Posts: 83
Location: North of Sweden! | As I am from sweden (and currently living there) I am quite familiar with the Savage Gear products.
I have also used a few of their products, but, the eels I have used quite extensively and I do like them!!! Especially the biggest of the eels (40cm) has produced some great pike (no muskies of course, as said, live in sweden), the eel has been especially effective in rivers I fish during the fall.
It has a very nice action to it and you can really work it slow when need be. The best producing way for me has been a twitch/fall style retrieve. Ususally I have used them to get down in deeper holes/pockets in the river system on a low fall/twitch retrieve, always looking for that "BANG!" or very subtle "...tap..." fun fishing for sure!!!
Though, the eels are, in my opinion, very vulnerable to the aggressive fish we are after.... as with all soft plastics it can easily be damaged by the teeth of even small fish.
Luckily the materials savage gear uses on the eels are easy to mend with the use of heat and it is very easy to fix say cuts and such, a clipped tail though is another story and the biggest kind of problem for this kind of bait as that is where all the action is at...
When it gets cut up, it is very easy to mend. Even very deep cuts (basically all the way thru) will be easy to fix, I've found the best way to be to take some metal (I use a piece of steel I use for building my inline-spinners) and heat up good and sizzling warm and just insert it into the hole/cut and move around until all surface area of the cut/hole is kinda sizzling and then just push together (I take no responsibility for burnt fingertips in this tip, IT WILL HAPPEN!!! :D sooner or later) and wait while it is cooling (which is in no-time).
That said, the MAIN reason I even started using the eels a lot was due to them arriving in the swedish market at a WAY LOWER price than any of the different bulldawg-variations (it has been a slow development in the swedish market in regards to bigger plastics, but, has exploded theese last few years)...
so if you are living somewhere that the bulldawgs and bondy baits are readily available to reasonable prices I don't really see the eels making much difference to you as a fisherman, other than perhaps as variation/for fun. And, well, honestly, baits are INCREDIBLY fun to buy and own, so, why not, it's a great plastic bait that will display nice action at a huge variety of speeds, but, to me I always pick up a bulldawg before a new eel if the price is right (which it is slowly moving towards being even over here).
I have no experience with the different ducks/rats/etc, but, I can see no reason for them not producing, have seen ducks get swallered up by pike on more than one occasion while out at various waters...
kind and icy cold (going out fishing now, outdoor temp is at -8°C which is roughly 17-18F or something like that) regards!
/peter |
