Yamamoto's Custom Baits
I was just talking to a tackle shop retailer about how he determines inventory strategies. He compared a fisherman to somebody that loves tennis. Other than that first racquet and an ongoing supply of balls, tennis doesn't create the kind of “continual” purchase stream, that lures, lines, or fishing rods spawn. Our sport comes with a built-in urge to keep spending money. The question is, how effective is the money we spend? We just met a company called Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, and were “thinking” tackle and lures at the time.
“Here kid. Try this bucktail jig. It's free,” says the dusty old man. In the back of his mind, he's saying to himself “Got him. C'mon, kid. Taste it. Do a hit.” Darkness prevails. The kid tries the lure, and hooks and lands a five pound largemouth. Ten years later the kid sits alone in a room in front of his computer wearing a weird sweater, flannel Pjs, and black socks, while spending $22 online for a lure as likely to get stuck in the trees as that bucktail jig the dealer gave him as a child. He needs the 12 Steps of Fishing Anonymous, but remains in denial.
Becoming a Lure Manufacturer
Those of us that manage this site seek partners whose products work, and this was certainly the case with Gary Yamamoto Lures. The company's wide array of artificial baits (with customized matching hooks from world-class partners like Owners) is one reason they attract bass anglers from around the world. The latter might not be so apparent to their lure customers. To us, it's the most important thing the decades-old company offers our community.
The target of my interview with the company was a guy named Ron Colby. Ron has an interesting background story, as does his friend...company founder Gary Yamamoto. Ron is now responsible (pretty-much, as he said) for managing the entire company. He employs more than 120 people in off season, and staff grows by an additional 60 when the bass bed and the market heats up. With all of Ron's responsibilities he is not on the water as much as he would like to be. Working with distribution portals from Okinawa to Oklahoma, and from Alaska to Russia, and then to Australia; as well as, running their online company Baits.com tackle shop, leaves Ron with little time to fish.
Gary and the Company's Birth
Gary has been a bass fisherman all his life. Fishing the lakes near his home in Paige, Texas, he, like many millions of anglers around the world, found the hunt for, and capture of black bass; something that one never learns enough about. The behavior of the fish, the conditions under which we find and catch them, and the challenge of doing it consistently over the years on different waters, becomes almost devotional.
If you're lucky enough to spend a lot of time on the water, you know that you can go through a lot of lures. Gary, like the more insanely addicted amongst us, bought lures by the bagful. When he learned that the West Coast supplier was nearing bankruptcy as a result of poor management, he decided to take the lunge. He bought the company, mold, stock, and barrel. He felt – and has surely been proven right – that he could do it better than the previous owners did it. Yamamoto's bait company was born, and as a result the world of largemouth and smallmouth bass fishing changed.
Companies like this, where a lure is designed and built to meet a single angler's needs, that lives many years later doing the same thing for our entire worldwide community – is worth reflection. We keep using these lures for a reason – and our use creates environments where hundreds of families benefit from the idea, our love for the sport, and the original vision of something plastic swimming underwater.
Gary started Yamamoto Baits in an interesting way. He was a world-class bass angler who bought his favorite soft baits by the bag. When he discovered the company that manufactured them was going out of business, he stepped up the the plate. The company that he built on the ruins of that one now – thirty years later – employs more than 100 people. That's a Hula Swimmer in the mouth of that largemouth.
Baits.com, Online Fishing Tackle
Starting and running a company for almost thirty years can take something out of a guy, as you can well imagine. It was time for Gary to go hunting and fishing, and time for him to find somebody that could run what is now a serious business. Cross the 100-employee line, and you're not just making lures anymore, you're managing a Human Resource Department. You're managing Insurance issues, Health Coverage, Parking Lot Priority, The Mentally-Challenged Act of 1021, 1922, and 2044. And, you still have to create lures that catch anglers, and actually catch fish too. Not a lot of time left for actually living.
Ron Colby has been friends and fishing buddies (and sometimes competitors in the many largemouth tournaments they entered and often won) with Gary since he started the company. Gary wanted to fish and farm his land at a point some eighteen years ago. Ken Sasaski, President of GYCB called me one day ten years ago, and said “I want you to help run the company."
The comment wasn't as much of a job offer as it was the natural evolution of a company the two had watched grow from a tiny trial corporation, into one of the nation's big players in our sport. With tournament fishermen/women from Alabama, to the former Soviet Union, and from Tokyo to Orlando, the company's ever-growing line of baits (especially of the soft variety) have made waves in both the professional and amateur world of largemouth bass fishing. For insight from a professional bass fisherman on only one of the company's many product lines, read this article about their new D-Shad.
Products at the Online Tackle Store
One look at the company's drop-down menus shows you such a collection of soft and hard baits – and many things that will surprise you – that you can spend hours just fanning through the pages of their online digital catalog (called their Online Store).
From what the company names “Senko” baits designed for everything from largemouth to crappies, to items like the Floppin Hog shown here, can catch bass anywhere in the world. The fact that our waters are among the best in the world won't stop you from being impressed with the products' effectiveness.
You can buy Yamamoto's proven line of lures at your local supplier or on their online store. At the risk of influencing our readers, if you know us you know that we're major supporters of local stores. We would – and always do – spend a few more cents or (in some cases) considerably more than a few cents to support our local tackle shops. Shops do far more than provide row- after-row of shiny and attractive lures. They are the backbone of our community, and give us a place to meet, talk, and learn product and fishing in ways the chains can never supply. So if you're going to buy Yamamoto's lures, and cannot find them locally, visit and use the company's adept and efficient online store. But again, if you can, buy them from your local shops even if they cost a couple of extra dollars.
The Hula Swimmer
One of the most popular baits you'll find in the tackle boxes and bags of professional black bass hunters – the men and women to come “In the money” in places like the BassMasters Classic – are the company's famous “Hula Swimmers.” Designed to sit on a specially designed weighted hook, the swimmer is part worm, part shaggy headed bug, and all bass.
Part worm, part bug, and all largemouth, the company's “Hula Swimmer” can be found in tackle bags all over the world – wherever anglers hunt the black bass (and smallmouths, for that matter).
Senko Baits
Looking much like something I would throw at redfish, the Senko line from Yamamoto Baits offers anglers fishing for everything from deep lake largemouths to the crappies we often find in our golf-course ponds (I have a friend who's a crappie-angler par excellent; he's going to find a new love affair in the company's line of crappie-sized Senko baits in a wide range of colors).
The Senko is the nation's most popular crappie baits for good reason; it can produce the tasty pan fish when all else fails. Our Florida lakes are prime crappy fisheries, and it's surprising to us that more Floridians don't target the species. Friends of our team fish for them a lot in lakes just north of Tampa.
Picking a “Favorite” Artificial
One person's favorite lure is another person's least favorite. I can name a company (although I won't) that makes a line of absolutely gorgeous, shiny, angler-attracting swimming plugs. They are so beautiful, in fact, and so effective at catching the eyes of the world's anglers, that they are one of the top three in the industry.
The problem is they don't catch fish. Not for me, at least. I have – literally – thrown a blue, mid- swimming lure that worked so well in the water I felt like breading it in Italian Breadcrumbs and frying it for myself. If I had thrown it into a frying pan, I would have had better results than I did from that acre of hungry bluefish I threw it into. Did I get a hit? A tap? No. In fact, it spooked them.
What does that have to do with anything? A lot. If you're a dedicated (or even not-so-dedicated) bass angler, one of these days you're going to put a lure on that you've never used before. Conditions won't be perfect, the weather will suck, it will be too cold out, and the first cast you make will slam into an eight pounder... your life will change. Put an effective lure on your rod, and use it properly, and you will develop a lifelong devotion to one or two companies that make the lures that work for you.
We can't imagine it's easy to get a company like Owner Hooks to design custom components that are a perfect fit coupled with your baits. That is exactly what Gary Yamamoto accomplished with the world-class hook maker.
We're certainly putting Yamamoto's baits in our bags. For now they're going to be found in our freshwater (in our case) largemouth and crappie collection. We can't imagine it will be that long, though, before one of the many soft baits we intend to buy get picked up by a redfish, snook, or speckled trout wintering under a dock in saltwater. We'll let you know how they do. The lures, not the fish. We know how they'll do.
