Old But Still Puttin' Fish in the Boat

For the record, this ain't gonna be a tale about the fact I turn three score and 11 years old tomorrow. Rather, it's a story about some old fishin' lures that, despite their age, still are proving they can catch fish.

The Zara Spook (pictured top left), Lucky 13, Bayou Boogie, and Crazy Crawler are among the oldest artificial lures still in production. And in case you didn't know, they're all made by Heddon Lures, which was founded in 1894 by James Heddon, who is commonly recognized as the creator of the first artificial fishing lure. Heddon Lures is the oldest continuously operating fishing-tackle company in the United States.

Another "oldie but goodie" lure manufacturer is the Fred Arbogast Company, which makes the Jitterbug and Hula Popper you see in the photo at right.

Fred Arbogast became a full-time lure maker in 1926, and two years later, when he formed his own company, started mass producing baits. While one of the first lures middle-aged bass anglers today may have thrown was from the Arbogast line, it's also true that just as many anglers may not have thrown one of these same baits for 10 years or more.

"Why?" you may be asking. Not because they no longer exist, but simply because they aren't as prominent on store shelves these days.

Also on the list of old-time lure makers is Crème. It was Akron, Ohio, resident Nick Crème and his wife, Cosma, who decided to do something about the fact there still were no soft-plastic lures on the market in the early 1940s. They experimented with various mixes of synthetic materials until they found one that gave them the effect they wanted.

The first Crème worm (see some samples at left) spawned an entirely new segment of the fishing industry. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of soft-plastic lures that have descended from that first worm, with more coming along all the time.

When they first hit the market in 1949, Crème worms sold at a rate of five for a buck.

Another not-to-be-forgotten oldster, although it's a newcomer compared to Heddon and Arbogast, is the Cotton Cordell line of baits, which has been around for more than 50 years.

Cotton Cordell learned about fishing, guiding and lure designing in his youth when his father owned a fishing resort on Lake Catherine in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He formed his own company, Cordell Lures, where he introduced such baits as the Hot Spot, Gay Glade, Boy Howdy, Red Fin, and Crazy Shad.

It was Cordell Lures' mass production of Fred Young's Big O, however, that took the bass-fishing world by storm. It armed bass anglers with an entirely new way to fish.

Finally, we come to Johnson Lures. It was 1920, when Louis Johnson created the Silver Minnow (pictured at left), the first weedless spoon ever made completely of metal. Most artificial lures until this time had been either wood or a combination of wood and metal.

The all-metal Silver Minnow ushered in a whole new subculture in both fresh and salt water.

There are some today who would say that those anglers who have cast aside these old lures in favor of today's innovative designs may be shortchanging themselves. They say these old lures still will keep pace with newer offerings if you'll just give them a chance.