The late outdoor writer Bobby Cleveland, who covered sports in Mississippi for more than 40 years, interviewed Ponds back in 2015, and the following are highlights of that interview.
"Get ready," said Ponds, adding, "this is where it's gonna happen. Watch this old lure work its magic."
With these words barely out of his mouth, the FLW Tour pro launched a perfect cast with a Devil's Horse toward a fallen treetop. It splashed down just past the exposed branches. Like an artist, he worked the plug toward the cover, its twin propellers sputtering as it passed over the outer edges of the submerged limbs. In an instant, there was a resounding "KA-SPLOOSH!" heard, with water splashing about two feet into the air, as a big fish crushed the lure.
"Holy cow! Did you see that strike?" said Ponds, as he set the hook, his long, white rod bowing against the power of a 6.5-pound post-spawn female largemouth. "Yee haw! This is the one I've been looking for."
A few seconds later, Ponds was sprawled on his side (see above photo), reaching over the rail of his Ranger boat to carefully lip the fish and bring it aboard.
"I'm being gentle," he offered, "not only so I can release the fish, but because that's the only Devil's Horse I have in that color. That's an original from Smithwick, and if you look, you'll see it still has the original name of the lure on the side.
"I've got about five or six of the original Devil's Horse lures," he continued, "and I'm telling you, they are still a tough bait to beat. People think the old lures are outdated, but my boat is full of lures that are 30, 40 and even 50 years old. If they are in my boat, you'd better believe they will catch fish."
Ponds proved his point during a trip on the waters of his 700-acre subdivision lake at his home in Gluckstadt, MS. He pulled a lot of old lures out of the bait-filled belly of his tournament-rigged boat, tied them on one after another, and caught fish. Besides the Devil's Horse were a Devil's Toothpick, Pinfish, Jitter Bug, and Nip-I-Dee-Dee. At one point, he had eight baits on the deck, with an average age of 40 years.
"A lot of these have come from lucky stops I've made along the road," he said, noting that he once had picked up a bunch from an antique flea market he and his wife had stopped at one day. "That guy had a bunch of old lures in a box."
In recalling that day, Ponds had a brief bout of remorse about how cheap the guy had offered him the lot.
"Had he only known what I would have paid for those lures," he said.
Ponds admitted to tying his knots a little bit tighter, or at least with greater care, when he uses his precious old gear.
"On his topwater lures he used on our trip, said Cleveland, "he tied them on braided line...and he steadily pounded fish."
"We don't see a lot of fish schooling on the top at this lake," said Ponds, "but if we were at Ross Barnett Reservoir or any place where the bass were busting shad on the surface, I've got a few more that I could sure enough put on a show with. Thing is, everybody around here has fished these lures for schooling fish, or in other situations, but don't use them any more because they've run out of them or moved on to the latest, greatest thing.
"I still throw the old ones whenever I can because the fish just don't see them any more."
Ponds keeps an eye out for the original versions of lures still on the market.
"New versions of the same lures still are being made, but there's just something about the old models that make them better," he said. "I guess it's probably in the molds, because over time, the new molds may be slightly different than the old ones. And that can work both ways. Some of the newer molds may actually be better in some instances, but I know that it's hard to beat the originals."
"He'll get no argument from Paul Elias on that one," noted Cleveland.
"An example of that is the Zara Spook," said Elias. "They still make the Spooks, but the old ones, man, I just like the way they work. I catch more fish on them. I've got several of them that I truly treasure."
Ponds didn't need deep-diving lures on his late-May fishing trip. Several days of heavy rain had dropped the surface temperatures back to the low- and mid-70s, so the fish were shallow.
"You couldn't ask for any better conditions to feature these older lures, at least the ones I have," said Ponds. "My favorite ones are the topwaters like the Devil's Horse, the Toothpick, the old Pop-Rs, and the Nip-I-Dee-Dee."
Ponds fished them all and put a whipping on his partner, Cleveland, who was throwing a variety of modern-day plugs, crankbaits, wacky-rigged Senkos, and other stuff.
"After 30 minutes, I was satisfied to put down my pole and pick up the camera to chronicle Pond's day," the writer noted.
Ponds came by his love of original lures naturally, following in the footsteps of his dad, Bob Ponds, an original Bassmaster who fished in the first Classic and was a B.A.S.S. regular during the first few years of tournament fishing. Bob Ponds rarely was completely satisfied with lures on the market and became an innovator.
"Some of my favorite lures are ones Dad made," said Pete. "His old Wing-Ding lures, a tail-spinner, and the different versions of it, probably have produced more fish in Mississippi than any lure ever. The old Skip-a-Shad was something he designed, and his original version of it was so good that everybody had to have one on Barnett Reservoir when the bass were schooling. I still have them and the mold.
"One of his ideas, and a lure I still have and use, was called the Rattle Back. It was a lipless crankbait in which the line passed through the lure, allowing it to slide up the line. It came out long before Rat-L-Traps (Bill Lewis Lures) came out with the Pro Trap that featured the pass-through line. We kind of kept Dad's secret because they were so good at hooking and landing fish...still are."
Other Bob Ponds' inventions still are in his son's boat, like the Bassgrabber Eel and one of Pete's favorites, the Bumble Bug.
"The latter is like a jig, with two small spinners on it," Pete explained. "I still carry about a half dozen with me all the time."
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