he Riptide 200mm Sinking is a solid choice for anglers targeting hard-fighting fish on the regular.
Every now and then we will get asked the question about when to use the sinking version over the floating version.
One of these lures was put away wet, the other was put away dry after a fresh water rinse.
Let’s get straight into it.
Plastic stickbaits can provide a few solid benefits over wood-based lures. The main one being that because plastic lures are constructed using moulds, each lure will be formed the same as the next, this means we can effectively guarantee that each and every Nomad lure will be correctly tuned and swim as it should from the first cast. Another benefit is that they’re generally cheaper than handmade wooden alternatives, so losing them is less painful on the bank account.
But this also means that they don’t always receive the same care that an expensive wooden lure will receive.
There’s no reason that a plastic lure shouldn’t have the same lifespan as a more expensive wooden lure, provided that it is treated correctly.
We’ve got Nomad Design lures on the Nomad Sportfishing charter boat that have been hammered for years and still catch fish and swim the same as they did on day one.
We know Kiwi’s can be rough as guts on fishing gear, so here are a few quick pointers for those of you who want to get the most life out of your tackle.
The following applies to both wooden and plastic lures:
If you’re land-based, be careful not to bang the lure against rocks, and if you do, check for micro-cracks or damage before casting again. If you mainly fish from a boat, the same thing applies. A stick-bait slamming against the side of a boat will usually result in damage if it hits hard enough.
Once you’ve landed a fish, avoid using the lure as a handle when pulling in your catch. This can subject the lure to forces it was never intended to take and result in cracks or bending of wire.
When you’re swapping out lures, be sure to give it a quick rinse with a bit of freshwater before putting it back into the tackle bag. This will help preserve the hooks and metal components until you get back home. It’s pretty common to see a salt-covered lure get thrown into the gunnel for the rest of the day, which is more than enough time for corrosion to set in.
Once you’re home:
Rinse lures and hooks with fresh water. We just spread them out and hit them with the garden hose.
Let them dry completely and lightly coat the hooks, rings, and attachment points with a bit of CRC, INOX, or WD-40. There’s a heap of other products that also work, as long as it repels moisture, it will do the job.
Store in a dry place inside. Don’t just leave them in the gunnels of your boat! It also pays to keep your hooks away from other metals that can cause a reaction - eg stainless-steel hooks and aluminium boats, or tinned hooks in contact with lead sinkers.
You should be doing this with your rods and reels, so it pays to do your lures and tackle at the same time to keep them in top shape for longer.
There’s a saying that the lure colour is for the fisherman, and the action of the lure is for the fish.
We’ll be the first to admit that this has an element of truth to it. We’ve definitely got lures in our collection that were purchased because they look great, and we have no intention of ever getting them wet. But it’s not always accurate to say that lure colour has no effect on a fish taking your bait.
While on a filming mission to gather footage for our in-store seminar series, we managed to get a few lucky aerial shots showing a school of kingfish chasing down one of our Riptide 200mm lures.
During the seminar, we used this footage to show how the fish will react to how you’re working the lure, and what you can do to maximise your chances of nabbing a fish once you’ve got them interested in your bait.
The first clip in this video is a good example of what doesn’t work…
But we do things a bit differently in the second clip, and you’ll see that it results in a solid hook-up.
The first thing you'll notice in both of these videos is that there’s rarely ever just one fish on your lure. Kingfish are a schooling animal, so will almost always be in groups. From the boat or from shore, you may see a bit of a swirl on the surface to indicate you’ve got a follow, and you may see one or two fish follow it to the side of the boat - but it’s a safe bet to assume that there’s considerably more than just one fish interested in what you’re doing. Especially in those first couple of sweeps, so don’t be afraid of having your mates fire a couple of lures into the same general area. A well placed cast into the commotion should see some more hook ups.
In the first 2 seconds of the first clip you can see a fish take a swipe on the Riptide. A few seconds later another one has a shot, neither results in a hook setting, and you can see the entire group begin to turn off the lure, choosing instead to follow it from a distance and appearing much less enthusiastic about having a taste for themselves. Given a few more sweeps of the rod, the lure is swimming nicely and a couple of fish charge the lure before we run out of space and it leaves the water at the side of the boat. No fish on that run, but no worries! We know they’re here and we can send another cast out in that direction.
We do a couple of things wrong in the first clip, which greatly reduce the chances of getting a bite.
No matter how much experience you have, the thrill of seeing a fish on your lure combined with the distractions of filming can sometimes be enough to make you forget proper technique and you start making mistakes. Our first mistake was not paying enough attention to the lure. You can see pretty clearly that we yank the lure out of the fish’s mouth - twice. The right thing to do here would’ve been to chill out a little and let the fish run with the lure for a bit. As mentioned above, the fish clearly become more suspicious of the bait after two failed bites, and from that point forward we’re working to regain their trust - until we run out of space and and have to have a second attempt.
Retrieve speed and length of pause come into play here. Had we slowed the retrieve and allowed more of a pause between sweeps, we may have been able to convert a bite after missing the first two.
Comparing the first clip to the second clip, we can see the sweeps are a bit slower and we leave more of a pause between sweeps, and it results in a solid hook set and the fight begins. You can also see in the second clip that the fish aren’t really charging our lure until we’ve got a few solid sweeps in - this shows how important your swimming technique can be. If your lure is leaving the water or otherwise swimming incorrectly, it can be much harder to trigger the fish into taking a bite.
Simply put, when it comes to technique, you need to keep the following things in mind to help convert a follow into a bite:
Retrieve at a pace that the fish can chase, but don’t sacrifice technique for speed. You need to keep that lure swimming correctly at all times.
Allow a decent pause between sweeps. You can see in the video that the fish will follow your lure on the sweep, then charge in and grab the lure on the pause. This can be tricky to get right, as leaving it stationary for too long may also cause the fish to lose interest.
Pay attention, and when a fish does take your lure, give the hooks a chance to find its mouth. It can be hard to know exactly when (or if) the hooks have set, but as long as you’re not yanking it too hard too quickly, or leaving it too long, you should be fine.
These are all fairly well known tips, there’s nothing ground breaking shown here. But visually seeing how to fish react to you doing the right (and wrong) things whilst top-water fishing is an awesome way to see how important proper technique can be.
It’s always a great time when you get outside and explore the local shorelines, try something new, and hopefully come away with a fish to show for it. The following advice is based around targeting Kingfish from the shore in Tauranga Harbour, but many of these techniques will be applicable to other sheltered harbours throughout New Zealand.
We often get asked lure we would recommend as a good 'all-rounder'. The answer is always the Madscad.
Designed to be effective on many species in many scenarios, here's why the Madscad is the go-to lure for both beginners and experienced anglers.
With the Winter run of Southern Bluefin Tuna running through the East Cape of New Zealand, we’ve had a few questions around how best to run the DTX Minnows in trolling spreads. Watch the below video for a few tips on how to get the most out of your DTX whilst trolling for Tuna.
The Southern Bluefin Tuna are running through the East Coast of New Zealand in good size and good numbers. After an unsuccessful trip in 2018, the Nomad team are heading off again to try their luck this year.
The mission: Get involved and land a Bluefin on a DTX Minnow.
Testing the new Squid Surprise Riptide in Tauranga harbour. We can confirm that they catch fish.
When the fishing gets a bit slow, we’ve found the best way to find a school of Kingfish is to throw a couple of DTX Minnows out the back and troll over areas where you know they like to hang out. This allows to cover a lot of ground quickly, and the noise/disturbance caused by the props & boat will raise any fish hiding deeper down in the water column, and 95% of the time, they will go for one of the DTX’s being trolled behind. Once you’ve got a bite, stop the boat and cast as many top-water lures out as you can. With any luck, you've raised a school of hyped up Kingfish and they’re at the surface ready to go. The trick here is to have the top-water rods ready to fly as soon as that DTX gets hit.
We’ve used this method countless times on our charter operation to keep the action going when the fishing’s slowed, and it almost always results in a hook-up for every lure that hits the water.
We’ve been making the most of the good weather leading into summer by getting out on the water. Part of this was collecting footage for a series of seminars we’re running over the coming months on Nomad Design New Zealand retailers. Check out some of what we’ve been up to below, and be sure to keep an eye out for seminar dates
Introducing the Green Mackerel Chug Norris 150mm. Fresh to NZ, the natural tones in this colour will be irresistible to kingfish and other top-water fish. Combined with the Chug Norris popper shape to create maximum disturbance & draw attention, we’re expecting plenty of action on this lure over summer.
These are available now in New Zealand, but we’re expecting they will sell fast, so head into your nearest Nomad Design retailer to get your hands on one!
Comes fully rigged and ready to fish with BKK singles.
