Shimano Nessa Spin Breeze Review: Long Casts for Shallow Surf Beaches
Shallow, gently sloping surf beaches are hard work. The fish can be a long way out, the water at your feet is barely knee-deep, and a lure that sinks too fast spends half the retrieve dragging on sand. Some anglers deal with it by wading out in waders; some fish from a SUP. The simpler answer is a lure built for exactly that beach – and Shimano’s Nessa Spin Breeze is one of them.
It comes in 130 mm and 140 mm, and it earns its place from the middle to the end of the season, when the bait is bigger.
What it does
- Jet Boost – Shimano’s moving-weight system for distance. The 140S averages around 71 m in Shimano’s own casting tests.
- Flash Boost – a reflective plate inside the body that keeps flickering even when the lure is stopped. On a stop-and-go retrieve, it never stops showing itself.
- Wobbling roll on the retrieve, and a level fall when you stop – fish that hit on the drop get hooked cleanly.
- Through-wire construction – if a big fish breaks the body, the hooks are still connected to the line.
- Shallow depth – designed for flat beaches, it works from the surface down to about 1.5 m.
Specification
| Spin Breeze 130S | Spin Breeze 140S | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Sinking | Sinking |
| Length | 130 mm | 140 mm |
| Weight | 30 g | 32 g |
| Average distance (Shimano test) | 70.8 m | 71.3 m |
| Hooks | #5 front, #5 centre, #4 rear | #4 x 3 |
| List price (excl. tax) | 2,270 yen | 2,380 yen |
Colours include gold flounder patterns, sardine and gizzard shad naturals, red-head, glow and a UV “keimura” sardine. A gold flounder colour and a natural sardine are a good starting pair.
How it fished
Distance – with one catch
It flies a long way, which is the whole point on a flat beach. But in wind, or on some rod-and-reel combinations, a full-power cast can make it tumble in the air, and then Jet Boost cannot do its job. It needs a little technique.
The fix: do not muscle it. Let the rod load and throw it smoothly. Cast that way and it flies straight, catches less wind and keeps its speed to the end of the cast.
It works at any speed
- Slow – a lazy sway that keeps the lure in front of the fish for longer.
- Fast – a tighter, livelier action for active fish.
- In current – the wobbling roll becomes irregular, which is often what flips a following fish into biting.
How to fish it
- Start with a straight retrieve, changing speed until you find a response.
- No bites? Switch to stop-and-go and let the Flash Boost work during the pauses.
- Still nothing? Change size or colour – drop to the 130S, or swap between gold and natural.
Where it fits in the box
I think of it as the shallow-beach partner to heavier lures. A metal jig such as the Flipper iT38 searches deep, fast water; a minnow like the Shallow Assassin works the near water at dawn. The Spin Breeze covers the long, shallow middle – far out, but high in the water, without snagging the sand.
Another lure from the same Nessa range, the Beam Drift 125S, is in my list of five lures for Japanese flounder. For bigger bait later in the season, the Spin Breeze is the step up in size.
Verdict
If your beach is flat and shallow, the Spin Breeze is worth having. Seventy-metre casts, a lure that keeps flashing on the pause, and a depth that suits shallow sand. Learn the smooth cast, and it is one of the easiest ways to reach fish that are further out than the bottom-bouncing lures can go.
Read next
- Five lures for Japanese flounder from the beach
- DUO Flipper iT38 review
- How to read a surf beach
- Match the bait on a surf beach
- Shimano 26 Nessa XR surf rod
