Elephants Eat Peanuts: Strategic Angler Proteus Review

By Dan Diodati

The Strategic Angler Proteus has been a hot lure for finiky topwater tuna feeding on small baits

The dog days of summer are over. Most have put in the time to perform the depressing tasks of winterizing their boat, knowing we have six months on the sidelines until spring brings in groundfish and tight lines. With the Marinas pulling docks, only a handful of fishermen are willing to brave the November waters.

As of today, the bluefin tuna bite remains hot. For those who have made it out, it's reminiscent of tales told by old, salty captains of tuna massacres. This fall has presented some outstanding opportunities to cast at busting bluefin from Jeffery's Ledge through Stellwagen Bank and down to the Regal Sword areas.

Running and gunning for these fish isn't exactly fuel efficient or easy. Still, it is a method guaranteed to put you into "Club Obsessed" and, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of sport fishing. Reports of surface feeds have included a mix bag of giants, mid-size, and small football tuna. This past weekend we found the buzz of the Cape Cod bite proved true. We left the trolling equipment home and focused on casting small butterfish imitations on spin rods. When the opportunity to cast presents itself, you must be ready to quickly and effectively get your bait into the school.We encountered dozens of pods of tuna ripping through mackerel and butterfish. One thing proved for certain, when the opportunity to cast presents itself, you must be quick to get your lure into the school. 

The setup I chose for the fish class we were targeting (40 - 50") was a Black Hole Challenger MH rod set up with a Shimano Saragosa 10000 spooled with 50 lb braid. The lighter combination was necessary to sling lighter lures the distance needed to reach the slashing schools while providing plenty of balls to tame tuna. I also scaled down my fluorocarbon leader to 50# to be as stealthy as possible.

We ventured out Saturday into harsh conditions for run and gun fishing. With under reported white-capped three-footers spaced four seconds apart, the ocean was angry. Fortunately, the birds cooperated, leading us to Tuna Town. As we patrolled the water, we encountered hundreds of gannets, seagulls, terns, and shearwater circling the skies. We watched hundreds cruise around gracefully, looking for baitfish. Once they found their meal, the flocks became tighter and would start to funnel like a tornado signaling it was time to eat! The baitfish get pushed to the surface because, you guessed it, the tuna are ripping up the bait balls from below and having themselves a nice little snack. As expected, butterfish were the primary bait the tuna was chewing on. Butterfish are tough to imitate, and if you ask any tuna fisherman, matching the size and profile of the bait they are feeding on is of utmost importance. What did we find to be the best imitator? Chris was using a 2 oz Crippled Herring metal while I stole my buddy Kyle's rod amidst a feed that popped up next to the boat and launched a new lure into the slashing tuna and immediately came tight!

They say there is no perfect bait; however, I'm confident that Strategic Angler has perfected the butterfish doppelganger with the Proteus. The Proteus has the correct profile, size ranges, toughness, and striking color patterns for mimicking small baitfish. Fishing the Proteus is also a unique experience. It's designed as horizontal sinking bait that performs on the drop. As it sinks, it "shimmers" on the fall, mimicking a small, wounded baitfish. Remember, small baits like juvenile herring, peanut bunker, and butterfish do not move fast; thus, a slow retrieval is vital to create that life-like flutter. This lure sinks fast enough to evade the shearwaters from above and entice the predators from below. With a slow twitched retrieve, even the least experienced angler can have luck with this lure. The Strategic Angler Proteus series belongs in any angler's Top-Water Tuna Box. 

When I went home to order a few for myself, I found the story of the Proteus on the Strategic Angler website and thought it would be a fun read to share! Check it out and next time you're tuna fishing, remember that elephants eat peanuts!

Per the Strategic Angler Website:

The Proteus series is the latest offering by StrategicAngler® for 2021. The remarkable success of the clear bodied, UV enhanced Naia series led to the final development of the Proteus series to date, conceptualized many years before.

This lure was aptly named Proteus since the design came about while fishing in 2015 with Capt Glyn Austin of Going Coastal charters out of Sebastian, Florida. During a testing trip, we arrived in an area filled with life but our targets were widely dispersed. Casting to our quarry proved difficult, so I tied on the smallest and heaviest lure I made, a 5 inch Mikros-sink. I was able to cast the compact Mikros with enough force to reach the trajectory required to land several fish, but could have used a much heavier version for distance. That day, I hooked and landed a very special Dorado with the most spectacular of colors I've ever seen. This personal experience, now frozen in time by San Diego artist Brian Hebets can be seen and obtained here: as a one time commemorative and collaborative 10 year anniversary piece of 111 sets. No more prints/matched numbered and signed pieces will be made.

Getting home that day, I drilled and added weighted slugs to the 5″ Mikros and tested them out in a pond. In an attempt to enhance the body shape, I found myself grinding away perfect lures for hours, then days, into weeks then months. I made over 20 variations of this new concept that year, all to no avail. I wanted a compact, 3 plus oz lure that swam as good as it cast but did not want a metal jig. The conceptual lure got benched after its many forms because it had to be perfect. Most of the designs failed during wet testing so I moved on to other projects the next year.

I released the Naia series in late 2019 for 2020. The development of the Naia series in 2019 provided a key design element for PROTEUS. After changing and morphing the Mikros-concept design several times over, I was able to take a key design concept from the Naia series and apply it to several benched prototypes. This newfound knowledge enabled me to create a brand new 5 inch hybrid lure featuring the characteristics of a "slow" stickbait and a sinking, wobbling jig. (The Proteus series received its final inspiration from the slow swimming Atlantic butterfish, a favorite staple of many pelagic species)

After many morphs, the PROTEUS series is finally born.

For more information on Strategic Angler Lures you can go to Strategic Angler. Locally, Tomo's Tackle & Kittery Trading Post carry Strategic Angler Lures for you to pop in and take a look at.

Kyle from Podcast #25 with a tuna caught on the Proteus!