Number 4: Yozuri Banana Boat

I have found that the Yozuri banana boat is one of the best lures to use when fish are active and you are looking to cover alot of water in a little amount of time. The following features and characteristics are what set this bait apart from the rest and make it a must have in any bass angler’s tackle box.

• Castability – The banana boat is very aerodynamic and casts like a bullet. Being able to cast this bait a long way makes it a better choice over a conventional popper or topwater walking bait. Make a nice long cast parallel to structure and start working the bait back and forth and the fish won’t be able to resist striking.
• Unique Action – Like most other floating topwater baits, the banana boat is fished with a “walk the dog” presentation, however the action produced while “walking” the banana boat is very unique and that is what will trigger more hard hitting strikes over a conventional topwater bait.
• Fast Retrieve – Since a banana boat is best used when fishing for active fish feeding on the surface, a fast retrieve becomes a plus for this bait since you can cover alot of water very quickly.  This is helpful in finding fish, as well developing a pattern for the rest of the day.
• Treble Hooks – With 6 treble hooks on a small bait like the banana boat, you will notice a good ratio of strikes to hookups versus a bait that only has a single hook or 3 treble hooks.  The design of the bait also allows for the bait to sit upright in the water in between twitches, which increases the chances of hooking up.

Now that we have seen the positives of this bait, I would like to touch on some of the negatives that come along with the banana boat, and most topwater baits in general.

The first negative is the amount of work expended walking this bait. A constant twitch retrieve is required for maximum action on this bait, and a few hours of this can really be a workout… The good news is that you don’t notice how much your arms hurt when you get a bunch of explosive strikes.

The second negative is that many times after a cast or during the retrieve your line will get caught on the front treble hook, or even on both sets of hooks, which costs valuable time in the strike zone.  Although this happens with the banana boat, it tends to happen more so with other similar topwater baits, and mostly with poppers in my experience.

The third negative has to do seasonality. This bait only produces fish when the conditions are right.  The bass must be actively feeding and willing to chase a bait.  This limits how many fish you can catch on a banana boat, and is ultimately why this bait is near the end of our top 5 list.

The baits come in 7 different colors, including: Blue/Silver, Clown, Gold/Black, Trout, Tennessee Shad, Black/Redhead, Red Head. My personal favorite is the Tennessee Shad.

So the next time the fish are chasing bait, try the Yozuri Banana Boat, you won’t be disappointed!

Up Next is the Wiggle Wart Crankbait Coming Soon

Previous Segments:

Number 1: The Senko

Number 2: The Spinnerbait

Number 3: The Spider Grub

Number 3: The Spider Grub

I have ranked the spider grub number 3 in the list because of its extraordinary fish catching ability, ease of use and broad range of fishing techniques available. The following characteristics are what make the spider grub a great tool to help you land more bass on a consistent basis.

• Castability – The spider grub is a jig based lure meant to be fished along the bottom and is therefore heavier than most artificial baits. The heavier a bait is, the farther you can cast it, allowing you to be far enough from your target structure so you don’t spook the typically skittish cold water bass.
• Versatility – A spider jig can be fished a number of different ways. The most common is a jig and stop retrieve in which you cast towards the structure you want to fish (rocks, submerged stumps, knocked down trees, etc) and let the bait fall to the bottom. Once on the bottom, reel the slack out of your line, and wait a few seconds. Most of the strikes come on the initial drop so be ready to set the hook. If you don’t get a hit on the initial drop give the lure a jig by giving an easy controlled jerk of the rod upward, and reel in the slack, wait a few seconds and repeat. Don’t waste time jigging all the way back to the boat, if a fish doesn’t hit within 10 feet of your target structure, you likely wont get one on that cast, so reel in and recast. Another common retireve is a “swimming” retrieve, in which you keep a steady slow retrieve, keeping the bait swimming horizontal along the bottom. This is most effective when fish are more active, mostly the end of spring and beginning of fall. I have personally found the swim method to produce less fish and most fish I do catch seem to be from drop offs where the horizontal motion becomes vertical. If you had to choose a technique stay with the vertical jigging, it will produce more fish.
• Ease of use – The spider jig is easy to use; simply cast it out, reel in the slack, and give it a jig. The difficult part for beginners is the hookset. My advice is to not react too quickly when throwing a spider jig. Typically a fish will grab the bait and hold onto it, allowing you enough time to reel in your slack and get a solid hookset. With no slack in the line (especially when using braided line), your hook to bite ratio will go up substantially.
• Variety – With more manufacturers jumping on the spider grub band wagon, there is are is an abundent assortment of styles, colors, shapes, and sizes to choose from. Here are a few of my favorites:

Cabin Creek Salty Spider Jig

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Chompers Hula Grub (smells like garlic)

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Yamamoto Double Tail Hula Grub

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The Cabin creek salty spider jig is great if you want the jighead included, but they get expensive since bass tear them apart, but they also sell just the “spider jig parts” at online retailers. The other two listed above perform equally well if you use a 1/4 to 3/8 ounce jighead, and are a better value as you get more baits per dollar. If you could only buy 2 colors I would get a black with blue fleck, and a pumpkinseed color. Those two colors will cover 90% of your fishing environments well.

I would have ranked the spider grub higher in the list if it wasn’t for the fact that it is a “seasonal” bait, having most if not all of it’s success in the colder months of the fishing season (here in the Northeast those months are March-May and October-December), when the fish are tight to the bottom and are feeding only if presented with an easy meal. So what are you waiting for, get out and buy some spider grubs for this Fall!

Up Next is the Yozuri Banana Boat CLICK HERE to keep reading…

Previous Segments:

Number 1: The Senko

Number 2: The Spinnerbait

The fishing started off very slow, we only landed one fish in the first hour, but it picked up once we got to the grass mats along the northern shoreline, and we landed 6 or 7 bass.  We then moved into a shallow cove on the northeast tip of the lake, which yielded my mom a couple of largemouths off of grass mats.  Fishing the knocked down trees in the cove produced no fish, which was quite uncommon.  After that we decided to fish around the docks on the north shore, and I caught a 3lb largemouth on a texas rigged senko, but nothing else was noteworthy.

After minimal success on the docks, we moved back over the weed beds, I switched to a topwater banana boat, not expecting to catch anything since it was now noon time, and on my first cast I caught a 2lb largemouth. Thinking I was on to something I threw it for the next 10 minutes with no hits.  I looked through my bag and found some “Ribbit” frogs that I had bought on clearance and decided to give them a try over some weeds that had breached the surface.  The Ribbit frog rig is interesting, it comes with a bleeding red hook with a corkscrew on the top that goes into the head of the bait, and the hook goes in texas style with a slot on the back of the frog.  The action of the two legs on the back of the bait is pretty impressive as it swims across the top of the water.

I had never fished a frog on cedar lake because there are no lilly pads, but I figured since the fishing was slow I would give it a shot.  On my third cast, to my surprise I caught a 2lb largemouth.  I figured I might as well keep trying since I had a strong hit, and the fish got the hook on the first try…  2 casts later I had an explosive hit over the weed beds and the fight was on.

After a strong fight in heavy cover I got the fish to the boat.  I couldn’t tell how large it was until I went to lip it. I reached down, lipped the fish and brought it into the boat along with a pound of weeds. The result was a nice 4 to 4.5lb largemouth.

We stayed and fished that area for another 15 minutes with no luck before heading home.  In order to take advantage of the nice weather and my day off, I went home had lunch and then went out waterskiing with Erik and Randy.  We called it a day around 330P and I had to mow the lawn, be an electrician, and go grocery shopping.  Needless to say I was pretty tired around 9pm and fell asleep the second I hit the bed!

The weather was beautiful, despite the dreary start to the day, so we headed out to my favorite weed beds and after a quick tutorial on how to use a spinning reel we all started fishing senkos. I decided to throw three different colors: black and yellow swirl, june bug, and green and silver swirl. The junebug senko was wacky rigged with an octopus circle hook so Randy could have an easier time setting the hook since it was his first time. Erik and I threw texas rigged senkos. As it turned out, it didn’t matter what color or rigging method we used, the fish were hungry and were going to eat anything. What a difference a day can make.

On his first cast Erik was explaining to Randy how to work the bait, when he hooked a nice bass which came off right at the boat. Randy then caught his first fish, a nice 2-2.5lb largemouth. While getting his camera phone, the fish found its way back into the lake, so here is a picture of his second fish (much smaller).


Not big but still fun! (Click to enlarge)

In total we caught about 7 fish on our first drift (it was a little windy at that time so it was a quick drift). We did a second and third drift and caught another 5-10 fish. At this point the boat traffic really picked up and appearently we were right in the party boat lane since everyone and anyone on a boat wanted to get as close to us as possible and drive directly through the weeds we were fishing. We went to another set of grass mats and landed 6 or 7 more fish. Randy caught 3 in a row off of a dock, and started bragging, asking me how many I had caught. I switched to a topwater banana boat, and landed 3 fish in a row which shut him up. Unfortunately one fish was quite possibly the smallest bass I have ever caught, and definitely the smallest I ever caught on a 4 inch topwater lure:

After the hits stopped at location two we moved on to my third grassy location, and only caught 2 fish using my banana boat. After that we decided to go back to our original spot since the boat traffic seemed to die off. Erik and Randy continued throwing senkos, and I switched to a firetiger pop and chug. They landed another 5 or 6 fish and I caught another 4 or 5 on topwater, the biggest being around 2.5lbs as the last little bit of sunshine was fading behind the horizon.

We went in for the evening and played some wii fit, and rampage total destruction. It was a fun night with good company, good fishing and even better weather. Randy is definitely hooked, and will likely be buying his first rod and reel soon!

Conditions: Calm to Breezy, warm, dusk, water temp 77 degrees

I got home and checked the radar and there was no rain within 500 miles so I got my stuff together and launched the boat. I got out about 10 minutes before Buddy got to my house so I started fishing around the small rocky island 50 feet off of my backyard. I had seen 2 huge balls of baitfish working the surface while I was loading up the boat so I threw a green wacky rigged senko where they were. After a few jigs I saw the bait come back up to the surface, so I put that rod down while it was still in the water and threw a small rooster tail into the school of bait hoping to catch one and find out what they were.

On the first cast I landed a large sunfish, and when I brought it into the boat it had all three treble hooks in its mouth. As I worked the hooks out, I feel my other pole tugging since I was holding it with my feet. I grabbed it with my right hand and set the hook. The sunfish then fell off of my lure with the treble hook still in its mouth. I inspected the lure and found that the loop had NOT been broken and the treble hook was sealed. I have no idea how it came off, clearly this was a “Houdini panfish”. I took the hook out and released the sunfish, then started working on the senko fish. I got it to the boat and it was a 1lb smallmouth. Definitely an interesting double!

Right as I landed that smallie, Buddy showed up and got into the boat and we headed to the other side of the lake to fish the weed beds I had been having good success on this last week. On the way we saw at least 10 more schools of baitfish working the surface. For some reason the sunfish were balled up tight and were quite active, but there were no gamefish sitting underneath them.

We fished the grass mats for a good 70 minutes with senkos, catching a few bass from 1-3lbs and buddy had two breakoffs (he is like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, when he fights his fish). I also threw a firetiger pop and chug and landed a couple nice bass, but there was no real consistent bite last night. We fished the shoreline on the way in and Buddy caught a razor-mouthed smallmouth that took a nice chomp on my thumb. It started to to get too dark to see so we packed up and called it a night.

We ordered chinese food (so much for the gym) and watched a TBS marathon of crappy movies starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. What an exciting evening …

Conditions:
Water Temp 76 degrees, calm, cloudy, dusk.

For the next 30 minutes I had about 20 strikes and landed 8 or 9 fish, the biggest being around 2lbs. Kate had 3 or 4 strikes yielding one nice bass. The wind died down around 9 and the bugs started coming out so we called it a night. Not a bad way to spend the last hour of daylight if you ask me…

My fishing partner for the evening had a similar outcome throwing everything in his tackle bag: texas rigged senkos, jigs, spinnerbaits, zoom lizards, and superflukes. I believe his total tally was in the 3-4 fish range for the evening.

I spoke with only two other fishermen last night regarding their fishing fortune. They stated they had been experiencing a strong bite on pearl zoom super flukes worked briskly along the shoreline in 2-3 feet of water.  My copycat experience yielded nothing last night, which confirms my feelings of always go with your gut, not the advice of a boasting angler.

Hopefully the warm weather this weekend (it is supposed to hit 90) will bring the fish closer to the surface in the pre dusk hours, and the smallmouth and largemouth top water bite will pick up.  If that happens, the next report will likely be titled “I found where all the fish went!”