Shimano Senkou Trout Lure

A lot of us Otago anglers grew up using spoon lures, writes Greg Morton.

The choice a few decades back was much more limited than it is now, and the price dictated that we stayed away from the top-shelf options. When I opened up my father’s fishing bag (the one I borrowed much of my hardware from), I would be greeted with battered black and gold Toby spoons, black wedges, and copper Z spoons. A spoon lure is one that wobbles and flashes on the retrieve, giving off the appearance of a wounded bait fish. The dark spoons were for the brown trout, and the copper ones for the rainbows.

Back then, all of us were using heavy mono lines, so spoon lures like the Toby and Wedge helped get distance when casting. Most spoons we used were in about the 12-gram weight category, and we retrieved them at speed to avoid getting snagged. Fish hit them hard, but the downside, in the case of the Toby, was that quite a few were lost in the fight that ensured.

Rocket forward to the present and recently I was asked to try out some new freshwater spoons from Shimano, and some spruced-up mono line from Black Magic. Spoons and mono seemed an appropriate old-school mix, so I paired them together throughout my testing.

One of the first victims to fall for the Senkou, a nice rainbow.

The Shimano freshwater spoon is named the ‘Senkou’ and comes in three sizes – 11g, 8g, and 5g. The marketing slogan is that fish will be enticed to strike when one wobbles by. Some details sourced from their website:

‘Made from high quality copper, the Shimano Senkou Spoon Lure features Shimano’s patented Scaleboost technology. Scaleboost is a three-dimensional holographic film that replicates the scale patterns of prey fish to be remarkably life-like. On top of that, this lure has incorporated UV in its pattern, making it even more irresistible to lurking fish.
The Shimano Senkou Spoon Lure comes pre-rigged with swivel, split ring and VMC BN treble hooks so you can fish it straight out of the box. Choose your weapon from 5 available colours: UV Blue/Pink, UV Pink/Silver, UV Orange/Chartreuse, UV Blue/Chartreuse and UV Black/Gold.’

My testing ground was a local dam that has brown and rainbow trout, and the occasional perch. The Senkou spoons themselves were stunners, with vivid colours that would attract anglers from three aisles away. My initial thought was that they were impressive but big. Large trebles, large split rings, and large swivels. Remember, I have recently been catching good fish on 1/16oz jig heads.

I loaded two of my reels with line supplied by Black Magic. A small spinning reel was loaded with 8lb line for the smallest spoon size, and on the second reel – a bait-caster – I loaded 10lb line for the larger spoons. After reading the blurb, I would have to say that Black Magic Velocity Spin Monofilament appears to be taking on braid head-to-head at a lower price. That is a brave move. The full internet description says the following:

‘This low-stretch mono line features exceptional knot strength, sensitivity and high abrasion resistance. Available in fine diameter, in 6 to 10lb breaking strains in 300m spools.

Black Magic Velocity Spin mono comes in a range of breaking strains.

Features:

• Extruded from Japanese copolymers

• Low stretch

• Fine diameter( 6lb 0.20 mm: 8lb 0.25 mm: 10lb: 0.28 mm)

• High knot strength

• 300m spool’

I will be honest at this point: mono is a line that I personally use very little these days, but there are situations where braid is not really suitable such as overhead reel casting and bait fishing. It suits casting larger spoons.

Across three sessions of about a couple of hours each I cast all of the spoon sizes and colours I had been sent. The spoons cast well (particularly the heavy ones on the baitcaster) wobbled and flashed enticingly, and from go to whoa, as promised, enticed fish to strike. Each of the colours saw action. The Senkou spoons retrieve quite shallow and as well as wobble, they do an occasional dart.

There was one problem, however, that relates to an issue I wrote about a couple of articles back. The heading of the article was ‘Well Hooked’ and described how losing hooked fish repeatedly on the lure is a major problem. All of the best fish I hooked on the Senkou got off when they jumped, and many people stopped using the Toby spoon back in the day for this very same reason. The hinge effect of a heavy lure, a big treble and a gyrating fish usually ends badly. It did here. I did manage to catch the trifecta of a brown, rainbow and perch, however, so the spoons appealed to all fish species.

One of the writer’s favourite Senkou lure patterns notches up another catch. 

I replaced the big trebles with single hooks, which bought some improvement. Going forward, I would suggest that Shimano looks at the hook-up issue and adds some small 5g spoons with thin wire single hooks to their freshwater range. A competitor is already doing this with solid success. Small is often better when going after trout. They are a wary fish species. My favourite colour was the black and gold and the blue.

Some fine-tuning aside, there was still plenty of action. I imagine the main locations where these spoons will be used are in the canals, chasing landlocked salmon, distance casting in lakes, and kahawai and sea run trout fishing in rivermouths and the surf.

The Black Magic line performed well on both rods but excelled on the bait-caster using the heavier spoons. I will definitely use it for distance casting, particularly on lakes and in the stilling pond at the canals. I had no line breakages or tangles. It will not replace my braid for using smaller lures (yet) but the Black Magic Velocity mono is very useful on a second reel for when someone needs a rod and reel to fish with that is accident-free.

January 2023 - Greg Morton
New Zealand Fishing News Magazine.
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