Silstar Lures Jig-em Rigs review

It’s not often you can confuse the hell out of the staff at a tackle shop.

“I’m after those small squid jigs, you know, the ones that have two or three small squid on them?” I asked hopefully

Nope. Thanks to my poor ability to articulate what I wanted, the tackle shop employee thought I was talking about the jigging lures used to target squid, and led me straight to that rack.

It wasn’t until I’d indicated the size of the jigs, holding my thumb and finger about 5cm apart, that he twigged that I was after small lures used to target fish, and not a large jig for squid.

After a bit of a hunt, we found them: the Silstar Lures Jig-em Rigs.

I’d decided to give the Jig-em Rigs a go after seeing a video of them in use. Adding to the need was the fact I had run out of self-caught bait – the legacy of a few unproductive fishing sessions where I’ve pretty much ended up feeding just crabs and a legion of undersize flatheads.

According to the packaging, the Silstar Lures Jig-em Rigs can fish across a range of species – barra, bonito, bream, flathead, kingfish, mackerel, mangrove jack, mulloway, salmon, snapper (but we’re thinking pinkies rather than the full-grown versions), snook, tailor and trevally.

Although not listed, whiting also don’t mind a bit of squid and I don’t mind a bit of whiting, so we’ll be interested to see how these jigs go against them.

Silstar Lures’ readymade Jig-em Rigs come with two or three lures ganged on a leader.

We’ve gone with the pair of rigged #4 hooks with a squid skirt. As there are only two hooks, the lures are universally safe to dress up with a bit of fresh bait in places where any more than two baited hooks is considered a long line, and therefore against fishing regs.

Two Jig-em Rigs cost less than $10, making them about the same price as a 250g packet of frozen squid. My shop had a choice of three colours, so I went with a pearl/pink and a lumo clear.

The hooks wearing 5cm lifelike squid skirts hang off short 6cm paternosters with a large luminous green bead running free along them. The packaging says the skirts are scented.

The rig uses a surprisingly heavy line given the size of the hook, with what looks like a heavy 10kg barrel swivel at one end and a similarly rated barrel and snap shackle the other.

The swivels are bright silver; I’m not a fan because sometimes fish are more inclined to hit a shiny swivel instead of the lure.

The jigs are well separated on about a metre of leader, with the lowest jig sitting about 40cm above the snap swivel, leaving plenty of line clear to drag a sinker across the bottom.

Break open the packet, unspool the leader, snap on a weight and attach it to your line, and the Silstar Lures Jig-em Rigs are ready.

The paternosters are just long enough to allow you to slide up the squid skirt and replace the hook. This was handy for me as the bend on one of the packaged hooks had a major manufacturing flaw and could easily have snapped once a fish was on. That said, because the skirt sits on a long-shank hook, you’re a bit limited in terms of swapping the hook out for something better.

The skirt on the one of the hooks was poorly moulded, with four of the tendrils stuck together. The rest of the jigs were fine.

You can use these jigs in a number of ways, including drifting, cast and retrieve, or just leaving it in the rod older with enough taut line to bounce the sinker off the bottom and jiggle the lures as the boat moves with the motion of the waves.

We were estuary fishing in an area without much wave action and a lot of weed and current.

Our plan was to fish one pair of lures as they come out of the packet, and another tipped with a strip of squid, both weighted down with a heavy sinker so the current didn’t pull them off the bottom.

The water was pretty murky and dirty, and just off low tide. I didn’t have high hopes of hooking up on anything, but surprisingly the tip of the whiting rod – the one set up with the lures alone and no bait teaser – bobbed about 15 minutes into the session.

After setting the hook and reeling in, on the end of the line was a nice 32cm silver trevally.

Within a short time I’d landed two more trevally up to 35cm, although this time both were caught on the lures jazzed up with the strip of squid.

I’ve had a few problems in the past in this area, with lures tangling in the weeds, but because the hook is so well protected by the skirts the effect is almost like a weedless soft plastic.

I was quite surprised by how effective the Silstar Lures Jig-em Rigs were straight out of the packet – just like they were in the video.

The hook was easy to set, despite my concerns that the lure’s skirt was so deep it could mess with a proper strike.

I need not have worried. With three good-size trevally onboard in an hour and a half, the less-than-$5 investment was more than worth it.

Specifications
Model: Silstar Lures Jig-em Rigs
Price: Less than $5 for a twin-rigged lure