Mepps inline spinner and a daredevil

Roadrunner, when you have to fish to eat you have to fish a bait that will catch anything!

a fire tiger bomber flat A crankbait on my first cast i hooked up with one. i can still remember how proud i was that i caught the first fish of the day and my dad taking the treble hooks out then saying good job little man.

1/4 oz. Daredevle, red/white with copper bottom. Back in the late 50's.

My first was a Mister Twister Grub on a plain lead jig head. Caught some huge bass and pike on it.

My first was a Mister Twister Grub on a plain lead jig head. Caught some huge bass and pike on it.

A bait that should be in everyone's tacklebox.

Mine was (and I still have it and use it) a white and black frog pattern Jitterbug.

My first lure used was a 1/4oz. rooster tail spinner and caught a nice smallmouth on it......haven't stopped fishing since!!!!!

Also my first artificial lure. I guess it was the 1/4 oz. size even though I don't remember the details. It came creek fishing.

I think it was a floating rapala minnow (size 5) for bass a dardevle eppinger spoon, also red and white for trout.

Blue Fox Vibrax. Don't believe I ever caught a bass on one but used to do well on pike.

yellow zoom trick worm on a red saltwater jighead....YIKES

For bass fishing it would be a Big O crank bait. For all fishing it would be a panther martin spinner in bumble bee.

A frog color Jitterbug around 1950.

Black and white daredevil... used to cast those things for hours in a river by my mom and dads house. Every day in the summer me and my friends would ride bike down to the river and cast daredevils, inline spinners, and spinnerbaits for toothy critters! The first for bass fishing was a 3 or 4" grub on a 1/4 oz jig head fishing the Mississippi for smallies. Lazy ikes were always good to, still have a couple of those!

My first was a Mister Twister Grub on a plain lead jig head. Caught some huge bass and pike on it.

A bait that should be in everyone's tacklebox.

Very true. When i was a young kid, this was one of the very few lures that my dad, brother, and I used when fishing a small private pond. Another was a black and yellow Roadrunner. One of those two was my first artificial lure.

I found a silver and blue Ratl Trap on the river bank when i was a kid. I basically just used a nightcrawler on the bottom for carp or catfish. I had my dad tie it on and a few casts later i caught a small white bass. I ended up snagging it a few trips later.

An old beat up jitterbug out of my Grandpa's tacklebox.  It was the only lure in his tacklebox, everything else was homemade lead weights, hooks, and stinkbait.

A good ole' Rooster tail. Cheap and reliable!

Luhr-Jensen Super Duper ~ In the world of fishing, if there ever was an "America's Lure" it may very well be the Super Duper. Its unconventional "U" shaped design catches water and creates a swimming action game fish find irresistible.

That's from their website ~

A-Jay

When I was little, I only ever used white, yellow or black rooster tails. They always worked! I then upgraded to only rooster tails and torpedos... Now, I hardly ever throw either of these baits.

I was about 8 years old, and Dad rigged me up a Black shad Culprit worm. that was the first lure I ever fished we caught about 8-10 bass that day and I have been hooked ever since.

It has turned in to a 250-275 days a year passion!

Luhr-Jensen Super Duper ~ In the world of fishing, if there ever was an "America's Lure" it may very well be the Super Duper. Its unconventional "U" shaped design catches water and creates a swimming action game fish find irresistible.

That's from their website ~

A-Jay

A-Jay - this is from my tackle box...

To my best recollection, my first artificial lure was an in-line spinner fitted with

an Indiana blade by Hildebrandt to which I attached a fly.

The fly I used was one of my wet trout flies such as the royal coachman, blue dunn,

black gnat or light and dark cahills. Jason Lucas was the Buck Perry of the

40s and 50s, and Jason referred to the spinner/fly combination as a "Cockatoush",

a term that has long since vanished from the angling vocabulary.

In New Jersey, the cockatoush usually caught more chain pickerel

than largemouth and smallmouth bass combined.

In addition to the cockatoush, other outstanding lures that stole the limelight,

were the Johnson weedless spoon, Helin Flatfish, Heddon River Runt, Creek Chub

Pikie Mnnow, Rapala Original floater (1936), and the Zaragoosa Minnow (1922).

Among my favorite artifical plugs was the "Heddon Sonic", the forerunner

of today's lipless crank

Roger

Roger - you mentioned some of these (although that's a SuperSonic in the photo, not the original Sonic).

These are all baits that I had in my tackle box in the 60s. Come the spring, I'm going to get them all out, sharpen the hooks, and catch at least one fish on each one - then they're going to be retired to a curio cabinet in the house. They have more sentimental value now than fishing value...

I can't remember the first lure that I used, but the first lure that I caught a fish on was a Big-O.