Plenty of lures are built to catch anglers rather than fish. To see how two budget surf jigs stacked up, beach angler Ozzy Mate ran a direct comparison on the first day of winter, fishing them against each other on a deep, rip-fed gutter and letting the results speak.
In one corner, a 20-gram duo-colour metal jig costing around nine dollars; in the other, a 30-gram silver at roughly twelve. He rigged two rods so he could alternate jigs cleanly: the lighter jig on a Penn Fierce III with 15-pound braid and a 10-pound leader, the heavier one on a cheap 4000-size Shimano combo.
The beach itself did half the work. He targeted deep water laced with rip currents, then read the flow, which ran hard from left to right, and cast up-current so each jig swept naturally down into the gutter rather than dragging across it. A dab of scent on every jig, he believes, tips the odds further in his favour.
His rule was simple: fish one jig until it produced, then switch to keep it fair. The 20-gram duo-colour landed the first salmon, a small one, and the 30-gram silver matched it first cast, then bettered it. The session's best fish came at last light, when the silver jig hit bottom, loaded up on the retrieve and produced a target-size Australian salmon, released as the moon climbed.
The heavier silver took the honours, though both jigs caught and neither disgraced itself. The takeaway for cold-water surf anglers: find the deep gutters and rips, cast against the current, add scent, and an inexpensive metal jig will happily catch winter salmon, no premium price tag required.