Ditto Baits

[purpurite]

So yesterday morning I took a drive to pick up a couple of tackle boxes of unbagged soft plastics that were listed as "gummy fishing worms." In total, it's about 6 pounds of stuff that I had really only acquired to melt down and re-shoot in my own molds. I figured the drive was going to be worth the donor plastics.

 

 

Turns out there are quite a few colors that look to be NLA or special production, mostly Zoom and Culprit. About 2 pounds of Zoom Junebug finesse worms and brush hogs alone. Lots of really interesting color combos.

 

One worm is really stumping me. It's stamped DITTO and is the strangest combo of an earthworm or caramel color and a color shifting purple, depending on the light angle. It's about a 3" curly tail worm, eel or snake in molded form. I can find almost nothing online about DITTO baits, other than the "Gator Tail" seems to be a well-loved worm over the years. Looks like the namesake and former owner Bobby Ditto passed away a long time ago, and I don't see anything about a company still making any products still.

 

 

Anyone have any info on this one? Like, what's the color called and what is the bait called? Don't think this one is getting melted down, it would just look like a blob of clay anyway.

 

I decided to look back into some of these bags to see what I may have missed when I was separating it all and bagging it yesterday. Turns out, I missed some things in the bag of black baits—some Culprit black grape worms, and more DITTO eels (or whatever they are)!

 

Found 6 more of these little 3" Ditto snake/eel things—they are split laminated, half opaque black and half SUPER dark transparent blue, which makes them look like a black grape when you hold them in your hand. Up to the light, it's definitely royal blue. Because of the rough molding on these, the edges get this weird blue halo, which is really cool.

 

 

 

Still have no idea what these are, but this is fun. LOL 

[RB 77]

That brown and purple is your classic "PB n' J" color. An all time great color combo. 

[Basser2021]

7 hours ago, DinkHero said:

So yesterday morning I took a drive to pick up a couple of tackle boxes of unbagged soft plastics that were listed as "gummy fishing worms." In total, it's about 6 pounds of stuff that I had really only acquired to melt down and re-shoot in my own molds. I figured the drive was going to be worth the donor plastics.

 

 

Turns out there are quite a few colors that look to be NLA or special production, mostly Zoom and Culprit. About 2 pounds of Zoom Junebug finesse worms and brush hogs alone. Lots of really interesting color combos.

 

One worm is really stumping me. It's stamped DITTO and is the strangest combo of an earthworm or caramel color and a color shifting purple, depending on the light angle. It's about a 3" curly tail worm, eel or snake in molded form. I can find almost nothing online about DITTO baits, other than the "Gator Tail" seems to be a well-loved worm over the years. Looks like the namesake and former owner Bobby Ditto passed away a long time ago, and I don't see anything about a company still making any products still.

 

 

Anyone have any info on this one? Like, what's the color called and what is the bait called? Don't think this one is getting melted down, it would just look like a blob of clay anyway.

 

I decided to look back into some of these bags to see what I may have missed when I was separating it all and bagging it yesterday. Turns out, I missed some things in the bag of black baits—some Culprit black grape worms, and more DITTO eels (or whatever they are)!

 

Found 6 more of these little 3" Ditto snake/eel things—they are split laminated, half opaque black and half SUPER dark transparent blue, which makes them look like a black grape when you hold them in your hand. Up to the light, it's definitely royal blue. Because of the rough molding on these, the edges get this weird blue halo, which is really cool.

 

 

 

Still have no idea what these are, but this is fun. LOL 

Those look interesting

Will definetley be something the fish haven't seen before Lol (if you decide to not melt them down that is)

[purpurite]

Definitely not getting melted. Too odd, too rare, and I don't need to melt stuff to mold. Plus, I kinda want to try them out.

 

So, it appears as though they were a knock-off of an 80s Bill Norman Lures soft bait called the Snatrix. They look extremely similar, and were also offered in 3", 5" and 8" versions. Apparently a topwater light tackle worm. I still have no info on the Ditto version, but I'll pass it along when I know more.

 

 

 

Doug

[Team9nine]

Nice score! I don't think I would melt anything original Ditto. People still pay good money for them. 

 

On the baits, Ditto made a bunch of different models just like most other manufacturers. I believe the little snake bait pictured was called the Verifier. The original was a 12 inch version and described as such: "The curly tail coils about 540 degrees and the slow-sinking worm is available in 24 colors and color combinations." Wouldn't surprise me if they ended up making multiple other smaller sizes as you mentioned under that name.

 

Here is the pic with the write-up:

 

 

Here's a list of a few other Ditto baits they made over the years you might look into (Whip Worm, Baby Eel, Gator Tail, Fireclaw, Sizzler, Cutthroat).

[WRB]

The purple brown color looks a lot like Creme color plus popular in the 80’s.

I would fish them!

Tom

[Catt]

1 hour ago, Team9nine said:

Nice score! I don't think I would melt anything original Ditto. People still pay good money for them. 

 

Totally agree!

 

Like @whitwolf preserve some history

[Bluebasser86]

I remember catching some of my first plastic worm bass on a Snatrix. The smell of those old plastics is something you can never forget. 

[purpurite]

Such wonderful information, thank you guys, They are definitely NOT getting melted down. I didn't think any of this stuff that I picked up was of vintage age, and it's not my intention to destroy any of it. I can replicate the colors if I want to pour them into different molds.

 

Sure is fun watching this information come to the surface, so to speak. There is almost nothing out there on the interwebs about these old Ditto baits, other than Gator Tails. It's also pretty entertaining to continue to get conflicting memories of what that strange color is called. I don't think I have had the same name said twice anywhere I have asked about it.

 

Thanks all!

 

 

Doug

[Mobasser]

I always liked Ditto baits years ago. The Gator Tail in blk/blue was a great worm. I would fish these also.

[purpurite]

I managed to get in touch with Steve Corley, who is the nephew of the late Bobby Ditto, the creator of this bait and many others. Here's what I learned...

 

These little snake-headed worms were indeed called the Ditto Verifier, named by the late Dr Loren Hill, because, "these baits will always verify if there are any bass down there or not." He had something to do with the development of the Snatrix, too, and the matter of which came first is up for argument. The Verifier was first molded in 1980.

 

The funky caramel/purple one was called Chocolate Motor Oil, and the back and blue was called (you guessed it), Black and Blue Laminate. He said they were available in both 3" and 11" versions if you can believe that. And it's true that Terry Scroggins owns all of the old Ditto molds and produces them mostly for himself, but does give them away on his social accounts from time to time.

 

Fun little fishing tackle archeology adventure. Can't wait to see how these work, once I figure out the best way to rig one up.

[whitwolf]

Really great information! Thanks for sharing these!