Go Hard Young Man

I love fishing soft plastics as much as the next obsessive compulsive plastic fisherman but being of the generation that grew up fishing hard bodied lures I still have a place deep down that takes great pleasure in fooling fish with hard chunky offerings.

I recently got my hands on some Berkley Frenzy Flicker Shads with the express mission to put them to the test in a range of environments and on a range of species. When I first put them in the water the first thing I noticed was their neutral buoyancy which for me is a plus as once I have cast my lure to a target and twitched down to the fish I don’t want it floating quickly back to the surface or sinking like a stone to the bottom.

So my first impressions were good, so what type of action will I get? Well to my surprise a very enticing tight shimmy not dissimilar to a Rapala Shad Rap, now as these were one of my go to lures some twenty years ago this was tick two in the box.
The next thing I tested was the depth it would reach on a standard cast and retrieve and on standard tackle I could trick the lure down around six feet, 2 meters to those metric minded folk and when given the old funky chicken erratic retrieve it danced and flashed exactly as how I like it. The next thing was of course to put it in front of some fish and see how they liked it after all they have the final say on what lure I am going to use to try and catch them. Well the results have been comprehensive with around 14 species racked up on them in a few short months, they are deadly on flathead trolled in shallow water the bream love them and my favourite the mangrove jack think they are just snacks.
I have caught barramundi on them, sooty grunter, tailor, mackerel, cod and 5 different species of trevally.
So I have proved they catch fish but how do they stand up to it? Well apart from having to replace a few trebles that were straightened on good fish they unlike the old Shad Raps haven’t parted. And the best thing about them believe it or not is the price, these lures retail for around 6 or 7 dollars which really is value for money.
So next time you feel like going hard and are looking for a low cost hard body lure check them out – the colour range is great and all of the colours have caught me fish.
So go hard or go home.

Jason Medcalf