Automatic Memories

[Log Catcher]

The old Rebel Wee R and the old Rapala Fat Rap. I caught more bass on those two crankbaits than any other crankbait. Caught my first bass on soft plastics with a purple worm. Don't remember the brand.

[Columbia Craw]

So I’m taking Prevagen and you want me to have automatic memories?  I can’t remember where I put my lures.  

[volzfan59]

Mine is a red casting spoon with white polka dots. It might have been a daredevil brand, but I'm not sure. Around 1970, when I was 11, my dad's work took us the the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for three years. He bought me a new rod and reel, plus the spoon and some other stuff. Anyway, caught my first smallies on it fishing riprap beside a bridge. I also caught a 36" Northern Pike on it the same day. Remember it like it was yesterday. Good times!

 

 

[Fishin Dad]

A beetle spin is my memory bait.  My dad taking me out on the pontoon, catching a limit of crappies and bluegills on beetle spins and putting them in the basket.  Then anchoring the pontoon, grilling up fish, and going for a swim.  Then popping jiffy pop popcorn on the same grill over worn coals.  Listening to Paul Harvey on the radio and pitching sleeping bags and spending the night on the lake.  Priceless for me.  

[Pat Brown]

Any time I put a long purple worm on my line. 

 

When I put a Rapala jointed floating minnow on.

 

Daredevil spoon.

 

These all remind me of fishing with my dad.

 

He believed the Manns Jelly Worm in grape/firetail to be the greatest and only largemouth bait necessary (not really but kinda ?).

 

When we would go up North to visit moms family in the summers, we would fish for Smallmouth and Pike and Walleye and Trout and really whatever was biting on Lake Huron...the Rapala floating jointed minnow, Daredevil spoon and the Storm Wiggle Wart all caught me piles of fish back when I was a kid and had no idea what I was doing.

 

Miss those summers.

[T-Billy]

Caught my first bass on a Big-O. That bait will always be special to me.

[Captain Phil]

[GRiver]

Devil’s horse for me. 

[the reel ess]

23 hours ago, Mike L said:

For me it’s a Sluggo!

Every time I see it in my box mixed in with other stick baits I smile and remember how much I used to use them and wonder why I don’t as much anymore!

 

 

Mike

There were some in my dad's tackle when he died. I keep saying I'll use them but just haven't done it. Did you rig them wacky or weightless like a fluke?

[Jar11591]

5 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

Daredevil spoon.

 

These all remind me of fishing with my dad.

 
You reminded me of a couple more. 
 

That classic red and white Dardevl. One of the couple lures that my dad would have tied on no matter where we were fishing. He took me fishing to catch my first northern pike with that spoon, and now any time I see one it immediately takes me back to that moment. 
 

A Red Shad colored Culprit ribbon tail. This is the lure my dad taught me to bass fish with. Most of my earliest fishing memories are fishing with my dad, both of us throwing a Red Shad Culprit ribbon tail. Probably my number one fishing memory;  I was maybe 4, bank fishing with my dad, throwing the trusty culprit. I hooked a decent bass and dragged it up the bank and I was beyond excited. As my dad is helping me unhook it, I ecstatically ask him “how much does it weigh, like 80 pounds?!?”. My dad completely nonchalantly responds “nah, about 2”.  Totally deflated me ? We still laugh at this story all the time. 

[Skunkmaster-k]

I caint fish a purple worm without thinking of the first bass my Dad caught with me. 

[jminer79]

Lots of "Dad" talk here. Hits ya right in the feels when they're gone. 

[Functional]

Purple worm and black jitterbug.

 

My dad would fish them d**n near exclusively and thats what I ended up learning on. Lot of great memories when I was younger using both. 

[Mike L]

4 hours ago, the reel ess said:

There were some in my dad's tackle when he died. I keep saying I'll use them but just haven't done it. Did you rig them wacky or weightless like a fluke?

When I started using them I’d rig mostly weightless and use it on top and retrieve as a jerk bait. 
 

The thing about it is, depending on how you rig it and expose its nose, you can make it dive or rise with light twitches and then it’ll pulse on the way down. 
 

It’s really a do nothing plastic that you have to make it do what you want, which is what makes it so deadly. 

 

 

 

 

Mike
 

 

[Bankbeater]

<-- Cotton Cordell Big-O.  It was the first crankbait I ever caught a bass on.

[optimator]

Black ProductoLure tournament worms. I caught my first bass on one. I still use them.

[the reel ess]

4 hours ago, Mike L said:

When I started using them I’d rig mostly weightless and use it on top and retrieve as a jerk bait. 
 

The thing about it is, depending on how you rig it and expose its nose, you can make it dive or rise with light twitches and then it’ll pulse on the way down. 
 

It’s really a do nothing plastic that you have to make it do what you want, which is what makes it so deadly. 

 

 

 

 

Mike
 

 

My friend will go fishing with me occasionally. He's a do-nothing expert. No matter what you give him he simply reels it very slowly. It works. I call it the Donnie Do-Nothing method.

[msgf91]

Road Runner is the first one for me.  My dad used to buy them and a beetle spin a lot.  If we didn't catch anything other ways, he'd tell me to tie on a road runner.  But usually the first step was getting a hook to remove paint from the eye.  

 

The 2nd one would be a paddle tail swim bait.  My first bass was on a small paddle tail my dad would always call a "Sassy Shad".  

[Mike L]

11 hours ago, the reel ess said:

My friend will go fishing with me occasionally. He's a do-nothing expert. No matter what you give him he simply reels it very slowly. It works. I call it the Donnie Do-Nothing method.

Tell Donnie that he should increase his hit rate with a Sluggo if he just gives it a twitch every now and then.
No big deal just little or he can just give the reel a quick turn and kill it, it’ll do the same thing.  

The thing about it is after a little twitch or 2 it’ll glide and kind of pulse because of its shape and the slits in it. 

If he still won’t do it, tell him to stand up then sit down while holding the rod with a little line tension ☺️
 

 

 

Mike

[Catt]

[J._Bricker]

Automatic memories come to mind of my Dad throwing these on a calm evening across the still waters of the red clay bank ponds of North Carolina back in the mid 60’s…..

[Catt]

16 hours ago, Catt said:

 

That's a hand carved Poe's metal lipped square bill. Takes me. Instantly takes me back to the 70s.

 

 

[fishballer06]

For me, an underspin. The first tournament I ever won, I caught every fish on one. It's not even my favorite bait to throw, but that day, they wouldn't stop biting it. 

[detroit1]

Mepps Agaila (?) size 0,dressed: first pike at 12 years old. Pike was 6" long, haha    Skipjack: (dual prop surface lure) given to me by a neighbor at age 15. Herb caught most of his bass with them, and it had to be redhead color, and not available in any store around me. He was from eastern Ky. Kelley"s Plow jockey: (pre-rigged worm with 3 hooks, still being made) Someone told dad that these were killers. We caught the mess out of them with those. After a few years, that was all dad would throw. 6 plow jockeys and a 3 pk. of sampo ball bearing swivels became his tacklebox, and hardly ever used anything else. Thin Fin silver shad (shallow thin crankbait) Was the walleye ticket on my only fly-in canadian fishing trip in 1985. Spinnerbaits got the pike. 

[steve carpenter]

WeeR and original bomber crankbait. First bass on the bomber