Lures

Yamashita Neon Bright

Look at the bestsellers from any squid jig range and you’ll note those with light cloths, translucent bodies and UV attributes will often rank in the top five. We’re beyond the point now of relegating this to marketing or hype; we know squid in shallow waters (3-8 metres) are highly attracted to this style of jig.

It’s no surprise, then, that Yamashita, a brand with multiple bestsellers in this category, has created a whole colour range dedicated to it in its extremely popular Egi Oh Live range but with some vast advancements. Neon Bright has taken everything egi anglers love about UV jigs and taken it to a new level.

The main feature is the body material’s brighter UV response – very noticeable when you put the jigs under a black light, which gives humans an indication of how squid would see it with their UV vision. There are three body colours available in the range: blue, green and red (it’s all very lightsaber). The idea behind these three colours is to match them with water colour – a concept I have been writing about in Hooked Up and speaking about on our video channel for some time now, so I was very pleased to see my findings have been backed up by the biggest squid jig company in the world.

The blue bodies are for blue water and cloudy days; green for green or discoloured water; and red for sunrise/sunset when the water takes on a red hue. This is a concept I have more than just tested but I live by when squid fishing and it rarely seems to fail. I put it to the test over multiple days, locations and conditions with the Neon Bright jigs and it rang true.

There are six cloth colours at this stage, available in 2.5, 3.0 and 3.5 sizes, and it’s a great spectrum of contrast based on the limitations you have in letting the body show through. The bodies are brighter than other UV jigs, less so with the blue body (the existing blue Keimura is still excellent) but it’s certainly noticeable with the green and red and a quick check against other Yamashita models and jigs from other brands confirms this. However, the most impressive feature is the UV detail on the cloth, which takes that UV punch to a new level. Each jig’s cloth is adorned in a detailed scale pattern, some models more so than others, and though it’s not all that noticeable under normal light, under the black light it provides an extremely bright UV response. The mix of the strong UV body and cloth really sets the Neon Bright apart from other jigs, including other Yamashita models.

Two other outstanding features are slim foil strips – red and gold on some, silver on others – that provide flash on sunny days; and the quality of the cloth. The latter is perhaps the best feature of all.

All UV-bodied jigs require a loose weave cloth to allow the underbody to be visible, but the issue is that they tear easily. It seems Yamashita has used a new cloth that is far less impervious to tearing, and I caught a lot of squid on these jigs with hardly a tear.

I was confident that both the green and blue jigs would be effective and they were, with the green performing outstandingly on two very tough days in both cloth options of green and pink. I hadn’t used UV red-bodied jigs much before, but I do love red foils at sunrise and sunset. My first sunrise session with the red body (colour 063) quickly showed how well these jigs work, with multiple squid captured in quick succession, so I left it on all day with great results.

Yamashita has really produced the ultimate shallow water jig for both boat and land-based anglers. They feature strong UV attributes, intricate foil strips, detailed cloths with great contrast and that legendary stable fall and darting action of the Egi Oh Q Live series.