You might say I trained as an apprentice fishing guide as a kid. My mother was an avid bass angler, but, back in the fifties and early sixties, her fishing tackle was limited. She fished with a steel rod and level wind reel. Her only lure was a battered old Baby Lucky 13 plug. If my memory serves me correctly, it was red and white.
I was a regular tag-along on these bass outings, I was usually dunking live minnows under a floater for largemouth and crappie. When Mom’s lure wound up in the limbs of a willow or snagged on a stump, I was her on-board retriever. She was a pretty good caster but even in the best of hands, those old level wind reels were hard to cast accurately. I spend a good amount of time retrieving the lure and… placing her bass on a stringer! Through the years, she caught a ton of bass on that old lure and Dad regularly sharpened and replaced the hooks.
Just this past week, I had the opportunity to head down to Trinity County to spend a couple days hunting, bass fishing and photographing wild hogs with my buddy Mark Balette. Mark offers hunts for hogs and exotics on his ranch and fishing for trophy bass on a 20 acre lake situated back in the woods. Mark and I usually engage in a good natured fishing ‘contest’. We do keep track of who catches the most bass and the winner enjoys bragging rights around the evening campfire.
We arrived at the lake just after sunup, screwed the electric motor on the transom of his aluminum boat, and headed across the lake to a stump field that was situated a few yards from the deep creek channel that feeds the lake. The setting called for top water fishing. I watched a heron take wing from the shoreline, there was obviously baitfish up shallow; the bass should be receptive.
“Let’s tie on some top waters and see what happens,” Mark suggested.
As an outdoors writer, I am kept pretty well supplied with the newest innovations in fishing lures and as I removed a brand new ‘sure fire’ top water plug from its container, Mark grabbed a vintage old plug from the bottom of his tackle box.
He added, “Think I can outfish you with this old antique?”
It was a Baby Lucky 13, red and white, just like my mother used to use!
I replied with something like, “No way...these modern-day bass won’t ever go for that old antique. They want ‘cutting edge’ baits, like the one I’ve got tied on!”
My plug hit the water first. I let it set about 30 seconds then, began a ‘walking the dog’ retrieve. About the time I was making my second cast, Mark’s plug hit the water. One jerk of the rod and the lake's tranquil surface exploded! My buddy was hooked solidly to a chunky five-pounder.
During the next couple hours, until the bright skies pushed the surface feeding bass into the vegetation, I watched the old plug catch three bass for every one I caught with my ‘state of the art’ lures. Feeling a bit sorry for me, I guess, Mark insisted I fish with his vintage lure. I was happy to learn it was the bait, not the fisherman’s presentation that the bass preferred. My mom’s favorite old lure worked just as well last week as it did a half-century ago on the farm ponds where we fished.
Lake Fork guide Larry Large concurs that old lures still catch bass. “Many plugs such as the Jitterbug and Hula Popper are in production today. The old baits still catch fish, most modern-day bass anglers stick with the more highly publicized and advertised ‘modern’ lures. It could be that today’s bass are attracted to the old baits simply because they haven’t gotten accustomed to them.” says Large.
Large uses a wide variety of baits to keep his clients in the action but says he still prefers the old Devil’s Horse, manufactured by Smithwick Lures. “I’ve fished with the Devil’s Horse since I was a kid. You never see anyone fishing with them here on Fork but they are absolutely deadly when bass are on a top water bite.”
The Jitterbug is another old but productive top water plug that I am pretty sure is still in production. With a concave cup or bill in the front, the Jitterbug creates quiet a ruckus when retrieved. When pulled through the water at a fast clip, the bait stands up in the front and wiggles from side to side. I no longer have any of my older Jitterbugs but plan to order a few for my next bass trip. I remember well how hard a surface feeding bass hammers these noisy little plugs.
If you are a newcomer to bass fishing (when you’ve fished as long as I, a newcomer is someone that has taken up the sport in the past 20 years!), give these old lures a chance to prove themselves. Chances are pretty good they will work as well for you as they did for my Mom 50 years ago. My buddy’s Lucky 13 did a great job making this point crystal clear last week!
Outdoor tip of the week: Baitfish are spawning now in shallow water along the shoreline. During the first couple hours of daylight each day, a smorgasbord of gamefish move shallow to feed. A ‘sure fire’ method of collecting enough white bass or catfish for a big fish fry is to use a small throw net during early morning to catch shad. Simply thread the baits on a wire crappie hook with a split shot crimped about 8 inches above and keep the baits within a few yards of shore. I use 17 pounds test for this type fishing; the wire hooks are easy to pull loose when they hang up on brush and roots. A 4 foot castnet (opens to 8 feet) is pretty easy to learn to throw and makes catching bait easy. As a rule, game fish move shallow in schools, they push the shad into and out of the shallows into deeper water. Spinning rigs work well for this type fishing. It’s important to make long casts when the baitfish/white bass or catfish move out from shore.