Crankbait Love

[Catt]

All the talk recently about crankbaits I thought it would be good to show some of the old cranks some love.

Don't even know where I bought but it's been in my crank box for years. It's a Strike King Balse Crank.

More to come

[Catt]

Bagley's Small Fry Crawfish is another one I can't tell ya how old it is!

[Catt]

What! Y'all aint got none?

[Goose52]

I still have quite a few baits that I've had since the middle 1960s but many wouldn't be considered "crankbaits" - some are topwater, jerkbaits, etc.  But, here's a few from back then:

In the '60s, I lived in the Miami, Florida area and fished both fresh and light saltwater. MirrOlures were the BIG thing back then. Some of these baits have lips so they fit into the crankbait category:

A couple River Runts:

Nothin' special here - they're all Rapala floaters....but they all date back to the 60's - let's put 'em in the crankbait category since they have lips (but most folks call them minnow baits I guess).

A couple "veteran" Hellbenders:

 

 

 

 

 

[Mumbly]

Thanks to this thread I was able to remember that I had some older Bagley's  and Bomber cranks somewhere. Was able to locate most which included some Bagley Fatcat's, KB-1's and a couple Bomber Larry Nixon signature cranks. Just from late 80's but glad I found them.

Thanks guys

[Catt]

@Goose52, I live on the Louisiana Gulf Coast & those MirrOLures are still killers.

[whitwolf]

Here are a few Catt: 

 

I have more and when I can get some pictures I'll post them. The four hanging on the prongs are quite sentimental. The Rabble Rouser Baby Ashley Is the crankbait I caught my first 7 largemouth. The Bagleys  I bought for a dollar many years ago. It has never seen the water. The other two(along with the baby ashley) are lazy Ikes that were given to me by a couple of guys that got me Into bass fishing.  Move to come later....

[whitwolf]

Here's a few more. The black bait is a Rebel Humpback before It was called a Humpback;notice the screw to attach the lip to the bait is ontop of the head instead of underneath.

The bottom picture Is another shot of some pre-humpy's. They were called deep divers at the time.

@

[Catt]

One of the first plastic Mudbugs

A deep diving Rat-L-Trap that ain't caught nothing!

Here's one for whitwolf, wrote on the bill is Rebel Deep Crank-R

[scaleface]

 

 

[Paul Roberts]

Knew the pics would start coming in. What's got me is that I don't consider most of these plugs "old". Old was made of wood, although I do have some of the first plastic plugs -my grandfather's. Will post when I get a chance.

Gotta say, I do have a lot of love for those "old" plugs shown above. No one should be afraid to throw them, even now.

[Goose52]

4 hours ago, Paul Roberts said:

Knew the pics would start coming in. What's got me is that I don't consider most of these plugs "old". Old was made of wood, although I do have some of the first plastic plugs -my grandfather's. Will post when I get a chance.

Gotta say, I do have a lot of love for those "old" plugs shown above. No one should be afraid to throw them, even now.

Indeed - the only thing "old" about the plugs I posted is that they were purchased around 50 years ago...HOWEVER, they are still in production today (except for the ultra-light MirrOlures and the River Runts)...

[Raul]

21 hours ago, Catt said:

What! Y'all aint got none?

You ain't the only "old fart" around ya know my dear friend , of course I got a bunch of oldies but goodies like you, I got that Bagley's craw, also have the BB and the BBgill, got several Fat Cats ( remember those ), even got the Bagley's Smoo, along with Killer Bs, a bunch of Fat Raps and Shallow Fat Raps, everybody thinks about the Shad Rap being kinda new, yeah right , I remember I paid the whopping amount of 6,000 pesos for my first Shad Rap ( still around ), back on those days it was an insane ammount of money  . Those Whopper Stopper Hellbenders and Bomber Mud Puppies were just deadly at Cajon de Peñas ( the first place where I caught a stringer of 5 bass weighting more than 50 lbs on a tournament and belive or not, I didn't make it to the first five places ). It's just that I'm too lazy to take pics of them cranks, it's a lot of boxes.

[Jeff H]

5 minutes ago, Raul said:

....a bunch of Fat Raps and Shallow Fat Raps....

Any of those shallow models #5's. 

Boy are you lucky!  I am on my last shallow #5 and have several deep #5's and I'm afraid to throw them now because I don't want to lose them.  That shallow version is a killer!

[Raul]

7 minutes ago, Jeff H said:

Any of those shallow models #5's. 

Boy are you lucky!  I am on my last shallow #5 and have several deep #5's and I'm afraid to throw them now because I don't want to lose them.  That shallow version is a killer!

 Yeah, that shallow Fat Rap size 5 is just deadly, a few years ago I hung up one and the line broke before I could try to retrieve it ( it was windy as hell ), man that hurt more than a kick to testicles cuz the pain of a kick to the nuts is going to go away while your dear bait ain't going to come back, I caught literally thousands of fish with that Perch colored bait. I grabbed a few at e-bay a several years ago, $35 bucks a piece and it didn't bother me paying that much for any.

[Avalonjohn44]

My all time top producing crankbait. This is a stock pic, mine has about half the color left and is still catching fish like the day I bought it:

 

[Catt]

@Raul pictures

[scaleface]

Theres a few hand carved baits here .

[Raul]

Those are the Bagley's Baby Bass I'm talking about.

[Mumbly]

A couple #5 fat raps in shallow and deep. A couple Bagley's Fat Cats and a couple that I think were called small fry. Correct me if I am wrong on the later.

 

[Paul Roberts]

Those Bagley's plugs were sure gorgeous. And I see some of Tom Seward's "Natural Ike" series in scaleface's pic. I have some of those too. One model in particular that is still a staple in my working CB box is a very well designed medium running flat-sided bait that is just killer in cold water. It's a slow riser, with a tight stuttering action that is unstable -being a flat-side- and so it kicks and hunts. Lost one a few years ago and... I'm still not over it. I have two left. 

It's a nice pearlescent crappie finish that I "bluegill-ized".

CB's are cool to look at, fun to fish, flat out catch, and are much more versatile than a lot of fishers seem to think. I see that scaleface has slowed the rise on one of those Bagley's he has. Do that and a CB can be fished like a jig -and that's saying something a lot of fishers don't realize you can do with a CB -you can fish 'em slow: walk em, crawl em through cover. For many, the depths of "crankbait love" has yet to be discovered.