Bass Fishing HomeBass Fishing Forums

Go Back   BassFishin.Com Forums > Additional Categories > Casual Fishing Discussions & Novice Questions

 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 07-23-06, 07:36 AM   #1
JB
BassFishin.Com Premier Elite
 
JB's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 8,655
Default old lures - new bass- beginners guide to bass background

Thought some new to bass fishing could read some basic knowledge of bass fishing since the 60's...
Bass fishermen are an eclectic lot, not generally following any one system or method to achieve the ultimate goal: catching bass. Fishermen spend countless hours on the water in pursuit of dreams, and are collectors of sorts. A few are out there to accumulate trophies or bragging rights. Others are content just to gather a few memories of good times spent with friends or family. Some want the satisfaction of catching dinner. One thing common to all of them is the belief that a fisherman can never have enough good bass lures.
I came of bass fishing age during the transition from wooden to plastic bass lures. The only lures available in the early 1960's in the rural area I grew up in where holdovers from a different era. Wood bass plugs are now legendary, but they had their drawbacks. They were difficult to produce in quantity. The paint chipped and easily scratched by the teeth of green dragons with large mouths they were designed to infuriate. Some cracked and split with heavy use. Most were topwater lures not designed to dive very deep, but they did float and catch bass.
Robbing father's tackle box was standard practice for a kid with the beginning symptoms of bass fever, and I was no exception. My dad's lure collection from his pre-family, pre-small business years was composed of many different examples of the wooden bass plug era. By the time I was old enough to be considered dangerous to largemouth bass, those old lures were not in the best of shape. They were faded, warped, splintered, and sported more teeth marks than the law allows--but I learned to fish with them, and caught enough bass to become thoroughly hooked on the concept.
Along about 1962, a wonderful thing happened to bass fishing: quality lures made of plastic hit the mass market. The first one I can remember was made by Rebel Lure Company and was called the Rebel Minnow. It was love at first sight for me and the bass that lure was designed to catch.
The Rebel Minnow was incredibly light and strong. A shallow runner, it came in what was then a dazzling variety of colors. All featured a creamy-white underbelly, silver reflective sides, and dorsal colors of blue, yellow, black, and--amazingly--purple. About this time bass fishing was moving from small backwater sloughs and ponds to mega-acre reservoirs. Stocked with largemouth bass and other familiar species like catfish and crappie, these new bodies of water exploded with terrific fishing.
Armed with cutting-edge technology, I graduated from sandlot to big league bass fishing. The fish in those new impoundments never knew what hit them. Those Rebel lures were simply irresistible to bass used to seeing large, chunky pieces of wood. I remember clearly the first time our family armada of anglers fished one of the mammoth lakes constructed for water supply in the mid-1960's. Armed to the teeth with the new lures from Rebel, we fairly bristled with dangling hook menace as we ventured forth in a 15-foot aluminum boat.
A local marina was sponsoring a weekly fishing contest for bass and crappie. My father won both divisions in a single morning. He weighed in a 6.5-pound largemouth bass and a 3.25-pound crappie--both caught on the same blue-backed Rebel Minnow. Rebel Minnows are made and sold under the same name today, just as they were in 1962. I have an assortment of them in my tackle box, and they still catch fish.
It would be sacrilege to discuss classic bass lures without mentioning the Bomber Bait Company of Gainesville, Texas. Ike Walker and C.S. Turbeville decided they needed a bass lure that ran deep. Apparently dissatisfied with lures of the era, they designed and hand-produced one they dubbed the "Bomber." The year was 1944 when they began a limited production for friends. The lure resembled an item much in the news during that war-torn year--an aerial bomb. The original Bombers were made of wood with metal bills and produced until 1971, when plastic bodies were introduced.
Bombers came in various sizes, but all sported the distinctive bomb shape. Other unusual aspects of the design made them unique. Bombers sported a metal bill and an adjustable line-tie. Unlike conventional lures produced to resemble prey fish in color and function (with the line tie and diving bill in front of the eyes), Bombers were pulled backwards--stern first. The bill and adjustable line-tie were located aft, on the rear of the lure body. The intent of the design must have been to imitate the crawfish, a favorite food of largemouth bass. The large diving bill and nose-up attitude when retrieved made the Bomber nearly snag-free when fished in woody areas. They would shoulder aside most hang-ups. The Bomber model 500 in black and orange striped pattern was murder on bass looking for a crustacean to crunch.
Bombers came in a variety of suggestive color schemes, and because of their wooden bodies, possessed superior floating ability. You could fish them in a variety of ways, but they were at their best when cranked down to the bottom to plow a trench deep enough to lay cable in. The sight of a wobbling, struggling, big-eyed Bomber raising clouds of silt was the undoing of many a largemouth bass.
Bombers were discontinued in the early 1980's, when Pradco acquired the Bomber Bait Company, and replaced them with the Model A. Even though wooden Bombers are considered a classic lure now, they are not all that rare or hard to find. Commanding prices of $5 to $10 each for lures in respectable shape, fishermen can still afford to buy them from collectors and use them for what those Texas boys in Gainesville originally intended--catching the heck out of largemouth bass.
It is hard to imagine what bass fishing would be like today without soft plastic lures. Imitations of worms, insects, amphibians, and minnows made from rubber compounds were developed in the late 1800's. The first rubber worm-type bait received a U.S. patent in 1877.
Those early attempts bear little resemblance to today's multi-scented, mouth-watering delights. The early "creepy crawlers" were stiff, two-dimensional versions of a bass smorgasbord. Hand-carved wooden lures prevalent during that era were in no marketing danger from the rubber revolution of the late Nineteenth Century.
Zoom forward in time about fifty years. Was it coincidence or fate that a machinist from Akron, Ohio, began melting a new compound called "polyvinyl chloride" (PVC) on his kitchen stove and poured it into a hand-carved mold shaped like a night crawler? We will never know, but in the late 1940's, Nick Creme was a man with a vision.
A mid-western machinist and fisherman, Creme grew weary of catching bait for every fishing trip. He began experimenting with various compounds of PVC and rubber obtained from friends in the tire manufacturing industry in Akron. He and his wife, Cosma, turned their home into a laboratory and developed the first soft-plastic worm that looked and felt like the real thing in 1949. Creme termed his creation the "Wiggle Worm" and began marketing them by mail in 1951. Creme moved his flourishing business to Tyler, Texas, in 1960--a plan that must have been divinely inspired, because East Texas became the birthplace of modern bass fishing and the plastic worm led the way.
My introduction to the plastic worm was in the late 1960's. By then, Creme's product was showing up in a few small tackle stores in my area of the western United States. Used to the "cast and crank" action of fishing hard-bodied baits, I was dubious that what appeared to be a child's toy could catch bass.
Creme's pre-rigged worms with beads, in-line spinners, and exposed double hooks were the first soft-plastic bass lures carried by my local vendors. Although the new fish attractor was suspiciously useless in appearance, bass loved them. Cast one out, let it sink to the bottom, work it just fast enough to make the spinners turn, and bass hammered it.
With the advent of "Texas rigging," the plastic worm became a sensation in the bass fishing world. Although associated primarily with largemouth bass, soft-plastic lures revolutionized the entire fishing industry. Creme's creation of an easy-to-use, productive lure has probably resulted in more bass caught than any other design in history. The original Wiggle Worm has been renamed the "Scoundrel," and just recently a curly-tailed, pre-rigged version was introduced by Creme--still located in the heart of bass country U.S.A., Tyler, Texas.
JB is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Disclosure / Disclaimer
Before acting on the content posted, you should know that BassFishin.Com may benefit financially and otherwise from content, advertising, links or otherwise from anything you click on, read, or look at on our website. Click here to read our Disclosure Policy and Disclaimer.


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:23 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
© 2013 BassFishin.Com LLC