One of the notorious difficulties with a balsa wood bait is the difficulty in casting the lures with casting gear. That was my reasoning in fishing this bait with the Daiwa's Pixy SPR. It's specially designed to cast small plugs and cast them well. Even so, the Balsa Bull is a surprisingly easy bait to cast thanks to a very back heavy weighting system that serves to put all the bait's momentum in the direction of your cast.

Here's a close look at the baits finish. It's more modest than intricate, but nice nonetheless.

This same weight system results in a very nose up position of the bait in the water. The bait practically sits perpendicular to the surface as it floats in it's own rippling wake splashdown. For this reason, we replaced the back hook on this bait with a feathered treble to tempt followers into striking the bait at rest.

These baits come stock with Mustad KVD hooks in size 4.

With the bait's position in the water, the natural conclusion is this bait is going to be difficult to walk, but thanks to the extreme buoyancy of it's balsa wood body, just the slightest twitch from your rod tip is enough to get this bait walking with ease!

Not really having the opportunity to test durability over long term with this bait, we took it to the lab to form our impressions. After several tests, we think this bait will hold up above average out on the water.

While the Balsa Bull has been out for several months, only now has it just started warming up enough for us to test it on the water. As a result our evaluation of the bait's durability is based on expected performance not actual performance. From what we can determine, the hardware and finish of this bait are top notch so we expect durability to be above average at the very least. Be careful with the body around rocks though as the balsa wood will likely dent if hit too hard against rocks or metal docks.

Conclusion: Is there anything more thrilling than a topwater strike? No matter the size of the fish, the sudden eruption beneath your lure fuels pure adrenaline. Mix into the experience, the availability of a throw back product with a legend inspiring backstory and you have the ingredients for some very memorable days out on the water.

This review might be finished, but unlike the majority of products we write up, we're not done fishing this bait, and that's no... wait for it... bull.

It is opportunities like this that inspires our passion for tackle and gets us excited to go fishing. Mike Bucca, went through painstaking efforts to recreate every last detail of what made the former Ichiban Minnow/Balsa Pro bait unique both internally and externally. Not having an original with which to compare, but fishing the Balsa Bull on its own merits, we can assure you this bait casts far and is super easy to work. This review might be finished, but unlike the majority of products we write up, we're not done fishing this bait, and that's no... wait for it... bull.