Don’t know if you tuned into Wired2Fish’s Top 20 “Most Influential Baits of All Time,” which got some fairly decent play around webville.
While I would not doubt that my ol’ compadre Terry Brown would do a great job with it, I’m most glad he and his folks got the #1 right: the rubber worm. Actually plastic, but we Yankees called it “rubber” back in the day.
Anyhow, Wired2 picked the Creme Wiggle Worm, which was first, but you might pick the Mann’s Jelly Worm or the Mister Twister or maybe another, depending on where you hail from and when you started fishing.
You might even argue for the Rapala minnow, which was developed 20 years before the plastic worm but didn’t make a huge dent in the U.S. market until after Creme did. (Wired2 had the Rapala floater 3rd and the Arkie jig 2nd.)
Now my question for you is, what bassin’ bait started it all for you?
For me I think it was the in-line spinner. I watched an older kid catch what looked like a huge bass (probably 1 1/2 pounds) on one at a semi-local pond one day and that was it, the start of my bass and “have to have that bait” issues. I can still see the kid catch that fish, and the spinner he caught it on – but I can’t remember what happened 3 days ago. Weird, man!
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Dick Durbin
May 10, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I still have the original Rapala floater that I paid $2.15 for in 1965 at a GES store when I was 14. It was the first plug I ever bought. Over the years I have bought and lost dozens of Rapalas but this one has led a charmed life and now lives in a drawer waiting for me to build a display for it to hang in my office.
admin (mostly Jay)
May 10, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I think I might have mine too. Massacred by a fish in a canal somewhere in NY State when I was a kid, using a POS Zebco push-button rig. Didn’t get the fish — not much backbone in that rod — but somehow got the bait back.
John Pollard
May 10, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Mister Twister grub on a jig head and a Rapala DT-6 did it for me early. I couldn’t catch a bass on a plastic worm for years. It took me a long time to figure that one out…
admin (mostly Jay)
May 10, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Grub on a jighead is still one of my favorites. Always catches something….
Bass Pundit
May 10, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Hmmm earliest fishing experiences were with live worms, minnows, and frogs. As far as lures go there were my Dad’s “Crappie Killer” jigs/flys, Storm Thin Fins, Lazy Ike’s, Hula Poppers and Jitterbugs.
I think I remember the first bass I got on a Hula Popper. I was just fascinated that a bass would take that thing. My fascination with topwater hasn’t abated.
admin (mostly Jay)
May 10, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I used to fish Jitterbugs and Hula Poppers as a kid, and finally gave up. Never caught one. Didn’t get back into topwater until I discovered the Spook.
tumblebug
May 10, 2011 at 2:15 pm
A knockoff of a flatfish, yellow with black spots. It was killer for Oklahoma pond bass back in the 60’s.
admin (mostly Jay)
May 10, 2011 at 2:21 pm
No way man! I fished those baits a bunch as a kid, never caught anything w/ ’em…that I can remember.
tumblebug
May 10, 2011 at 3:08 pm
I think those were the original idiot baits. (any idiot can catch fish of them) Chunk n crank. Ponds and creeks. I don’t remember how much they cost, but it was less than a buck for sure.
tumblebug
May 10, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Oh geez Jay. Not a slam on you! lol I think the color had a lot to do with it. Just about anything yellow and black would catch fish in those ponds.
5bites
May 10, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Plastic worm. That all anybody in my family used. Anything else was some newfangled something or other. I also fished basically my entire childhood in owl creek on table rock. We almost freakin never left owl creek. A mile down the lake was a pure adventure. Now I basically never fish in there and two major tournaments have been won in there in the last 6 years. If it wasn’t in owl creek and didn’t want a red shad power worm it wasn’t worth messing with to my family lol.
Brian
May 10, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Two different ones for me:
1st was a purple/white tail Mann’s Jellywaggler that came in our free tackle pack the year my dad and I signed up for our BASS membership back in the late 70’s. Family vacation to Lake of the Ozarks. Last day we rented a boat, went to the back of the cove we were staying on. Both of us fishing plastic worms, me a Knight Tube worm that we also got in our packs, Dad the Manns. Used some really long shanked bluegill like sproat hooks. Zebco spincasters for both of us – who knows how old. Dad hooked one about sunset that jumped and looked to be about 5 lbs., then promptly snapped his old line. That did it for me.
Other important bait was the Mann’s Hackleback Craw crankbait. Fishing off the bank by myself at the local 1,500 acre reservoir that I had ridden my bike to when I tied it on and promptly caught a bass on it. Only about 13″, but that bass made me believe that all the fish in our local lakes could be caught just like I read about in the pages of Bassmaster magazine.
Ron Lindner
May 10, 2011 at 4:33 pm
the HEDDON flap tail mouse…I can actually remember the first over head spinner,,and real rubber worms..these were new innovations …
Polly Kennedy
May 11, 2011 at 8:01 am
My first bass was caught trolling a red and white Hellbender 40 years ago. Had a lot of fish on the same color Arba Gaster (sp?)
Kevin McMahan
May 11, 2011 at 8:30 am
In 1975 at the ripe old age of 10 I caught my first crankbait fish in a clear water pond on a shallow-running Rebel (might have been a square bill). It was at that exact moment that I became hopelessly addicted to bass fishing. I’d made what I thought was a bad cast which landed “dangerously” close to a laydown and due to the clear water was able to watch a 3# fish swim out and engulf my crankbait. I actually flash back to that moment when the same scenario unfolds (as it often does).
samuel groves
May 11, 2011 at 11:18 am
I would have to say that there was two baits that started it for me,a HEDDON LUCKY 13 and a MANN’S AUGER TAIL WORM.
Jeremy
May 11, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Jelly worm was killer back in the day. Purple or blue, also the floating rapala minnow but it caught so many it was like cheating at least in the pond I fished.
Chad Keogh
May 12, 2011 at 7:41 am
For fishing in general it was the red and white spoon (pike), but my first bass (5 lb smallmouth) was caught on a Hula Popper which made me a convert to bass fishing. The first soft plastics I threw were Berkley Power Tubes and tubes are still my go-to bait now, since they are an all year, any conditions bait.