Ballan Wrasse on Deps Cover Scat.
The Deps Cover Scat is the OG ‘poop’ bait. One of the most hyped lures in recent years. It was extremely hard to get hold of any for at least a year after launch and at times it felt like it was the only lure being used to target largemouth bass in Japan.
Poop baits might need some explanation. I don’t believe the lure is actually trying to replicate a poo! It just happens to look like one in certain colours, and certainly has been advantageous from a marketing perspective. But it does have some remarkable features other than what it looks like to the childish among us.
First up, the Cover Scat is heavily salted. Really heavily. Consequently it sinks relatively fast and the textbook way to fish it is weightless, on a weedless offset hook. The crazy shape has been designed to have an attractive action on the fall. The bait stays near horizontal but does glide away from you, with a rocking motion. But my favourite feature and the image that originally captured my imagination was how well it bounces / deflects off rocks. The lure is much more dense than say, a senko and consequently repels any impact with a hard object. Even weightless it can bounce around the rocks like a pinball.
Who knows what the fish think it is. I’ve said it before, the only way they can work that out is by sticking it in their gob!
Fast forward to last week and I found myself fishing an inshore reef in 8ft of crystal clear water and not a breath of wind. It felt more like reservoir fishing than sea fishing. After a string of nice wrasse on more traditional lures and methods, it came to me that the conditions might be perfect to try the Cover Scat – a lure that has sat patiently in my wrasse lure bag for some time.
I rigged the 2.5″ Cover Scat in the traditional way, weightless on a size 1 offset hook. I was concerned about the buoyancy of the braided mainline I was using at the time, but in 8ft of water, with a decent length of fluorocarbon leader, the lure was still able to sink enticingly to the bottom under its own weight.
Once at the bottom, taps on the slack line had the bait jumping around and crashing into obstacles. The fall rate felt great, even with the added buoyancy of the saltwater.
By the way, this lure casts a mile! On longer casts and a shallower angle of line it was possible to tap the line in a more horizontal motion in short pulls towards me. Although the lure was out of sight it felt like this shallower action had the lure banging into more obstacles than a close range hop.
Having said that, it was on my second cast with the bait as it returned to view, that after a vertical hop it got absolutely hammered by a decent sized wrasse. I was ecstatic as the fish slid into the net. I really get a buzz from catching fish on new techniques. Especially those I’ve borrowed from other lure angling disciplines.
Two more fish on the Deps Cover Scat proved that this novel lure had earned a permanent place in my lure bag.