Fish and I fall for lure hook, line and sinker

I'm a sucker for infomercials. It's embarrassing, but true.

It started years ago with the AB Dolly, a plastic board on wheels that promised to turn my flabby abs into cold, hard steel.

It continued early one morn ing this past fall. I turned on the TV and there was the ubiquitous SI special offer, this one commemorating the 2008 World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies. As a native Philadelphian, how could I say no to the subscription? They were offering a DVD, a handsome hardback book (numbered individually, of course) and that's not all, a ball signed by the entire team!

I'm not a complete dupe. I knew the ball wasn't really signed by the Phillies, but I fell for the pitch anyway. Now the items sit on my bookshelves gathering the dust that missed the AB Dolly, which has been in the attic for years.

All this is to say, it should come as no surprise that it happened again recently. I fell for another one. Maybe you've seen the commercial: "Catch Bigger Fish." It's constantly on channels no one has ever heard of. Somehow, I happened upon one of these channels not too long ago and . . .

Can you blame me? Who doesn't want to catch bigger fish?

The Banjo Minnow was the name of product that would allow me to do so, and I fell hard for the spiel. For just $19.95, I would receive dozens of rubbery minnows that, with the correct action, would mimic a dying one. It was foolproof! The banjo music that played in the background - somehow both jaunty and reminiscent of the movie "Deliverance" - made it impossible to resist.

Anyway, not too long ago, the minnows arrived at my doorstep, along with an instructional DVD - "Catch the Big One" - and written instructions on how to rig, fish and troubleshoot the Banjo Minnow. I was so excited. I tore into the packaging and stuck the DVD in the player. It started with more banjo music, then, there he was: The inventor of the Banjo Minnow himself, Wayne Hockemeyer.

Hockemeyer, who has disturbingly hairy knuckles and sounds like a robot from New England, went through a quick tutorial on rigging and fishing the minnow. The key, he said, is in its "spastic action." When you retrieve the minnow, you don't just pull it through the water or bounce it off the bottom. You jerk it, let it die; jerk it, let it die, etc., reeling up the slack between each jerk.

Somehow, this drives bass and other predator fish nuts, and by the time his tutorial was over, I was nuts from his creepy robot voice. But I also was ready to do some fishing, hopeful this latest result of my weakness for TV product pitches wouldn't end up like the others.

I took my rod and reel and Banjo Minnows down to the Kanawha Canal between Maymont Park and the James River. I wrote about fishing the canal in November, and I figured this time, as then, there wouldn't be anyone around to watch me flail, jerking my rod this way and that. As Hockemeyer said in the video: "If somebody watches me, they think I don't know how to fish. What is he doing? He doesn't have a tight line."

I needn't have worried. I may have looked as spastic as my minnow in the water, but I got results almost immediately.

Where the water was clear, I watched as bass and bluegill made a beeline to the lure. I missed on a couple of hooksets - setting the hook is another thing Hockemeyer recommends doing differently with his invention - but was undeterred.

I moved a few yards to where a water pipe from Maymont discharged into the canal. Boom! A pitch beneath the waterfall produced a largemouth bass. It wasn't huge - a pound, pound and a half - but it clearly couldn't resist my chartreuse minnow.

I caught a couple of more in that area before moving on. On the way down the canal, I passed a teenager and his girlfriend who said they hadn't caught anything all day. I knew it. The Banjo Minnow was the secret! They also said they came here to fish because they read about this place in The Times-Dispatch. (See, kids still do read the newspaper.)

Farther east on the canal, I missed setting the hook on a big brute of a carp and what looked like a gar. It would have been something to haul either of those beasts ashore, but I took heart in knowing they were drawn to the minnow.

In just an hour and a half, the tally was a respectable half dozen bass and a dozen more near misses. The Banjo Minnow was a hit. The only problem is that it also fed my addiction. Thanks to Hockemeyer and his insane, convulsing minnows, I find myself drawn, like a slug to beer, back to the world of infomercials, hoping to discover the next Banjo Minnow.

It's a small price to pay, I guess, to catch more fish.