The Found Lures Thread

[AlabamaSpothunter]

I was so embarrassed yesterday and mad at myself I didn't post an update on the lure.

 

Got the lure and learned a very valuable lesson.....A Fat Free Fingerling is not worth dying over or breaking expensive equipment.   That said, these are my favorite cheap cranks, and have caught several fish over 5lbs on them.    Color sucks though.

 

I was like you described....totally maxed out on height standing on the top of the bench, when the whole dang tree limb with the lure came slamming down, and instantly I was thrown off balance.   I have no idea how I didn't go swimming in 50 degree water.    I had enough time to brace my mind for the feeling of the cold water.

 

When it was all over, I look down and the lure with 20-30yds of braid is laying nicely besides the boat.    I still think it was a noble pursuit when I discovered bird poo all over the lure.  This thing was in a terrible place for wildlife with all that braid.    

 

Adventures in lure hunting ?

 

[WaterOtter]

Glad you didn't get done in!  and I'm glad you got the lure.

I learned that lesson about 7 years ago...  I was padding slowly along shore between fishing spots when a huge, live tree branch fell behind me from 40' up, less than a minute after I'd passed under it.  I realized then that a falling branch could take me out, kayak and all.  Now before I pull on a line or go after a high lure, I always look at whether the branch is dead and might break off with the lure, and I make sure I'm not underneath it.  It makes for awkward reaches sometimes, but it proved a valuable practice this summer when I did have a sizeable dead limb fall with a lure ... next to me.

 

Bird crap on a lure is a new one.  Twice bystanders have thanked me for getting lures out of trees to protect the birds.   I just nodded solemnly with them and thought to myself, glad you don't know I'm just here for the $13 lure!

[BTSyndrome]

1 hour ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

A Fat Free Fingerling is not worth dying over or breaking expensive equipment.

 

Agree!!! 

But, if it's a Suspending model.....different story. 

Nothing like when I sold off the Pre-Wiggle Warts, but a $3 lure is now going for $12 + 

This Is all I have left...

 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

I got two, I had no idea they didn't make them.    

 

They really are a great bait.   I change the hooks on them as I've lost a really nice fish when it broke a stock treble.  

[WaterOtter]

11 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

I have an 18' lure retriever, plus the height of my boat deck, plus my probably 7ish feet with my arm extended above my head, and I still had to stand on top of my Optimax to barely reach that thing. I don't understand how someone misses the whole lake that badly. 

I've heard that it's not the size of your pole that matters ... but I have a 24' window-washing extension pole that I've whipped out a few times when there were hot lures around.  ?

 

[BTSyndrome]

My memory sucks, but if I remember correctly they were the Excalibur branded Bomber signature series.  With Bill Dance and Jimmy Houston. 1997ish time frame. I also have a spitt'n image in there.

 

If I knew back then what I know now....

 

A simple $2 lure going for $10+ now days

 

But I can't make fun since I sold my $2 wiggle warts for upwards of $56 years ago.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

10 minutes ago, BTSyndrome said:

My memory sucks, but if I remember correctly they were the Excalibur branded Bomber signature series.  With Bill Dance and Jimmy Houston. 1997ish time frame. I also have a spitt'n image in there.

 

If I knew back then what I know now....

 

A simple $2 lure going for $10+ now days

 

But I can't make fun since I sold my $2 wiggle warts for upwards of $56 years ago.

Heck yeah, your memory is on the money.....they were excalber signature series baits with what was back then very sticky sharp, and finesse gauged hooks.     The vast majority of mine are in the threadfin pattern.   They were basically JDM baits of the time IIrc.   

 

I still have other baits in that lineup that were dynamite, my favorite being the Spittin Image.   Then the Swimmin Image.    

19 minutes ago, WaterOtter said:

I've heard that it's not the size of your pole that matters ... but I have a 24' window-washing extension pole that I've whipped out a few times when there were hot lures around.  ?

 

Haha, when I got a lure stuck in a much lower hanging tree earlier this year, I used an extendable tree saw.   That was a dicey situation now that I remember back on it......it's quite easy to do something stupid when they are in trees I see now, why couldn't you SMEs write a guide for us ?

[WaterOtter]

Before I knew about extension poles, I cut down a 3" loblolly sapling once to get a lure that was stuck tight high on the trunk.  It was inconsequential - one of a hundred tight-packed wild saplings on the edge of the water.  Over time I started to regret cutting it down on principles of nature and life, so I've never cut a tree again to get a lure.  Well, technically.... a few times I've cut branches that were closing off bank fishing spots so people could fish there again (and thus restore lure hot spots ?).

 

[Susky River Rat]

Usually I end up with catfish rigs and sometimes they have catfish hooked and alive to them. I have caught musky with walleye jigs stuck in them yet. Nothing truly note worthy have I found though. 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Once I found my first, the second two have come much quicker......oddly enough there is a whole artform to finding these baits.    I'm obviously a newb, but a couple guys in here are savants.   You'll start finding them once you train yourself to start looking for them.    

[Bluebasser86]

Time for the annual purge. These are all the baits I've found this year that I'll be selling off to someone for cheap.

 

 

[A-Jay]

That's pretty outrageous ~

If that's a PB  - Congrats !

I haven't found a single bait in the 15 plus years I've been fishing here.

Hope it stays that was too.

A-Jay

[Bluebasser86]

It's about average. I guess a voucher for how pressured the lakes I fish are. 

[A-Jay]

No doubt.

And pressured by the worst knot tying bassheads on the planet !

A-Jay

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Absolutely epic, you and WaterOtter are my savant mentors, and it's crazy how fast my success is picking up.  Got my first two-fer today.

 

I surmise the same guy lost both, ironically these are dynamite baits for the lake.   No doubt a trespassing bank angler.     

 

The advice you guys gave me about winds, trees, and specifically bank anglers who then don't have the ability to get otherwise "low hanging fruit" for those of us in boats is paying off the most.  You can actually hunt lures this way.    The others I've just lucked into. 

 

 

[jitterbug127]

Last trip I went fishing, buddy of mine says "I lost a lure over near that tree last time I was here. I paddled over to look and see a red kvd 1.5 hanging from the tree. I get the lure and he says "that's the one i lost!" 

 

Gotta love finding the lure you lost weeks before. 

[WaterOtter]

On 12/21/2022 at 4:56 PM, Bluebasser86 said:

Time for the annual purge

What a great haul!  These are the ones you are selling off, but we'd also like to see the ones you found that you're keeping

[Bluebasser86]

I kept very few. I know a few that I kept were a pre Rapala chug bug, 75 choppo, 120 choppo, rock crawler, DT8, #5 Rapala original floater, and a 6th Sense Crush 100 crankbait. 

[WaterOtter]

I'm such a geek ... the two baby bull shads you found recently stuck in my mind, plus I realized the pictured lures were rougher than the ones you usually seem to post, and there were only floating lures, so that's why I was being nosy about how many you kept or weren't in the pictures.     Finding lures is such a great game.

[Bluebasser86]

I gave the Baby Bull Shads away to the kids that I boat captain for. They both liked fishing the Bull Shads I have so I figured they'd like to have their own, even though they're not as good as the resign Bull Shads. 

[jitterbug127]

Id be interested in the lures Bluebasser86 if your looking to sell. Happy to grow my addiction!

[AlabamaSpothunter]

LOL.....I thought the same thing, and I noticed immediately they weren't in the group picture when he posted it.

 

Those and the Gantarel you found were the baits I'd find and immediately tie on.    Ironic that I found a 110 for my first, who knows how long I'll go before finding another high dollar bait.  

 

Only the Choppo I found was mint ready to fish.   I think it's just fun as heck colleting them like arrowheads or something.  

 

Found my smallest yesterday, a Crappie crankbait that must of cost less than a buck new lol.  

[Bluebasser86]

Walked a little today and only found 1 bait, but at least it was a good one, basically new Rapala DT8.

 

[TheSwearingAngler]

basically new, anybody got an ID?

 

I caught a spinnerbait with my spinnerbait.

 

The Mann’s Baby and Lunkerhunt Frog came out of the same tree… pretty fair chance looking at that rigging they were from the same angler. I wonder what the action was like on that frog.

 

[WaterOtter]

16 hours ago, TheSwearingAngler said:

anybody got an ID?

  

Nice haul.  The only lures I've seen with that kind of holographic foil are the cheap chinese lures on ebay.  Keep hunting lures and you're going to have a bunch of them in your collection.