[Brad S]

I finally got to try the banjos out on striped bass and here's my report:

There's an area near where I live here in Rhode Island where people (including myself) have been snagging and live lining adult bunker/menhaden/pogies (whichever name you prefer) very successfully for big striped bass for the last month or so, so I saw no need to use the Banjos and, to be honest, I didn't have to much confidence in them, but as the water's warming up there've been days where the bass won't even take a live lined "pogie".

I had two days like that in the past week or so, and I pulled out some of the large 9" Banjo minnows and guess what? They worked and worked well both times!!

They don't cast very well, but I trolled them off my kayak with sweeps of the rod tip and the bass were slamming them.

I wonder how well they'd work on a "good day" instead of as a last resort when the fish don't seem to want anything?

I didn't use the hooks that came with them, I used a couple pairs of pliers to bend some salt water jig hooks that I had around to make some jumbo "worm hooks" and texas rigged the banjos with a "hitchhiker" on the eye of the hook. This eliminated most of the short strikes I was getting when I had nose hooked them.

Using braided line you can feel the rapid beating of the tail as you sweep them and then drop the rod tip back to prepare for another sweep, so they act very much like a darting baitfish.

I.M.O. they're great, and I'm looking foreward to finding some effective ways to fish them down deep where the big striped bass usually lie.

Brad

[miles]

i work at bass pro and we sell the crap out of the banjo minnow kit, its literally one of our best sellers. I have used the baits myself(my mom got them at a goodwill store, hm look at that) and I think they did catch fish pretty well. they have great action but their one flaw is that the hook is way up front. Too many short strikes for me.

[Brad S]

Miles

I don't know what kind of fish are in the waters you fish and I'm no expert but in my experience LMB usually inhale the whole lure so I don't know why you'd be getting so many short strikes from them.

Have you tried texas rigging them?

Brad

p.s. On second thought, striped bass feed very similar to LMB and I was getting some short strikes with them also until I rigged them differently.

[Fatman]

Northern rib

Yeah the Indistructable is a really nice rod!!!! Make sure you keep the sales receipt and card that come on the rod, cause if it ever breaks you just send it back and get a new one shipping is $5.99 but that's cheap for postage.

Here's the site for the Flying Lure, I'm still trying to make a mold for the jig heads but I'll get it right sooner or later.

Fatman