by Charles Memminger
Monday, September 30, 1996
My track record is pretty good. I've used my set of sorta-Ginsu knives for everything from pruning tree limbs to cutting tomatoes paper-thin. (The flecks of tree bark in the salad can be disconcerting.)
Lately they've been running a fishing lure infomercial. These lures are supposed to act like dead or dying minnows. You get a whole mess of different size fish, some rubber frogs, hooks and little metal screw thingies. I had to have them.
My wife thought I was nuts, which is not exactly news.
"You nitwit, those are supposed to be mainland minnows for catching lake fish, like bass," she said.
"Yeah, but they are scientifically designed to create a genetic response in fish," I countered. "Fish just can't ignore the dead and dying Banjo Minnow!"
"Yes, but fish in Kaneohe Bay have never seen dead, dying or even live mainland minnows," she said. "They won't recognize 'em."
Hah, I countered.
MY minnows arrived. They were so cool: kind of squishy and colorful. My brother, who, unlike me, actually fishes, just happened to be visiting from the mainland. So we hopped onto my kayaks and headed out into the bay.
On my brother's second cast, the pole bent forward.
"You're hung up on the coral," I said.
"No, I've got something," he said.
I couldn't believe it. But the pole tip danced around as the mystery monster of the deep battled the Banjo Minnow.
He reeled in the creature. And I say creature because I've never seen anything quite like it before. It was like a billiard stick with eyes.
It was about 3 feet long, with a long skinny snout. There were little lips on the end that smacked back and forth.
"What in the hell is it?" my brother asked.
"I don't know, but I'm not touching it," I said.
"Well, I'm not touching it," he said, just as the creature writhed, causing my brother to turn the kayak over.
"Ahhhh! I'm in the water with it!" he yelled.
But the water javelin looked too bushed to charge.
A boat came over and I held up our catch.
"It's a stick fish," the guy said.
"Dangerous?" I asked.
"Nah," he said.
My brother got back onto his kayak but refused to remove Banjo Minnow from the broomstick's mouth.
"Come on, you're the fisherman," I urged, throwing him my T-shirt, which caused me to tip over. The guy in the boat was getting quite a show.
My brother finally gave in and managed to dislodge the hook while holding the snout with my shirt. After a few photos, we dropped the monster back into the water. After a few moments, it recovered and swam off, probably to suffer the humiliation by his friends for having fallen for a fake mainland minnow. ("Hey, what can I say? It looked like it was a dead or dying little fish. I just couldn't stop myself.")
WE learned later that stick fish are dangerous. One jumped into a guy's eye socket once and killed him. Another fisherman said they've got lots of sharp little teeth and a nasty tail stinger. That guy in the boat apparently had quite a sense of humor.
But the point is, the infomercial minnow worked, even in Kaneohe Bay. I'm sending photos to the Banjo Minnow people so they can see what their product caught. We're going to tell them it's a special breed of heavily armed sea bass.
In the meantime, I'm planning to head out again. This time I'm going to use one of the fake lake frogs. God knows what kind of hideous beast that will attract.
