Review: Hurricane Sprat

The Sprat 75 is available in six colours, all of which have plenty of fish-catching potential.

Hurricane lures is the brainchild of Peter Nord, a super keen angler from East Gippsland in Victoria. Peter has been producing lures since 2006, releasing his newest offerings in late 2019, the Sprat 65 and Sprat 75.

      Both are small profile plastics, with the 65 being a paddle-tail format and the 75 a jerkbait-style plastic.

What they have in common

      Both models are made of a FlexiTech 8X tough material. This material makes the plastics very durable, super stretchy and very supple. The advantages this has for the angler are that multiple fish can be caught with just one plastic; you may not even have to change your plastic in a day’s fishing.

      I was impressed by the suppleness and softness of these plastics. They are very soft to touch, which equates to a natural feel for any predator eating it. Even better, the suppleness maximises the lure’s action, and this is particularly evident in the Sprat 65. The paddle-tail really rocks and rolls with minimal movement, and it even gets some body roll as well.

      Both plastics also have a hook penetration guide along the top of them. This helps you keep the hook nice and straight when you’re rigging them, while giving an indicator of where the hook needs to protrude from the lure.

      Something else you need to be aware of with plastics made of this type of material is that they do not play well with others. Mix these plastics with other plastics and you’ll end up with a tackle tray full of unusable mess. The manufacturer recommends keeping the plastics in their original packets and in the plastic sleeves they come in, to ensure they will keep their shape and stay in pristine condition.

Colours

      From the moment I opened the parcel of plastics in the office, I loved the colour range that’s available in both the Sprat 65 and 75. Each model comes in six colours, with three colours standard in each and three unique colours to each shape. I had no doubt that all of them would catch fish. The colours are heavily baitfish orientated, and I like the fact that a number of the colours are two-tone and some are also UV enhanced. If you are looking to match the hatch, there is bound to be a colour that is suitable.

This trevally took a liking to a Sprat In iceberg UV.
Plenty of flathead hit the net while the author was testing the Hurricane Sprat 65 and 75 in the Clarence River.
The Sprat 65 was perfect to fish the shallow sand pockets and depth changes of the sand flats in Yamba.
The Hurricane Sprat 65 and 75 are classic paddle-tail and jerkshad profiles.

First impressions

      The shapes are not unique, but are a clever twist on these styles of plastics. The key is the profiles, which lend themselves to targeting multiple species in our estuary systems. They are subtle enough to finesse fish with if you are targeting bream or estuary perch, while also having a presence if flathead or other reaction type feeders are your preferred targets.

      Rigging the plastics is also easy. The guide helps you rig them straight, and the relative softness of the FlexiTech material makes getting a hook through it easy.

In the field

      My first opportunity to test the two Hurricane Sprat lures was in Yamba, NSW. Yamba is an amazing fishery at the mouth of the Clarence River. It offers all sorts of fishing opportunities for all of our estuary favourites, and that certainly proved to be the case over the Christmas period.

      My first challenge was fishing the middle wall, in hopes of picking up a mulloway or one of the big flathead that the area is known for. I chose the Sprat 75 because it was slightly larger. I wasn’t sure whether the mulloway or flathead were there because the tailor were in huge numbers right along the wall and nabbed the Sprat pretty much every time one hit the water. It may not have been the test for the lure that I envisaged, but it did show the value of an 8X Strong FlexiTech soft plastic. Tailor are savage on terminal tackle, so any time you land multiple fish on one lure and it doesn’t get destroyed it is a bonus. I left the fish biting because there are only so many 25cm tailor that you want to catch.

      Once the wall experiment was over it was back to the areas and type of fishing that I love: large sand flats and undulations, which Yamba has an abundance of. It is very visual fishing (you are focusing on fish in 2-3ft of water) and the profile and size of the Hurricane Sprat lures lends itself to this.

      Once I started fishing these areas I was met with instant and consistent success. I was targeting sand patches in weed and subtle depth changes – areas where bream and flathead love to ambush their prey – and the Sprats matched the hatch beautifully. The small tailor were quickly forgotten as predominantly flathead consistently found their way into the net. I caught fish on every colour in both sizes, which is a great testament for the colours that are available.

Final observations

      Four months down the track and my initial thoughts still stand true: the colours, profile and the suppleness of the plastics makes the Hurricane Sprat soft plastics very effective lures. However, there are a couple of things to keep in mind to get the most out of your Hurricane Sprat purchase.

      First of all, due to how supple these plastics are, your choice of jighead is very important. Although the Sprats can be rigged on a standard jighead, it doesn’t take long before the plastic will consistently slip off the grub keeper. Hurricane produces a jighead range that has a wire keeper that is very effective in this scenario, but there are a number of other products to choose from that will do the job just as well. My solution was a dab of quality super glue on the grub keeper (not on the head) of my jighead, and it was sorted.

      You should also definitely take heed of keeping these FlexiTech plastics separate from other types of soft plastic, and I have also taken to unrigging my Sprats after using them and putting them back into the sleeves provided. It maintains their shape and lets me use them multiple times.

       You can check out the full range of Hurricane Lures at www.hurricanelures.com, and the site also has some helpful tips and stockist locations. These lures are well worth a look.