Jonah's Kona XT
Innovation isn’t just about choosing a product from a supplier's catalogue and renaming it. To us, innovation is about idea's, design, development, testing, more development, and more testing; until we reach a point where we’re confident it will do what we intended it to do.
Enter Jonah’s Kona XT.
Our latest innovation in game lures, designed, developed, and tested by us … for you.
Well … we had a little help – we didn’t call it Jonah’s Kona for nothing! We’ve worked alongside Tasmanian game angling legend, and Black Magic Pro Team angler, Jonah Yick for almost 18 months to bring this lure to life.
The elevator pitch is this – it’s a kona face lure, with a scoop face and a reverse taper head. Its swim style is what we affectionately call erratic. And the best part – it catches fish. Lots of fish. Consistently.
THE HEAD
Like all XT lures, our Jonah’s Kona lure head is made from high tech XtraTuff material meaning it won’t crack or chip like normal resin heads, although it may get the odd ‘badge of honour’ graze as a billfish strikes.
The unique head design gives the lure a pronounced wiggle, not unlike a fleeing bait fish.
And being keel weighted, it will track left and right while diving and popping.
This creates an impressive smoke trail, while teasing fish up from the depths.
SIZES
Game fish will often hit lures close to the size of the bait fish they're chasing. With that in mind, the Jonah's Kona XT comes in 2 sizes. During development and testing, we experimented with different lengths and head sizes until we found the sweet spot, where they ran as we intended and caught fish of all sizes.
Jonah's Kona XT comes in a 6" (240mm) size and an 8" (280mm) size.
As a general rule, if there are only school sized fish in your location (around 20-30kg), then the 6" lure will most likely be the right choice. Then the natural assumption would be that bigger fish will go after the bigger 8" lure.
But then fish don't care about our assumptions. We've had solid 80kg+ bluefin take the smaller 6" lure, and we've had smaller 30kg fish chasing our 8" lure.
So, we recommend having both sizes in your lure kit. Jonah always runs both sizes in his spread, and this has proven to be very successful.
COLOUR CHOICE
To ensure the lure appeals to pelagic species both sides of the Tasman, we’ve created 8 dynamic colour combinations.
Your colour choice might come down personal preference.
But from our experience during testing, we recommend including a mix of colours in your spread.
This includes running 1-2 lures that replicate the natural food source in your fishing location, as well as 1-2 brightly coloured lures.
While they may not look like the local bait fish, they will stand out and grab the attention of your target species (particularly when combined with its strong swimming action).
Side note ... Jonah's favourite colour is Flaming Squid!
RIGGING
All our game lures are available rigged (with wire or mono) or unrigged.
Rigging is done in New Zealand by our team of professional riggers, using our high quality, Japanese, forged stainless steel game hooks, and abrasion resistant Tough Trace.
So, choose to buy your new lure ready to troll, or rig it up yourself to your own specifications.
SPREAD POSITION
During testing, Jonah ran the 6” and 8” lures in all spread positions to see where they excelled. These are his recommendations.
The 8” lure runs best in the short and long rigger positions, because this is where they will make the most noise and commotion. The rigger positions are the 2 widest positions in your spread, which means the lures will always be running in clean water. This allows you to keep your eye on its movement, but also means the fish can see them clearly.
The movement of the bigger 8” lure can be slightly more erratic than the smaller 6”, due to the head size. To maximise the effectiveness of the swimming action, without it tumbling or skipping out of the water (particularly if it’s a bit rough), Jonah recommends running it some distance back from the boat so the additional line belly will stabilise the lure.
The long rigger is the perfect position for the 8”lure, set about 30 metres back (minimum). The short rigger should be set about 20 metres back (minimum).
Jonah doesn’t recommend running the 8” lure in the short or long corner, as they can be too close to the boat which causes them to skip and tumble out of the water.
However, the smaller 6” lures are ideal for running in the short and long corner positions. You’ll just need to pay attention to their distance from the boat to ensure they’re not skipping or tumbling too much.
Shotgun is also a great spot for the 8” and 6” lures, as its nice and stable there, while still creating a good amount of smoke.
THE PROOF
