I've always heard people in the Bass Fishing community refer to Crankbaits and other hardbaits as "plugs"

Where did this teminology originate?

Can anyone give examples of other baits having "pet" names.

Example: "Jig and Pig"= Jig and Pork (nowadays its plastic) trailer

Little pieces of wood are called plugs. Hand carved baits were made from plugs of wood back in the day. That's my understanding of where plug came from. Some Shimano reels have meanings to their names... Ultegra a JDM reel, means "Ultimate Integrity".

The term is from the late 20's and is derived from the term " Not worth a plugged nickel." Kids learned how attach a string to a nickel and drop it in a vending machine slot and trigger it to give the candy or gum and bring the nickel back by pulling on the string. A lure maker, William Wingate from Michigan tried to produce a wooden lure for pike and would cast it out but only get follows and no strikes. He commented to a friend the lure wasn't worth a plug nickel and that term was shortened to not worth a plug. The term plug caught on. Wingate was from Horsecrap Michigan I think.

I have a feeling everyone will have a different version of where the name was derived... Not complaining, I like to hear all the theories...

A quick search turns up a blog post by somebody wondering the same thing:

 

http://fishinghistory.blogspot.com/2008/01/from-whence-word-plug.html

Dink Dawg reminded me of Skeeball at Asbury Park N.J. decades ago. We had a nickel soldered to a copper wire. My  cousin and I played and collected tickets from that game for days. I was a rotten kid.