What makes the humpback minnow such an iconic BFS lure? Let's investigate...
BFS Lure Types
Handmade Humpback Minnows made by N. L'esca Handmade Crafts - instagram: n_lesca
There's a wide range of brilliant lures available for Bait Finesse System (BFS) fishing. Everything from soft plastics - such as finesse worms, tiny creature baits and floating stick baits - through to metal spoons, spinners and hard baits such as crankbaits and jerkbaits. So what is it about these humpback minnows in the title that make them so typically "BFS"?
Why the Humpback Minnow?
First of all, a narrow, flat-sided minnow seems to be the perfect, artistic mix of a beautiful, model-fish, great castability and a hypnotic action which brings a rigid puppet to life so convincingly. Tying one of these on your line feels like you're fooling fish with art as well as tactics and skills. It also fits very well with the pleasing image of a wise old angler whittling a lure with perfect proportions and a deadly wiggle that fish just can't refuse.
Notice the gill and jaw lines scored into the hand-cut foil as well as the scale pattern and lateral line
With BFS being Japanese, the prized fish of powerful, turquoise mountain rivers in Japan include varieties of char and pacific salmon (some of which are landlocked "trout" forms). In the most powerful flows of the Honryu (main) rivers of Japan's mountains, closely-related yamame and amago trout often develop a characteristic powerful arch to their shoulders - especially the males in the run up to breeding time.
Trophy amago with very pale red spots on the flank (so it actually looks more like a yamame!) caught by professional/subsistence angler Hisanobu Hirata in Gifu Prefecture, Japan photographed when visiting Hirata-san's shop in 2014. Notice the primeval jaw-line and the hump just beginning to form behind the head in this non-migratory subspecies of the ocean-going Satsukimasu (サツキマス) salmon.
A more typically marked amago trophy (this time caught by Kazuyuki Yamada, another subsistence angler from Akiyamago, Japan and photographed on a 2018 visit). Again, the hump is just beginning to form in the shoulders. In some individuals, that humpback profile can become extremely exaggerated.
These non-migratory trout belong to the same Onchorhynchus ("hook-snout") genus as fish including e.g. rainbow trout, chum, pink and sockeye salmon. Yamame and amago trout tend to be much more shy than rainbows and the time and location window for catching them in their humped condition during their fishing season is really very limited. In contrast, male pink salmon on their breeding run in the USA are caught much more frequently than humpback specimens of amago and yamame - and they provide a really extreme example of the profile:
Male Pink Salmon in the freakishly exaggerated hump-profile breeding condition CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The combination of striking head and jaw shape - plus the iconic hump-back profile of these sleek trout give these fish a really characteristic "look". Somehow they have a very Japanese style! I don't know for sure, but this is possibly why lure-makers began to imitate that characteristic profile and head shape with their lures. This, of course, is a reflection of Bait Finesse System being a term that originated in the Japanese fishing community after being coined by Shimano.
Handmade Humpback Minnows: BFS Lure or Beautifully Crafted Work of Art?
Hand-cut and sanded wood blanks sealed with lacquer and showing the wire hook hangers formed and sandwiched inside (N. L'esca)
A handmade humpback minnow created by a talented maker in Japan is a thing of true beauty. The build-time, cost and gorgeous finish of these flat sided sinking minnows pose serious questions as to whether you dare to actually fish with them. However, though these lures sometimes go into the hundreds of dollars price range - you can find some surprisingly affordable examples too. It's even possible to have a go at making your own lures in this style.
The wonderful examples in this article were created by N. L'esca Handmade Crafts and are the Furbo 50S model. You can see many more examples on the N.L'esca Instagram profile.
As well as shaping the balsa wood body, wire hook-hangers, adhesive foil coating and the lip, the airbrush painting, coats of lacquer etc. each eye is also individually made before being fixed in place.
These are the kind of lures that encourage (or really demand) you to develop your casting and presentation skills to the highest levels. You don't want to be left looking like that "All the gear and no idea" guy. As well as anglers who spend years developing their BFS lure making abilities to provide for their own fishing, some makers do produce small numbers of lures for sale.
OK, the small-batch artisan handmade lure tradition gives a great introduction - how about moving into the more industrial scale market?
Megabass Great Hunting GH46, GH51 and GH64 Sinking Minnow
The Megabass Great Hunting Humpback minnow brings the handmade flat-sided minnow aesthetic to high-quality factory mass-production. With that characteristic narrow body and a relatively high density it is designed to cut down through powerful currents and get to fishing depth quickly.
A fantastically enticing "hunting" action and lovely painted finishes are what you can expect from the Megabass GH46, GH51 and GH64 sinking minnows. The numbers in each model simply indicate their length (mm). This range of lures from Megabass are less expensive than individually hand-made lures. At the same time, most anglers will want to be cautious about slinging one into a bush or hanging up on snags below the water!
Any JDM sinking minnow is going to be something your wallet won't want you to keep replacing on a regular basis if you can help it. I've researched some Amazon links for the GH51 (5.1g) if you want to check them out. The Amazon links in this article are part of the affiliate programme and qualifying purchases will earn Fishing Discoveries a modest commission (without affecting the sticker price for you).
Model numbers include Humpback 46FS (46-mm flat sided), Humpback 51FS (51mm, flat sided) and Humpback 64FS (64mm, flat sided). These three are all (fast) sinking lures. There are other body shape options in the wider range which are floating and suspending also which are also possible to track down from various suppliers.
With Megabass being a renowned JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) brand, the associated high quality manufacturing and premium pricing go hand-in-hand with high customer confidence in their products.
As with any BFS lure, the key to success with flat-sided sinking minnows is knowing how to fish them - and that is the thinking behind the guidance I've created to help give you as much of an unfair advantage as possible. Clicking here will fast-forward you to that guide in this article.
Cripple Jerk BFS Lures on Fishing Discoveries: Affordable Introduction to Humpback Minnow Fishing
A budget friendly BFS Lure offering in the humpack minnow style can be found in the lure shop section of the site. Nicknamed "Cripple Jerk" minnows, these 4-gram, 50-mm lures are not as heavy as the 5.1-gram Megabass Great Hunting of a similar size - and the painting will be less precise. However they are designed to provide an affordable version of the sinking humpback minnow fishing experience.
This is firmly in the category of Sinking Minnow BFS lure - but a Cripple Jerk doesn't go down like an absolute stone. That slightly slower sink rate and its lighter splashdown are factors I've found to be highly effective in my home rivers. However, before I'd ever tried them for myself I wasn't expecting much from them. In truth, when I was sent the first samples of these lures, I didn't really know what to hope for.
As soon as I fished with them I was very quickly impressed by their casting range and accuracy - as well as their versatile range of actions which include:
- Sinking Flutter
- Crankbait style wriggle
- Jerkbait style "turn out"
- Erratic vertical and lateral darting/hunting action when "worked" with the rod tip
BFS Lure E-book Guide (Cripple Jerk Humpback Minnow Edition)
Because the Cripple Jerk BFS lure is so adaptable, I didn't want to supply it with zero accompanying guidance and hope for the best. Almost worse than that would be to tag on some token notes that are too short and general to be useful. Instead I set to work on a 30-page, full-colour illustrated e-book guide which comes (at no extra cost) with all lures purchased from the lure shop. In other words, when you're buying this BFS lure, you're also buying the secrets of how to get the best out of it.
The guide contains plenty of detailed advice so you can use it with a variety of sinking minnow baits (including hand-made hump back minnows and the Megabass Great Hunting series). Because of its wider relevance, the e-book is also available to buy on its own for £10 - without any lures. Just click on the image above and then scroll down the products in the lure shop section of this website to find it (but do bear in mind that you can get if for no charge with the Cripple Jerk Lures!).
At the most basic level, the e-book explains how and when to create a variety of proven actions - while matching them to particular situations. I hope it's clear I wanted to make a unique feature of buying Cripple Jerk lures to be that they are the only lure (so far) that comes with such a comprehensive BFS lure fishing guidebook.
That way, I can be confident you'll be able to get the best out of these baits.
The e-book also explains how the tactical colour range works and lets you have some simple rules for how to choose which colour to tie on (and a highly effective system to guide the sequence of colour changes you make). There's also guidance on rigging as well as switching out the supplied (treble) hooks for barbless single hook options for appropriate target species.
Don't be fooled into thinking the Cripple Jerk only works for trout and char species!
It's great to know that even though those original hand made lures from Japanese makers were designed to target the trout and char of beautiful mountain rivers, they kick ass for all predatory fish. Anything that is interested in a baitfish around the size of the lure will find it hard to ignore the full range of provocative actions you can create with this BFS lure.
With that said, perhaps there is something in the idea that beautiful rivers lead to beautiful fish and, by extension, inspire beautiful lures to be created too?
A beautiful wild Amago I was lucky enough to catch in 2015 from an absolutely gorgeous Japanese stream
“The build-time, cost and gorgeous finish of these flat sided sinking minnows pose serious questions as to whether you dare to actually fish with them.”
Exactly my thoughts. These beautiful lures represent, for me, a diametrically opposite path to the direction in which a great deal of lure-fishing has gone in recent decades: I refer to soft plastics. I used Mepps spinners as a boy in the 1960s, for perch, using very light tackle – split-cane rod 5′ 2″, little fixed spool… In the 1970s I fished for pike, and plugs at a very reasonable price were offered in UK by Shakespeare – or more expensive US-branded ones from the big names like Heddon offered by Ken Latham in Potter Heigham, plus I bought mail-order direct from the States. I didn’t like losing them in the weeds, or hung up in a tree on the opposite bank – all those trebles… In the 70s I started fishing for sea bass with the same casting gear – and plugs, before I’d heard of anyone else doing this. Fishing in the sea, I lost far fewer expensive lures! Stopped fishing in the early 90s, too few bass. Started again a few years ago in France – and I discovered soft plastics, used to a huge degree in the US for largemouth bass, which is what I fish for in France. Worms or swimbaits, just a single large hook, rigged weedlessly – magic! They’re far cheaper than plugs/crankbaits, far more weedless, and they certainly catch fish. I’ll be back in France next month, itching to try my new inflatable fishing craft with electric motor; and I have a new Shimano Aldebaran to match one of my lightest rods.
The artisan lures featured here are beautiful, but I shudder to think what they cost! They deserve to be in a glass case. I wouldn’t use them myself.
Hey Paul, great introduction and walk through of the Humpback Minnow.
A package deal of some lures, with instructions on how to use them, should help anglers down the Humpback road.
Thanks Glenn – I’m trying to work in some kind of Humpback bridge pun for the Humpback road but I think that the end result might just be a bit too painful; so I’ll spare you.
Do keep me updated with your results and experiences – I’m very keen to hear how they work for you “out in the wild” and outside my own window of experience.
Paul