Relax is one of the biggest and most respected soft lure companies in Europe. It started from Poland in the mid 90′s and extended gradually, soon to be reaching the United States. Every year their bait range increases with new items being added to the product family.

Relax Kopyto is one of their first model and maybe the lure they are most proud of. They call it a legend, a lure which has written history in predator fishing. A star lure, with an incredible action and fish catching abilities.

We taught that’s a pretty bold statement for any soft fishing lure and decided to put its name to the test.

When it comes to colors and sizes, Kopyto lures are all about diversity. They come in 7 different sizes, starting from 1 inch (2.5cm) all the way up to 6 inch (15cm). This size range offers versatility in terms of target species and techniques.

Relax Kopyto offers a huge range of over 200 colors, making sure even the most pretentious anglers find their desired patterns. It’s such a big color range that you can easily get lost and confused trying to browse all of it.

Softness & Material
We can agree that one of the biggest secrets of any soft bait is the material composition. It’s one of the key elements in the lure’s action equation. It has to be resistant, yet allow for a natural and appealing swim. The Relax team took this thing very seriously, when manufacturing their lures, and Kopyto is no exception.

It has a pretty tough body, yet the tail portion bends easily on each side.
There’s a simple test you can use with any shad shaped soft lure, that will give you a good clue about whether or not it has a consistent tail action. You only need to hold the lure in a vertical position, with the tail facing up. If the tail bends close to the lure’s body and the paddle is at a good angle, there’s a big chance that the tail will emit good vibrations even at the smallest traction.

This is exactly the case for Relax Kopyto. The tail construction and paddle positioning make this lure a really aggressive softie.

Kopyto initials covering the lure's body.

Durability
Kopyto has a really good material composition, which makes it resistant to predators teeth.
What may happen is that you loose the tail from time to time. The tail portion is pretty thin and because the paddle emits powerful vibrations, predators tend to attack and hold to this area, so it gets ripped off.
It happened to me on several occasions, when fishing for perch or zander (wallaye), to remain without the tail. This is really not such a big deal, as it mainly happens with small fish, not able to swallow the entire lure. Overall Kopyto has a good ratio between softness and durability.

Engineering and Design
Being born out of the European fishing market, Relax Kopyto was meant to address freshwater fishing using the classical jigging technique. Unlike the Japan market, revolving around bass fishing, this soft lure has nothing spectacular regarding packaging, details and finish. It doesn’t posses salt nor scent impregnation. Relax kept it simple, focusing only on action and material.

But if there’s one thing to give credit for, it’s the Kopyto original shape. Let’s be honest, this lure started a new design trend. Because it was so efficient it was copied by a lot of competing companies all over the continent. I think I’ve seen more than ten copycats out there and most of them are really far from the original, mostly due to the material used.

Application
Kopyto works its magic when fished on a jig. Jigging gets the most out of this bait. I caught pretty much all freshwater predators using this soft lure. Species like pike, perch, bass, catfish and zander simply nailed this lure, when properly presented.

If you improvise a little, you can really stretch its application range. I’ve also fished Relax Kopyto on weedless jigs, and the smaller models (2.5” and 3”) work excellent armed with an offset hook. This lets you easily cover techniques like Carolina or Texas with this lure.

Light jigs do pay off!

My favorite presentation with Kopyto is to fish it slowly, using minimum jig weight.
Even though it’s all-year lure, Kopyto really kills it in the spring, before spawning. Big females are protecting their nest, males are highly aggressive and Kopyto is the perfect solution to take advantage of their territoriality.

Big perch love skirt jigs

Action
The lure’s perfect proportions contribute to an amazing action. It’s not just the tail that emits underwater vibrations. Due to the perfect link between body and tail, the hole body moves and emits strong signals. Just pull it through the water and you’ll quickly notice the body movement. No wonder predators can’t resist it.

Kopyto's flexible tail and large paddle are "quilty" for its agressive action

Conclusion
I think the fact that you can find this lure in my personal Top 10 Walleye Baits pretty much sums it up.
Relax Kopyto is an efficient lure and over time has helped me catch more fish. If you improvise a little, it can be fished in multiple manners, using weedless jigs or offset techniques. The size and color range on this model is huge, much bigger than on any other soft baits I’ve used before. Oh, and yes, I think this comes pretty close to a legend.

About Adrian

Professional angler, web enthusiast and tackle fanatic. Always in search for new things that can improve his fishing.

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Orka lures got my attention a few years ago when I walked into a friend’s fishing store and there was a shelf full of these lures waiting for me. Looking at the shelf, the first model that I picked up was the Shad Tail.
Its particular body shape quickly made me imagine its underwater action. And let’s just say, my first impressions were very close to the actual thing.

Orka lures are produced in Serbia, and have expanded rapidly in the lure boxes of many predator fishermen all across Europe. They manufacture over 10 models of soft baits, each coming in different sizes with a substantial color range.

Orka Shad Tail

Orka Shad Tail is a lure that easily stands out. This is mainly because of its shad body and a grub tail. It comes in 4 sizes, from 10cm to 21cm, each size having a 12 color range. Even though you can cover pretty much every situation with these 4 sizes available, I would have loved to fish also with a smaller Shad Tail, let’s say around 6-7cm. I think this size could have been interesting for light tackle and finesse fishing.

Good variety of sizes and colors

Softness and Material
The first thing you notice when you put your hands on a Shad Tail is the quality of the material. The good composition allows this lure to be both pretty soft and resistant. It’s not the softest material out there, but it does the trick. As you will see in the short movie below, this material has also a big influence on the lure’s amazing action.

Another plus of this resistant material is that the lure doesn’t get off the jig easily. This means you don’t have to use glue or other substances to fix the lure on the jig. For me this is pretty important because I really don’t like adjusting the soft lure on the jig every few casts. It’s pretty resistant to predator’s teeth also.

A downsize would be the fact that the material can get pretty sticky sometimes, and when you’re fishing the smallest model (10 cm), this can make the tail stick to the lure’s body during casts.

Durability
Again, judging by the material and having just a little experience, the first time you put your hands on a lure and feel its composition, you will also have a good clue about its resistance. And Shad Tail felt like it had durability written all over it.

With soft baits two things may happen. They usually get messed up when you try to arm them on a jig (or offset) and fail few times, or when they end up between the predators teeth. For me the second one is not that important, as long as they bring fish to the boat, but just so you know this softie handles excellent even the sharpest teeth.
The first one though can be inconvenient, but it’s not the case for the Shad Tail. It has a very resistant and dense shad body that will not allow several jig changes or arming attempts to mess up the lure.

Engineering / Design
You really can’t talk about this lure without giving some credit for its design. Sure, it’s not the only or the first shad body/grub tail lure on the market, but you must admit it has a significant amount of originality in it. This unique small shad body with a long and wide tail is responsible for an aggressive action and powerful vibrations.

The tail length increases significantly in bigger sizes (15cm, 17cm and 21cm) so you have to be careful what hook size you use. A small hook may loose you fish, while a too large one will affect the lures action. You can start with a hook size of 2/0 for the 10cm model and end up with 6/0 or 7/0 for the 17, 21cm sizes.

Regarding lure details, the only things that stand out on the lures body are the extruded eyes (not painted), a small back fin, and the Orka logo on the tail. Not that I would expect high quality finish from a soft bait.

Action and Applications
Shad Tail’s amazing action is a result of great design and good soft material. This lure puts out strong vibrations, making it impossible to get by unnoticed.

What I like most is that it works flawlessly at extremely slow speeds using light jigs. This tells a lot about how versatile this lure really is. The tail works hard at slow speeds, which kind of says it all when it comes to this type of soft baits.

In the movie below we made the test using jigs of only 7gr on 4/0 hooks and the 13cm Shad Tail worked like a charm. For an even more aggressive action you can use heavier jigs.

The versatility remains also when it comes to different fish species. This lure seems to have caught them all: walleye (zander), pike, catfish, perch and even bass. I personally caught four of the above, and I’m sure there are more to come.

I think the perfect technique for this lure to work wonders is the classical jigging. If you fish in heavy cover areas try a weedless jig head, maybe even equipped with a skirt, for more vibrations. The Shad Tail can also be fished on an offset hook, but from my experience, in this manner you don’t really get access to all of its potential.

Conclusion: Orka Shad Tail is a powerful soft lure. It has a great body shape that will put out pretty much the strongest vibrations you can get from a soft tail lure. The material is considerably soft and highly resistant, playing a key role in the underwater action. Besides, Orka Shad Tail offers great quality for the price. Don’t be skeptical, check these lures out, you might be surprised.

About Adrian

Professional angler, web enthusiast and tackle fanatic. Always in search for new things that can improve his fishing.

View all posts by Adrian →