Fiish Black Minnow Review

A reliable lure made by the French that works in an unusually wide range of situations. You could just use this one lure and catch perch, pike, bass, wrasse, pollack, cod and more. I suppose the only species it’s not so useful for is brown trout, due to a lower hook up rate. Now that’s an incredibly versatile lure for UK anglers. Yes it was designed by the French but leave your prejudices aside dear friends as we examine this lures capabilities.

We have been recommending this lure to readers for years and to our guiding clients. Time is precious and this lure allows you to pack very lightly and yet be prepared for pretty much any situation. People that aren’t that fussed about price that only get to fish a couple of times a year on holiday love these as well as hardcore anglers that want the best.

It’s pre-rigged, so we can just tie it directly onto the end of our line

These soft plastics come with the jig head, and a spare soft plastic lure body. All you have to do is tie the lure to the end of your line. These lures will cast further when paired with braided line with a leader, but this is not essential.

We’ve found it has superior casting distance compared to other soft plastics

The profile of these lures relative to their weight allows them to be cast a better distance than other soft plastics. For instance, the red gill is another pre-rigged soft plastic. It has a much larger surface area, due to having a longer body, which means you can’t cast it as far, especially in a wind. It’s little things like this that make this lure as popular as it is.

Weedless design prevents snagging and tackle losses

The lure is weedless. If you want to maximise this, you can tuck the hook point under the soft plastic. This will not prevent hook ups, as the hook is revealed when the fish bites down. If you’re new to weedless lures this may sound too good to be true, but trust us it’s not a problem unless you’re fishing for really finicky fish like trout which are nipping rather than biting.

Because the lure is heavier than a lot of standard soft plastics that we fish with, you’re less likely to get in braid knots like the one below when casting into a head wind.

Hyper realistic action

The Fiish Minnow looks a lot like whitebait in the water – a sandsmelt, a very young joey mackerel or any other young fish species. The tail action combined with the lures realistic appearance makes it amongst the most convincing lures out there.

Works for an unprecedented range of species

This lure is useful in a huge variety of contexts and there aren’t many predators that won’t hit one. This is a lure that looks exactly like a bait fish and can be used over any kind of ground. Amongst the reeds for big perch. Through the kelp for wrasse and bass. Or in mid water trawling behind a boat for whatever is there. There are no other lures I can think of that are as versatile as a weedless paddle tail that is weighted correctly.

Weedless design allows you to fish in the heaviest structure

This lure is weedless. This means the hook point is not revealed until a fish bites. You can still lose the lure in snags, but it doesn’t happen as often.

Superior hook quality

The jig head and hook quality is exceptional. Razor sharp and reusable again and again.

Tail paddles on the drop as well as during retrieve

There is an art to matching soft plastics with jig heads that you do not need to figure out with the Fiish black minnow. Usually, when you rig a soft plastic you should really look at how the lure moves as the lure is falling as well as when you retrieve it. A lot of bites come as the lure falls, and if the paddle does not move as the lure falls, that makes for a worse lure presentation. With pre-rigged soft plastics this is all figured out for you so you don’t have to be a tackle geek to fish with perfect presentations.

Note that this also means the lure does fall fairly quickly compared to soft plastics on jig heads you can make yourself. This is a limitation of the lure in highly specific contexts.

It’s limitation? The price tag and lack of customisability of lure presentation. You can’t fish it slowly on the drop, it’s a one-size fits all approach to lure fishing. For those that thrive on experimenting with different lures, you might be better off without one! It’s always the easy option…