Matt Becker-Yamamoto Uni

Introduced last summer at ICAST, the Uni is a new finesse bait that is unlike anything Yamamoto has brought to market before. “The Uni is an urchin style bait,” said MLF Bass Pro Tour Angler, Matt Becker. “It has a very unique shape, something that the fish are not used to seeing, it is entirely different. It is a great bait for use with Forward Facing Sonar and is another presentation for highly pressured fish that are used to seeing a lot of minnows or traditional neko baits.”

The Uni is a versatile bait that can be rigged many ways. The most common rigging methods include a drop shot, jika rig, or an internal weight. “The Uni is made of durable TPE and it floats, so unless you add some kind of weight, it will just float on the surface,” explained Becker. “You could probably fish it as some type of topwater, but I have not tried anything like that. The way I fish the Uni is to add some sort of weight and fish it more suspended.”

The Uni has a hole that runs through the center of the bait. On the bottom of the bait, Becker will insert a tungsten weight, either a nail or a screw in type, ranging from 1/16 oz to 3/16 oz. On the top side of the bait he will run a size #1 Trokar TK137 through the hole and pop it out the side to create a wacky rigged Uni.

The Yamamoto Pro, favors a 7' M action spinning rod, which is the same rod he employs for fishing a wacky rigged Senko. As far as line is concerned, he uses braid to fluorocarbon, specifically Seaguar PEX8 21lb to a Seaguar Tatsu 12lb leader tied with an FG Knot.

Color is always an important consideration and Becker has had good success with Green Pumpkin and Watermelon. As it warms up, he is looking forward to fishing more of the shad colors such as Natural Shad.

“I've been experimenting with the Uni since ICAST and there is really not a wrong way to fish it,” said Becker. “I will say that I have had the best success just shaking it constantly, almost like you would a neko rather than kinda dead sticking it. As it's falling, the tentacles actually vibrate and you can even catch them just free falling because those arms are moving and swinging a little bit. The Uni action even when you're not putting any action in it. Once they see it, they will come a long way to come get it.”

Although Becker has only had the Uni for a limited period of time, he is confident that it will be a player on the tournament scene. “In my opinion I think the Uni may be more of a 5 fish limit tournament style bait rather than an every fish counts because of how slow you have to fish it and you're just not as efficient,” offered Becker. “But on the flip side if we have a Bass Pro Tour Event that the fishing is a little bit tougher or the pace is a little bit slower it could definitely be a player then. It's a very slow presentation where you may not get a ton of bites on it in a day but it's a great way to trick some of those big ones that play more in a 5 fish event. I think this year you'll probably see a 5 fish tournament be won with this style bait, whether it is an Elite Series Event or a Pro Circuit with Major League Fishing.”