super action. Took stripers, muskies, pike, and large mouth
Bass in fresh and stripers and bluefish in salt.
FAT FLIPPER 165mm/82g
Took same species as standard model. Action is slightly better and construction
is more stout. Both models are some of my personal favorites.
SCUDS SUPER 185mm/110g and MAGNUM 270mm/160g
Killer swimming action mimics, both fresh and saltwater forage. Took stripers,
muskie and pike in fresh and stripers and bluefish in salt.
MINNOWS SUPER MAG 250mm/80g
Love these plugs! They put Rapalas and many others in that class to shame.
Awesome wobbling action. Took stripers, muskie, pike and walleye in fresh
and stripers and bluefish in salt. Definitely one of my favorite models.
WOBBLIN FLIPPER MAGNUM 200mm/84g
Great large profile divers with a very unique action. Took stripers, muskie,
pike, walleye, and both large and smallmouth in fresh and stripers, bluefish
and sea trout in salt. Love these baits.
CHUBBYS 240mm/162g
Fantastic surface plugs for surf fishing stripers and bluefish loved them.
The strait body performed like a champ and out-fished the jointed (I always
do better with strait plugs for some reason). Took muskies and pike in fresh
mush more fish in the salt.
SWEET 150 SHAD 220mm/150g
Unreal action did well in both fresh and saltwater environments. Took stripers
and muskies in fresh and stripers and bluefish in salt one of my favorite
baits. Looking forward to fishing the 66 model.
TIPTOP MAGNUM 140mm/70g
Another killer plug for surf fishing did superb in the suds. Stripers and bluefish
attack it over and over. Did not really take any freshwater species on this
one.
Can't wait to see the new ace baits. I hope they are as sweet as the sweet
shad is! Your minnow lure works great too, can get that thing pretty sideways
and suspends to boot!
http://jomusky.tripod.com/ToddM.html
Helltail is a cracking bait, caught me Northern Pike to over 20Ib.
Which European Anglers will be present at the Chicago Show?
Vidar Thomassen
Predator Hunter