'Depth Charge' and 'Wrecker' Deep Diving Lures by Williamson Lures.

It had to happen and at last it did.   Williamson Lure manufacturers are undoubtedly the most innovative and progressive lure manufacturer in Africa.   We have been asking for a swimming plug which covers greater depths and makes a noise and true to their word, they produced a lure which does just that.   Some may say they're a copy but once you've used them you will see they are best described as an improvement.

Andy has been working on these lures for some time to perfect the material, swimming action and noise they produce underwater.   The lures are constructed of a very hard poly-carbonate which makes them durable and able to withstand many attacks from even the most toothy fish.   The stringer which holds the hooks and front ring, is cut from a solid stainless steel plate so there is no chance of the hooks, or the lure itself, pulling off - unless the hook rings straighten which is most unlikely.    These lures are fitted with extra strong Mustad trebles so the chances of a hook opening are greatly reduced - and you won't even have to change hooks before using the lure.

Now I am a strong believer in the use of sound as a fish attracter as you will see in many of the articles I have written.   But the sound emanating from a lure needs to be in a certain range or it can work against you.   The sound that has finally been obtained from these lures is perfect as you will see when I describe some of the tests we did.

These lures are equipped with interchangeable poly-carbonate, a high tensile and very durable type of plastic, bibs.   Now on a charter boat this saves you loads on money.   Here we have a lure that we can regulate to swim at various depths depending on where the fish are feeding, instead of having to carry duplicate lures.   But probably the biggest benefit is only having to replace a bib when the lure gets smashed on the boat by a big fish, as opposed to forking out for a whole new lure.   And we all know that old lures produce more fish than new ones.

My pet hate with a deep diving lure is when they take-off to the side.   They create the worst tangles possible and, because of the nature of the lure, these tangles are more difficult to undo.   I tested 8 prototypes and to my absolute delight, every one of them swam perfectly straight.    Now it is finally possible to swim 6 deep divers together with the utmost confidence that they will not tangle - unless the skipper gets gung-ho on the wheel.

The colour range will leave you dreaming, bewildered and out of pocket.   But a lot of thought and effort has gone into the colour co-ordination so you will find some exciting new combinations along with those which have been proven fish catchers.

Now for an incident which happened during the initial test of these lures.  The prototype lures had arrived on the Friday, I had a charter for the next day and we had some excellent Tuna catches during the week.  A great combination and I couldn't wait to try out these new lures which Andy and I had talked about for months.

We headed out to the Tuna grounds and more specifically to a lat/long position where good catches of Yellowfin were made the day before.   As we approached the area the signs looked too good to resist, so in went the regular lures and we began the troll.   Two big CD22 deep divers way out far, a 5 meter deep diver either side of the trolling board, 2 Australian deep diving lures inside of these and a Bulb Squid down the middle.   After about 20 minutes of trolling we neared the position we were running to and still the fishing reports were quiet.

I had left one rod holder vacant in case of a sudden charge by a shoal of Yellowfin, which is fine later in the day but certainly not as a warm-up for a charter.   This didn't seem likely so I took out one of the new Williamson prototypes (an orange and yellow combination as it was still fairly early) and with a few jokes as to how privileged the guys on board were to witness the first swimming of a lure, I clipped it onto a 30 pound stick.   I placed the lure in the water to check its tracking was straight and let it go back into the spread.

As I pushed the drag lever forward the reel exploded in my hand.    A Yellowfin ate the lure immediately.   I cannot describe the astonishment on the faces of the clients suffice to say they were too dumb-struck to run for the stick.   I held my composure as best I could without showing any signs of my excitement, and asked "who's up first", as if this was expected.

We only caught three Yellowfin on the troll that day (the other twelve came on the bait) and all three fell to that one lure.   Not one of my regular lures got a pull.

These lures have since caught Yellowfin and Albacore (Longfin) Tuna, Yellowtail and Snoek during the test phase and will, without doubt, be attractive to any gamefish wherever they are fished.

Oh! I almost forgot.   They are about half the price of their imported equivalents. Enjoy them as I have.