WaterOtter

I couldn't believe this thread had been up 20 minutes and you hadn't responded yet! I figured you must be typing a long, detailed response and I raced to get one in first! ?

You gotta see @AlabamaSpothunter's recent thread "Z-Man Chatterbait Flashback Mini: The little lure that could". He's a huge huge fan and he's about to tell you everything ?

OMG I've been there when I used to live in Bama! I used to have more fun at Simmons in Bessemer, though, and that's where I bought most of my equipment. The power of the bait monkey sure was strong there. Good times.

LOL - you're addicted now! The challenge of finding them, the challenge of getting them down, the fun of identifying them! Now you'll want a way to lay them out so you can admire them ... like the background pic in my profile ?

Nice haul. The only lures I've seen with that kind of holographic foil are the cheap lures on ebay. Keep hunting lures and you're going to have a bunch of them in your collection.

Thank you bait monkey, you were right -- I bought this fish spatula a few years back like you told me to, and today my wife has been using it to make Christmas cookies! ?

I'm such a geek ... the two baby bull shads you found recently stuck in my mind, plus I realized the pictured lures were rougher than the ones you usually seem to post, and there were only floating lures, so that's why I was being nosy about how many you kept or weren't in the pictures. Finding lures is such a great game.

Woohoo! My pistol grip lightning rod arrived today! I looked several years for a pistol grip because I grew up with them, but I couldn't find any so I figured they didn't make them anymore. Then I got excited when I saw y'all ordering these, so listened to the monkey and jumped on the bandwagon when PF had the sale. Man, this rod looks and feels awesome, very high quality. I can't wait to use it in the tight fishing spaces around here. ?

What a great haul! These are the ones you are selling off, but we'd also like to see the ones you found that you're keeping

Before I knew about extension poles, I cut down a 3" loblolly sapling once to get a lure that was stuck tight high on the trunk. It was inconsequential - one of a hundred tight-packed wild saplings on the edge of the water. Over time I started to regret cutting it down on principles of nature and life, so I've never cut a tree again to get a lure. Well, technically.... a few times I've cut branches that were closing off bank fishing spots so people could fish there again (and thus restore lure hot spots ?).

I've heard that it's not the size of your pole that matters ... but I have a 24' window-washing extension pole that I've whipped out a few times when there were hot lures around. ?

Glad you didn't get done in! and I'm glad you got the lure. I learned that lesson about 7 years ago... I was padding slowly along shore between fishing spots when a huge, live tree branch fell behind me from 40' up, less than a minute after I'd passed under it. I realized then that a falling branch could take me out, kayak and all. Now before I pull on a line or go after a high lure, I always look at whether the branch is dead and might break off with the lure, and I make sure I'm not underneath it. It makes for awkward reaches sometimes, but it proved a valuable practice this summer when I did have a sizeable dead limb fall with a lure ... next to me. Bird crap on a lure is a new one. Twice bystanders have thanked me for getting lures out of trees to protect the birds. I just nodded solemnly with them and thought to myself, glad you don't know I'm just here for the $13 lure!

I stopped going to the lakes in November when they froze over, but today I stopped by and saw they're water again .... and karma gave me a nice skitter pop just for stopping by. ☺️ Left it in easy reach, I didn't even have to stand on my toes or go in the water.

Tie the line to your boat and just back up. If it's a fairly straight line up to the lure, you'll get it. Assuming of course that it doesn't pull your boat apart!

Looks to me like it's an ominous message from the fishing mafia, like finding a horse's head in your bed from The Godfather ... I think the bait monkey is telling you to go on a serious buying spree or else ... lol

Same thing happens when I go in to shore to pick up a specific piece of trash (sometimes). Once I saw a crappy old crankbait floating in weeds near the shore, and I could see its paint was coming off big time. Ughh. I was going to pass on it, but then again, it was so crappy that it was trash and I really should pick it up. Well, it turned out to be a crankbait with a splatter back paint job in pretty good condition, and underneath it was another crank in good condition. It was so awesome I kept a picture of them ?

I've never been checked, but I think I've been mistaken for a warden by fishermen without licenses. When I'm just out paddling and not fishing, I always make a large arc around shore fishermen so I don't disturb their fish, but one day I noticed that as I approached an area with two fishermen they faded into the trees and disappeared. Hey, that's cool, I was able to continue along the shore. Then on a second lake, I noticed the same thing happen at two more spots, and I realized I was wearing my navy ball cap with the round official navy patch, and my dry-tech t-shirt looked crisp and had a brand logo on the chest which also looked official from a distance. lol, it was a really cool experience, but I've never worn that combination again because that's not what I'm going for.

That's a really great two-for-none deal when you find two lures hung up together! And a great picture ?

That's a golden rule! ? "If you see something interesting, stop and go check it out." Plenty of times even if whatever caught my eye isn't a lure, I've found a lure nearby (like within 3', coated in dirt so it can't be seen from far). Something subliminal goes on. ?

It's such an iconic brand. I've looked them up before and they're located in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. They have a company store, and I keep meaning to make a pilgrimage over there and to see if I can get a peek at their production facilities. Their store hours are M-F 7-2:30, which must align with their production hours. I have one of their lures and it's very high quality.

no problem, we were gushing, so it was valid to bring up a counterpoint. ? Back on topic, I found these today .... I took a 1/2 day vac to paddle, so this morning I loaded up the kayak all excited, and boy was I shocked when I rolled up to the lakes and they were frozen solid! ? Saturday they were fine, but cold, and today they were frozen ... five weeks earlier than last year! So, I went to a stretch of river that wasn't frozen, and which I hadn't been to all year, and I cleared out a lot of old fishing line and I pulled down the ones on the left. Then I went to 3 spots that were frozen and I got the ones on the right from shore.

I'm a huge fan of hula poppers and jitterbugs, and it always makes my day when I find one. If you find any with a white wax on them, you know they're very old. I've found just a couple that way and I didn't know what it was or why it was on there and I couldn't get it off, and then one night I opened my father's tacklebox for the first time in years and I found his covered in it, so I did some research online and found out it's wax they used to put in the plastic to help with manufacturing, and it exudes over time, without affecting the paint. My father's tacklebox had a hula popper box in it with a leaflet of their 1951 offerings, so that's the time period I'm talking about (he was 12yo in 1951). The wax doesn't hurt anything and it wipes off with some light help from a heat gun. Here are my 2022's ... Academy's fishing department rocked where I lived in Bama and I wish they were up here too. They always kept it clean, well stocked, and very smartly organized. Man, the time (and money) I spent there! So it was a thrill to find one of their crankbaits in the wilds of Michigan.

Hot diggity! I wish I still had that much action! When I was out paddling yesterday (27 degrees, gray and very windy) the water at the edge of the lake is getting slushy where the mung protects it from waves, so it won't be long before it's frozen. Here's what I found the last two weekends ... The jointed crankbait is the first H20 express I've ever found in Michigan (we are about 5 hours from the closest Academy store) and bottom right is my first Jenko

This struck me as very funny when I saw it earlier today ... membership in Karl's includes lost lure insurance! There are terms and conditions of course to keep it real, but basically they'll replace a new lure within 90 days of purchase (hard lures only with value up to $20, with a new order of stuff and up to 4 per year etc. etc.). Pretty cool way to get over the loss of a lure that you lose while it's still brand new! ?

I like Scouting lures, they bring back good memories from my 8 years as a Cub Scouts leader.