Banjo Minnow

[dawallace45]

Guys , lately on some of the infomercials that one station tends to run on a Saturday morning they show a product called the banjo minnow , now the add is very interesting and the lures look like they should work although I really don't think they should call a lure set 110 pieces when 60 of them are rubber bands , they sell here for the ridiculous price of $49.95 plus $14.95 postage and handling , of course you could just order from BassPro for $19.95 , but my question is has any one on this forum actually have any experience with them , I have tried checking them out on the internet and they seem to have a lot of reviews and 95% of them glowing , seems the people who like them love them and those that don't hate them but before I spend a dollar I'd rather get a review from some one I know , so what are your opinions , good or bad ?

David

 

[Kayak Jack]

Dave, I'm not much of a fisherman, but before I quit I learned one thing - all fishing lures catch suckers.

 

[dawallace45]

Jack there is a old saying , if a fishing lure is to be effective first it has to catch the fisherman

David

 

[tw541]

I used these a while back when fishing with a friend from work. I used it for about half an hour without a bite. I switched to a 1/4oz spinnerbait and began to catch a few fish. My friend had paid a bunch of money for these and refused to give up. He caught a few fish that morning, about half as many as I did. In my honest opinion, he is at least as good a fisherman as I am, maybe better. (I wouldn't say that if he was on this forum). He still swears they will outfish anything else. I think it has something to do with not wanting to admit he had been taken. If people spend money for something, they do not want to admit they were taken advantage of. I have watched their commercials. They come on almost as often as the Evinrude E-tec infomercials.

I have fished intensively for the past 50 or so years. In my opinion, these are very over priced for what they are. For that amount of money, you can buy a pretty good assortment of similar lures from Basspro or Cabela's. I am very suspicious of any thing that is advertised as heavily as these lures are. They are spending a ton of money on tv commercials. I am also very supicious of "miracle lures", or miracle anything else that someone is willing to sell me. I have no doubt they will catch fish, but I do doubt they are any better than similar type lures. My opinion only. Your mileage may vary.

 

[BEARS BUDDY]

I first saw them being used in a shallow bass pond near home. The man was getting a bass on 3 of 4 casts. I bought a set and have had good success with them. Just don't get out to use them enough. Gander Mountain and Bass Pro were selling the sets for $20. Even the local outdoor gear store was selling the set for much less. Hooks and the minnows are available separately if you want to try for about $10.

 

[dawallace45]

Guy's , at the prices they charge here it's out of the question but getting from Bass pro or Gander mountain it's not too bad considering that just to buy any normal brand of tails from the tackle shop here is about $9 to $12 for a pack of 6 , so when you work out that there are actually 32 soft plastic lures in the Kit it's not too bad

What hooked me and reeled me in was the action of the lures , for some time I've been experimenting with different retrieves trying to make it more like a wounded bait fish , after seeing a demo of some one using flick baits to impart action I started thinking that maybe using some sort of life like minnow lure and bridle rigging it would work better , so I went and started looking for some sort of life like minnow lure , after much looking I found a soft plastic called Firebaits from Juro , they are a 5 inch minnow that looks pretty much like our Hardy head minnow that is a favourite bait fish , they come in a pack of 5 for $10 , been trying different ways to rig it and different hook styles to see what looks good , pretty much settled on a kahles hook , hadn't even got to try the rig in the water when I saw the Banjo add , so it hooked me straight away , suppose I'll have to buy some

David