When I purchased one of my boats,  the Captain I purchased it from,  told me to back my truck up to his shed.  He unloaded a truck load of old tackle.  Rods,  reels,  props,  boxes,  lures,  rope, etc.  As I plowed through it all I came across these four baits.  Two look like precursers to current baits.  Two of them have names stamped into the bill.  Two are true mysteries...for now.  Two in this post,  two in another.

I have one of the bait shown above - the one with the colorado blade.  I got it in the late 90's - early 2000's.  Can't for the life of me remember the name.   I remember I bought it at Walmart I think.   Seems to me I bought it because it was one of those rare Walmart baits that was made semi-locally.   I'm guessing Luck-E-Strike made that bait.   For the record I've fish that bait several times and never caught anything on it at all.  That is how most of those old collectible baits became collectable, i.e. there weren't very many of them made and they didn't catch fish, so they didn't get lost.   Instead they lingered in the depths of different guys collections until they surfaced.

As I think about it, Luck-E-Strike has made and discontinued many baits over the years.   I went to their web site and looked and it wasn't there - go figure.    Anyway, it occurs to me that it could be a Strke King baits from the same era - late 90's to early 2000's.

Bass Pro made a lure like the one on top for years, the Cajun Rattler but I am sure it was a copy..Some company I think Rebel actually made a chatterbait in the 60's that looked like the Berkley blade dancer pic (I also believe that is a luck E Stirke Lure) but if you go to bass tackle Archives? you can find almost anything and every lure you think is new, it was made and done before and now they just dust off old designs and modify the marketing and materials...tackle Trends are interesting...

That bottom lure is a whopper stopper product??? I have seen it before, Nemire had a lure like that a few years back, part spoon, part spinnerbait...

 

cool stuff. good finds.