Luretour

Introduction

There won’t be many of us who haven’t fished using a softbait grub now and then. From huge big 12″ pike lures to tiny 1″ ultralights, the “grub” is a very effective lure and they are produced by a vast number of companies. But are all grubs equal ? Is it just a matter of pouring any old soft plastic into a mould and assuming that as long as it’s got a curl tail it will work ? In my experience, no. Some grubs work better than others, it’s usually down to the softness of the plastic, the profile of the body and how well moulded the tail is, but even so, grubs are easy to get hold of and cheap as chips. What’s more, they catch a lot of fish, so when Ben at The Art of Fishing suggested I give some Para Max grubs a try beacuse he thought they were a little bit special, I jumped at the chance.

There's always something just a little bit exciting about getting a lure that comes in japanese packaging. For those of us old enough to remember it has the same feeling as buying the rare japanese import of your fave bands 12" on vinyl !

First Impressions

Well I have to admit the first thing I noticed about the Para Max Grubs was the price. At £8.95 for 7 grubs they are over a quid each, which is pricey for this sort of soft plastic. These were going to have to do something special to make them worth that much. The next thing you notice is that these are Japanese imports, that explains the price to some extent and gives them a little bit of cool too. Ecogear are a Japanese company with a good reputation for quality lures and I was interested to note that the Para Max were designed by none other than Norio Tanabe. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Norio Tanabe is a bit of a legend in Japan. A big name on the Japanese competition fishing scene, he decided to prove he could also cut it in the states and qualified for the Bass Masters final at the first time of asking. No mean feat. In many ways he sums up the difference between competition fishing in japan and the UK…both are highly skilful, but the Japanese just look so much cooler !

Norio Tanabe at the helm of his supercharged bass boat....he doesn't look like Bob Nudd !

Anyway, the real question is, just how much design needs to go into a curl tail grub ? And what has the Uber-Cool Mr Tanabe come up with to make his lures worth over a quid each ? Well once you get them out of the pack you quickly realise that there are a lot of subtle differences between these grubs and a standard 5″ grub. Firstly they are long in the body and fairly short in the tail. The body itself is different too as it is slightly flattened and has two distinct wings? fins? let’s call them wings, on either side, running the full length of the body. It also has a moulded insect like head.

The Para Max and a more standard design grub side by side. Note the longer, slimmer body and the little wings either side of the body.

A close up showing the subtle ribbing, insect like head and the leech like wings/fins on either side of the body.

The soft plastic used to make the lure feels fantastic too, very soft and pliable and with a lot of scented oil in the mix meaning that the grubs feel fantastic and have a pleasant, almost coffee like scent. Time to see what the fish would think.

Testing Time

Before I could put them in front of a fish, I was going to have to rig them, question was how ? First off I decided to try a Texas rig and chuck them in front of a few local perch.

Texas rigged and ready to go. I prefer a "texposed" finish most of the time, unless the weed is very bad as the hook up ratio, especially with perch is definitely increased.

With the lure rigged “texposed” (like standard texas rigging using a worm hook, but with the point of the hook exposed and lying along the top of the lure) I set off for a little stretch of canal that holds plenty of perch in the 1/2 pound region. The lure worked beautifully. The tail action is lovely and the grub has a lovely body roll as it’s retreived. Allowing the weight to sink, to the bottom and then retrieving slowly had the lure running just a foot or so off the bottom and within a couple of hours I had landed and returned about half a dozen nice little perch. On one corner of the canal there was an interesting looking raft of debris and weed and I really fancied throwing the lure around the edges. The problem was a shallow, completely weedless approach was needed and I was about to change lures completely, when I decided to at least see how the Para Max would work. Now I’ve tried fishing grubs completely weedless before and with no weight, but they just tend to spin in the water, even with a decent worm hook acting as a keel. The Para Max were different though, with a shorter tail, a slim body and those weird little wings they worked beautifully. I just removed the cone weight from my set up and fished the lure on the worm hook and the effect was fantastic. On a slow retrieve the lure sinks nicely and comes back with a wonderful tail wiggle, a beautiful body roll…but most importantly of all, it doesn’t spin. I was still admiring how well it worked in the water when I was rudely interrupted by another perch, which shot out from under the raft of debris and inhaled the lure. Nice!

Ok so they proved themselves on some game little perch, but what about some better and bigger fish ? next stop was Zander hunting on Grafham with PAC Chairman Tim Kelly. Here we were fishing in around 40ft of water and the lure was going to look pretty stupid on a 35g jighead, so I opted to rig it as a dropshot lure using one of the new VMC spinshot hooks.

Spinshot hooks give the lure great movement and make rigging easy.

Grafham is rarely easy, but within and hour or two of us getting in the zone, I had a nice thump on the drop just before the rig hit bottom. Everything went nice and solid and for a few moments I thought I’d hooked a big trout as the fish took line and made a few nice runs. Amazingly it wasn’t a trout or a pike it was a particularly athletic Zander, which turned out to be my best fish of the day at just under 7lb.

A beautiful Autumn day on Grafham. A stunning fish and proof that the Para Max works well when drop shotted too.

The big Zed was a great result and it proved that the lure works well when drop shotted too, so there was just one last way I wanted to fish Mr Tanabe’s creation and that was the simplest way of all – a standard jighead.

A 7g jigead fitted and the para max is all ready to go !

Location choice was the River Thames in Oxfordshire as it had been turning out a few good perch, so on a bitterly cold day with a nasty east wind we wrapped up well and took the plunge. I have to admit the fishing was hard. An east wind is notorious for making the fish stop feeding and for most of the day it looked like that was going to be the outcome. Then at about 2.00pm the sun broke through and for a few minutes we felt a bit of warmth on our faces. Sometimes that’s all it needs to persuade a few fish to take a bite of lunch, so I concentrated hard for the next few minutes and was well rewarded. Being slim the Para Max casts very well and despite the wind I was managing to get the lure over to the drop off which was about 6 foot off the far bank. By counting down I’d found an area where the ledge dropped off steeply into 12 foot of water and if there was going to be a fat perch anywhere, then surely this was the place. Third cast and I watched the line for the tell tale slackness that would let me know the lure had reached the bottom, but before it could get there, there was a jolt and I struck into something heavy, which immediately bored off to the left. My Spro Godfather II jigging rod, bent in a lovely parabolic curve and I knew I had a decent one. Slowly I brought her to the net and once on the bank I popped the lure out of her mouth. With plenty of battle scars, she was obviously an old fish and on the scales she went a solid 3lb 6oz – I was beggining to like these lures !

3lb 6oz of beautiful Thames perch

Conclusion

The Para Max grubs are not cheap. But once you start using them you realise that a lot of work and thought has gone into their manufacture. They look good, they catch fish and they have a wonderful ability to be fished weightless and weedless without spinning. I like the smell and I like the colour choices on offer. Will they catch you more fish than a cheaper more standard grub ? Yes, I honestly think they will. Not many perhaps, but a few and judging by my exploits, they seem to have an uncanny knack of sorting out some of the better fish too.

That tail in close up, showing the lovely metallic flecks in the plastic

So what about down sides ? well there’s the cost for one thing, but then they are still only just over the £1 mark each, so getting one snagged and losing it still isn’t going to break the bank. They don’t last terribly long either though as the combination of the super soft plastic and slim profile means they have a tendency to split or rupture after they’ve had a bit of abuse. All in all though, I loved these little beauties, they inspire confidence and that is a real winner in my book. Who knows, if I fish with them enough I might just get to be as cool as Norio Tanabe himself…I’m gonna have to work on the facial hair and that faraway inscrutable look though !

Build Quality	Super soft plastic, brilliant design	(9/10)
Quality of finish	real attention to detail and we love the smell !	(9/10)
Performance	Out performed every other grub we have tried. Their ability to be fished weightless and weedless without spinning is a real boon.	(10/10)
Value For Money	Not cheap, but they do offer something extra	(8/10)
Variety of Options Available	Available in the UK in three sizes (3″, 4″ and 5″) and a good range of colours	(9/10)
TackleTart Factor	If we didn’t give them 10/10 Norio would send a Samurai assasin out to hunt us down	(10/10)
Overall	Sometimes you get what you pay for and I think this is one of those times, At the end of the day you can have the most expensive rod in the world teamed with a hooped up Shimano Stella, but if your lure is cheap and nasty your not going to catch. Pay the extra..get the extra !	(9.1/10)

The Ecogear Para Max is awarded a Gold Medal by Luretour.com

You can get Para Max grubs in the UK from Art of Fishing