Thread: Photos of lures I know will catch fish

A Mr Twister 6" purple Phenom worm with pink curly tail was the first lure I caught bass on. A bright yellow Mr Twister curl tail grub soon followed. Not much you can do with a Texas rigged worm with bullet weight except jig it on the bottom; a bit more can be done with a curl tail grub. But, in the 70's, fishing shows and fishing magazines like In-Fisherman and BassMaster came along and I was hooked, buying everything under the sun!

After a few years I was making my own bass lures: tying skirted, weedless jigs, spinnerbaits with optional arm lengths, blade shapes and sizes, in-line spinners and many more. They pretty much caught everything - except panfish.

Soon, soft plastics got my whole attention, not only for their versatility but the simple fact that I caught far more fish on those lures than any other. It's nice to experiment with combinining the parts of two lures using a candle flame. (Someone on another forum called it Frankensteining, not knowing my first name is Frank, last name Stein. I call it hybridization for want of a better name. In fact most of what I catch fish with are hybrids and since the proof-is-in-the-catching, I usually include photos of a lure stuck in the fish's lip. Here are a few:


grub body minus curl tail



Crappie Magnet tail adde to thicker grub body:


Hand poured and colors added using Spike-It dye:



I always try to discover lure designs that catch fish - not that I don't already have over 175 that have proven themselves. Last year, for example, it occured to me to cut the belly off a Sassy Shad to make the body thinner. The body action was different - more of a slight shimmy - which a attribute to the slew of fish it caught.

A fish bit off the tail of a curl tail grub and I used the body still on the jig. It caught fish like crazy!! Soon I made similar shapes such as the chartreuse bulb-tail, top right photo and the purple bulb tail below it.

The Beetle-Spin I put off using for over 10 years, but the first time I cast it last year - BANG! fISH ON! (bass shown with it.) I caught 5 fish species that same day. It may have something to do with the blade flash and lure action combined that does well in murky water.

Are any of the lures shown much better at catching fish than other plastics? Nope. They all do well on the right size jigs and using the right rod/reel imparted action.

I use my hand ties about 90% of the time but before I started tying plastics were #1. Growing up there wasn't much to choose from and the beetle spin was my favorite for awhile. White with red spot if I was bass or crappie fishing and black with yellow stripe for bluegill. Soooo much plastics out there now, makes my head spin.