The Savage Gear Collapser paddletail - slowly does it………..

As with the Savage Gear Slender Scoop Shad, I wasn’t involved at all with the development of this newish Savage Gear Collapser paddletail. I had to wait a good while even to see one in the flesh and it wasn’t until we did some filming over in Guernsey last winter that I actually got to fish with one. We did a quick night session before starting the filming work the next morning and from memory I landed the only bass of the session on the Collapser. So at least I know it works for bass!

It had been suggested to me that the Collapser might not work so well in current, but on one of the filming sessions I hammered a bunch of bass on the 14cm Collapser in a run of current. If you know the Channel Island then you know all about how much current there can be around the different islands. I am guessing this paddletail which once again was designed primarily for the freshwater lure market had not really been tested much in current in a saltwater environment……………..

I’m not really sold on the name “Collapser”, but what I really like about this lure is how well it works at slow speed. If I want to slow things right down then this Collapser is one of the paddletails I feel confident turning to (I have only seen and used the 14cm version so far). It’s fairly long at 14cm, but it’s got a smallish kind of profile which I like. I am not yet at the stage when it doesn’t leave my lure box like the Slender Scoop Shad or the Gravity Stick Paddletail, but this Collapser definitely gives me a useful alternative because I can swim it so slowly and still get it working properly.

I know very little about the whole forward-facing sonar thing so I don’t understand much about why this Savage Gear Collapser has apparently been designed for this world, but as a “bang it out and (slowly) wind it in” kind of paddletail? I’m sold. The one thing I did have to spend time on was working out the best way to rig them. I got no assistance from the grownups because I don’t think the lure had been designed to be fished as I have been doing so with them - weedless belly-weight hook - and I haven’t yet tried them on J-hook or weedless jig heads.

As per the photo above, I started off using the Savage Gear 6/0 3g belly-weight weedless hook with the 14cm Collapser. I caught bass like this and it works fine, but I don’t think it’s the most effective way to rig this particular soft plastic due to the design of the actual lure. Ideally I want a hook size that has the hookpoint coming out of the back of the lure in front of and not behind those two “indents” in the body. The smaller Savage Gear 4/0 2g belly-weight weedless hook works pretty well with this lure, but I think it’s the deeper design of the amazing BKK Titan weedless hooks which really suit a lure design like this.

The 14cm Savage Gear Collapser rigged on a 4/0 belly-weight BKK Titan Diver hook

The photo above is the 14cm Savage Gear Collapser rigged on a size 4/0 belly-weight BKK Titan Diver hook (I’ve removed the blade which comes on these hooks, but they have to be worth a go), and the slightly smaller 3/0 version of this work also sits well with this lure. Or as per the photo below which is the Savage Gear Craft Bleak 12cm paddletail, you can use one of the regular/not belly-weighted BKK Titan Rider weedless hooks and use some tungsten putty as the extra bit of weight. I don’t know if you have ever used tungsten putty, but it’s really useful stuff for situations like these.

Rigged along these lines you can tell that it’s a lure/hook combination I am going to turn to for swimming nice and shallow and slow in conditions which aren’t too bouncy. My next step with this 14cm Collapser is to start experimenting with different jig heads and see how it behaves when I start fishing it deeper and/or in much bouncier conditions when it can sometimes be so beneficial to work your lure that bit slower so it spends a bit more time getting washed around in the kill-zone. This Savage Gear Collapser is not the toughest soft plastic paddletail around, but the inherent softness definitely adds to the action. Rig it carefully and gently for starters. I really like watching this lure swimming towards me just under the surface because I haven’t got another paddletail which behaves quite like it. You all have a good weekend…………….

The 14cm Savage Gear Collapser rigged on a 4/0 belly-weight BKK Titan Diver hook

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Accessories, Bass fishing, Fishing tackle, Lure fishing, Reviews, Saltwater fishingHenry GilbeyJune 2026Comment