Nostalgic baits

[Ratherbfishing]

The older I get, the more nostalgic I am for certain lures (or "fake bait" as I called them back in the day).  Some of them didn't necessarily produce that well (for me) but they were present at the beginning of my lifelong obsession with fishing and will always have a special place for me.  What are some lures you have a nostalgic affection for?

 

At the small town grocery/hardware store where the bulk of my early purchases were made (BPS, Cabela's, etc, didn't exist then-like I could have gone there anyway) there was one major requirement for a lure to be sold.  It HAD to be able to hang from a rack.  Little, if any, shelf space was dedicated to selling tackle.

 

Mepps Spinners-like little jewels in their own plastic jewelry box, most of those remaining in my collection lack at least one hook (from rust) and tarnish has stolen much of their luster but when they were new,...oh!

 

Cards and cards of Manns Jelly Worms and ring worms.  Sniffing the aroma of a jelly worm was almost as good as fishing it.

 

The ubiquitous Johnson Beetle Spin.  Few starter tackle boxes didn't have at least a few of these.  They were cheap and effective.  

 

When I was starting out, original floating Rapalas came in about 2 colors:  silver foil and gold foil.  Yep, had them both (still do-and more).

 

The Creme worm with the old harness and propellor rig.  My very first "game fish" was caught on one of these so it holds the highest prominence in my heart.  

 

 

[Scarborough817]

the original shad rap 7 in baby bass, it reminds me of a trip i took with my dad to the french river and caught a fair amount of pike on it, this is definitely where my love of fishing came from.

[Catt]

Ya ever been to bass fishing archives?

 

Awesome website with the complete history of bass fishing!

[WRB]

Back in the 50's lures were sold at boat landings and hardware stores where I lived. Crank baits were called plugs, spinner baits were Shannon Twin Spins, inline spinners were mostly Shysters or Melos, Rapala minnows were Finland lures, jigs were Doll flies and soft plastic worm came along in late 50's as rubber worms or Creme worms. Hawiian Wigglers #1, #2 and #3 spoon were the first rubber skirted lures. Plugs made by Creek Chub and Heddon were the most popular. Braid was the only line availble until the late 50's when the first spinning reels came and used monofilament line.

Tom

[scaleface]

Beetle spins and the Storm Thin Fin were my first successful bass lures .  I had a lot of others  lazy Ike , Flatfish , Burke flex Plug , Johnson silver minnow , L&S Jointed Minnow , Jitterbug  ,Hula Popper , Pre rigged creme worm   but it was the Beetle Spin and Thin Fin that caught most of those early farm pond bass .

[Ratherbfishing]

28 minutes ago, scaleface said:

Beetle spins and the Storm Thin Fin were my first successful bass lures .  I had a lot of others  lazy Ike , Flatfish , Burke flex Plug , Johnson silver minnow , L&S Jointed Minnow , Jitterbug  ,Hula Popper , Pre rigged creme worm   but it was the Beetle Spin and Thin Fin that caught most of those early farm pond bass .

Oh yes, I hadn't mentioned the Johnson Silver minnow or the Jitterbug.  Had those too.  I have a Thin Fin now (my friend did well on them so, of course, I HAD to buy one).  Will have to put forth a concerted effort to use it.

38 minutes ago, Scarborough817 said:

the original shad rap 7 in baby bass, it reminds me of a trip i took with my dad to the french river and caught a fair amount of pike on it, this is definitely where my love of fishing came from.

I've seen those (in that length) in a shallow diver but never the in a deep diver.  Do they still sell them?

33 minutes ago, WRB said:

Back in the 50's lures were sold ar boat landings and hardware stores where I lived. Crank baits were called plugs, spinner baits were Shannon Twin Spins, inline spinners were mostly Mepps, Rapala minnows were Finlsnd lures, jigs were Doll flies and soft plastic worm came along in late 50's as rubber worms or Creme worms. Hawiian Wigglers #1, #2 and #3 spoon were the first rubber skirted lures. Plugs made by Creek Chub and Heddon were the most popular. Braid was the only line availble until the late 50's when the first spinning reels came and used monofilament line.

Tom

Would LOVE to collect old plugs but the prices are getting too rich for my blood.

39 minutes ago, Catt said:

Ya ever been to bass fishing archives?

 

Awesome website with the complete history of bass fishing!

Will have to check it out, thanks!

[Scarborough817]

49 minutes ago, Ratherbfishing said:

I've seen those (in that length) in a shallow diver but never the in a deep diver.  Do they still sell them?

tackle warehouse still has them

[Abzorb]

This year I started doing more flipping in the buy/sell sense of the term and have bought some 'new old stock' and used tackle so I actually get to try some of the classics I missed out on although what I noticed was many are still being made in some aspect or that most 'new' lures are copies of previous designs.

 

I started in the 90's so classic for me is stuff I still throw, beetle spin, rooster tail, shad rap/floating minnow and a model A crank. 

 

I'm still sorting and restoring, but I'll have a little umco box of classics to throw on a mitchell/garcia combo this spring/summer I'm excited about.

[jbmaine]

Thanks for this post, it brings back a lot of memories. When I was a little kid ( back in the 1950's ) I would sit on the end of the dock with a worm and bobber, and stare at the bobber waiting for the first twitch. As I got older I moved up to spoons ( dare devil ) and some kind of spinners. I still have the old tackle from when I was a kid. ( I'll never use it ) and every so often I take it out, just to reconnect to those happy days.

                                                         Jim

[A-Jay]

When I think back to when as a boy, going through my Dad's gear.  I was completely infatuated by the 'plugs'.

Crazy Crawler, Glow in the dark Jitterbug, River Runt, & I think he had a wooden Flatfish in there too.

Good Times.

A-Jay

[thinkingredneck]

When I was a child we fished for crappie, and anything else we could catch, for the table.  Looking back on it we were relatively lower middle class blue collar, so we did not waste food. I don't want  to give the impression that we depended on this, it was just an addition.  We did not buy fish, ever. We used hair jigs, spoons, creme worms in their rig, and live bait.  My Grandfather made his own bass feather jigs.  I am proud to still have one.  Unfortunately,  after my Grandfather died, my Dad let me use and loose most of his tackle, as ignorant kids will. The worst thing was breaking his fly rod horsing a catfish.  He had used it for Bream, I guess, as we had some popping bugs.  I wish I still had that stuff.  I don't remember any plugs, though.

[Ratherbfishing]

6 hours ago, thinkingredneck said:

When I was a child we fished for crappie, and anything else we could catch, for the table.  Looking back on it we were relatively lower middle class blue collar, so we did not waste food. I don't want  to give the impression that we depended on this, it was just an addition.  We did not buy fish, ever. We used hair jigs, spoons, creme worms in their rig, and live bait.  My Grandfather made his own bass feather jigs.  I am proud to still have one.  Unfortunately,  after my Grandfather died, my Dad let me use and loose most of his tackle, as ignorant kids will. The worst thing was breaking his fly rod horsing a catfish.  He had used it for Bream, I guess, as we had some popping bugs.  I wish I still had that stuff.  I don't remember any plugs, though.

I know what you mean.  As a kid I destroyed things (fishing gear, lures, toys, you name it) that I wish to heck I hadn't.

[MrPeanut]

my most nostalgic lure is a black hula popper

 

I "borrowed" it out of my dad's tackle box on vacation and caught a pike off the back of a paddle boat with it when I was a kid, and I've been hooked on fishing ever since.  The best explosion of water ever. 

[soflabasser]

I have a couple old nostalgic lures that I keep for memories that I caught some trophy bass on them. I am going to get a replica of these bass and put the lure in the replicas mouth for memories.

[Columbia Craw]

Oh the memories. 

[crypt]

Jelly worm,Jakes producer worm,Manns Razor back pig.

[RPreeb]

Fishing a casting size Hula Popper on a steel rod with an ancient casting reel, black braid, and often a short steel leader with a snap swivel.  If no leader, I still always had the snap swivel.  For us kids, that was how we were taught back in the late 50's.  The first "plug" I can remember using was a second, third or fourth hand red and white Bass-O-Reno (it was quite beat up, but still managed a few bass on it despite it being about 4" long).  I also had a hand-me-down 4" flatfish, orange with black spots.  They were all big lures because that was what you had to have with that old casting reel.  Although there are some fond memories with it, I really have no desire to go back to that crappy old rod and reel.

 

The first plug I bought for myself was a hula popper in leopard frog pattern, then one in black for dusk and after sunset (never could figure why a black lure worked better in the dark).  I also had a jitterbug.  I played around with pre-rigged plastic worms and black leaches... caught a few nice bass on them just wading out about waist deep in front of our cabin and fishing the weed beds parallel to the shore.

 

I remember "borrowing" the bamboo flyrod that hung on the wall of my uncle's cabin when they weren't at the lake and fishing popper flies for rock bass, and sometimes threw a small (about 1½") flatfish.

 

This fall I had to feed my memories and buy a couple of Hula Poppers... not quite what I remembered, and it remains to be seen if I will ever actually catch anything on them, but I did it just for the sake of nostalgia:

 

[The Bassman]

Had mentioned this in another thread a while back, but one of my fondest memories was going to local tackle shops with my dad and playing with the display case that many of these mentioned lures were in. It was a carousel that moved like a ferris wheel when you pushed the button on top.

[FryDog62]

The first topwater lure that ever got me hooked in about 7th grade (1977) was a Crazy Crawler.  Awesome bait and even more awesome strikes and blow ups!!

 

Found it again in my dad’s old Tackle box after he passed away.  Haven’t figured out why, but I’ve tried to throw on a baitcaster and spinning rod... it just spirals on the retrieve.  Must be line twist but haven’t spent enough time to figure out.  

[RPreeb]

13 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

The first topwater lure that ever got me hooked in about 7th grade (1977) was a Crazy Crawler.  Awesome bait and even more awesome strikes and blow ups!!

 

Found it again in my dad’s old Tackle box after he passed away.  Haven’t figured out why, but I’ve tried to throw on a baitcaster and spinning rod... it just spirals on the retrieve.  Must be line twist but haven’t spent enough time to figure out.  

I remember those too... a friend had one in yellow and black - looked sort of like a giant bumblebee.  The surface action seemed like it should tempt a strike, but I don't recall that he ever caught anything on it.

[Gundog]

My first 2 lures from back in the early 1980's.

[Scott F]

13 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

The first topwater lure that ever got me hooked in about 7th grade (1977) was a Crazy Crawler.  Awesome bait and even more awesome strikes and blow ups!!

 

Found it again in my dad’s old Tackle box after he passed away.  Haven’t figured out why, but I’ve tried to throw on a baitcaster and spinning rod... it just spirals on the retrieve.  Must be line twist but haven’t spent enough time to figure out.  

You just have to retrieve it VERY slowly.

[MickD]

On 12/5/2017 at 11:36 AM, WRB said:

Braid was the only line availble until the late 50's when the first spinning reels came and used monofilament line.

Tom

My dad had an Airex spinning reel (from France?) in the early 50's, I think.  The only line I ever saw on it was a very thin green braid.

The favorites I remember were the Hula Dancer in red/white, a River Runt in black/white, black Jitterbugs, and hammered brass spoons for river smallmouths.  About 1955.  I had a crazy lure called the Crazy Crawler, a surface lure with pivoting "wings" to catch the water, but never did very well on it.

 

Just noticed the post of Scott F, he had one too and did better than I on it.  Neat!

[scaleface]

Back in the 80's I wanted to improve my top water fishing . I dedicated part of every day fishing top waters , no matter what the condition .I pretty much threw every one I had . The lure that out fished them all was a vintage Dalton Special . I dont know what  happened to that lure but I cant find it . It didnt walk that great but shallow bass in brush routinely smashed it . If any of you have them in retirement , sharpen those hooks and give   them a go .