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Dancing Eel (Bill Dance Bait from the 80's)

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Does anyone still have their Dancing Eel? Never caught a fish on it but I still have it.

  • Super User

No I wish I did. I caught two on em then got hung and never replaced it. 

  • Super User

Gave it away years ago after giving it time to produce. Never caught a fish on it.

Bill’s son was two grades below me in high school—1986.  I tried to pay him $20 to aquire one for me.  Still waiting on that...

 

  • Super User

I have one:

DancesEel.jpg.f8739e589d213c4aedfc2dbbf8b86966.jpg

There were a couple different sizes; i'm pretty sure this is the smaller one -- it's 5" bill to tail. 

 

I must have been in middle school when I got it. I think I saw Bill hawking it on TV or something and decided i needed to to have one. Never caught anything on it, but probably only tried fishing it about 5 times. It still lives in the same old tackle box I had as a kid.

  • Global Moderator

YUM remade them maybe a decade ago, they didn't work any better than the original and were quickly discontinued. You can still find them on Ebay though. 

 

Ha! I just had a co worker bring a in package Dancing eel to work.

yes,still have it and it's never gonna be used. keepsake and also never caught a fish with it...…..

  • Author

What was the other baits name the one that was lipless but the eyelet was on the nose and not on the back?

  • 2 years later...

I caught one fish on it?

Bill Dance put out some wack lures.  The lunkerhunt, chasebaits, etc, of his time I guess.   ?

  • Super User

It's funny you should ask.  I acquired one just the other day from a garage sale.  May never use it but it's a cool blast from the past.

I am pretty sure it works as it does resemble a tadpole.  Especially in private stock ponds : )  But personally I have caught more fish on the helicopter lure than my dancing eel back in the day.   

Never caught anything on it. A few weeks back I found it in an old tackle box. I pulled the plastic/rubber eel body off of it to reveal a transparent crankbait body. I kept the treble on the belly and put a small gold willow leaf blade on the rear. I painted the body with clear gold flake fingernail polish with a finish coat of hard as nails. Haven't fished it yet but I think it'll work well.

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