20 Most Influential Bass Fishing Lures | No. 12 Yamamoto Senko
Posted by Jason Sealock on Fri, Apr 08, 2011 @ 08:00 AM
This was one of the toughest ones we ranked. We kept trying to find a place for it higher in the list but as we kept going back and forth, the impacts of other baits have been longer lasting, and we just couldn't find one to move down the list to put this in its place.
So as impactful as the Yamamoto Senko has been in the last 10-12 years, we just couldn't fit it into the top 10. But that sure doesn't diminish the lure's place in history. And 10 years from now this lure may move up the list.
Around these parts of Kentucky we call the Senko, the "stupid bait" because you could be the worst fisherman in the world and throw the senko up in the vicinity of a bass and catch it. The action and "do-nothing" appeal make this a top bass catcher from spring to fall all over the country.
I took a fellow writer fishing one spring with me and he'd never thrown them before. I instructed him to just cast it lightly up to some yellow flowers on the bank. I looked back at him and then looked at his line as it was easing off.
"You got one," I said. The rest is history as they say. We caught a bunch of bass in one small area casting senkos and there are litteraly tens of thousands of these stories with the Senko.
But it's appeal is not just how well it catches bass without having to impart action, but the fact that it catches big bass equally well, especially bedding bass.
Rumor has it that Gary Yamamoto wanted to make a Slug-Go type lure and poured a mold from a Cross Pen to created a new shape. After some refinement, he figured out that jerking a soft plastic was not the biggest appeal but rather a wiggling action on the fall. He also really pioneered weighting plastics to make the more dense and fall more readily.
For these reasons, the Yamamamoto Senko is No. 12 on our list of 20 All-Time Most Influential Bass Fishing Lures.