Do you carry balsa?

I have some older bagleys that I love.  I went swimming recently to get one of them back.

Throw balsa more than plastic. Big fan of WEC E-1, WEC mutt variants, Jawjacker J1s and momma Js, Barr WW and FF3s, new PH lil guy is surprisingly good, too. Some custom guys on WBN make some great ones, too.  

Love the old lead bills...not even all of them. Then add another couple boxes of old cedar Poes 

 

I still throw Fat Raps .

1 hour ago, iabass8 said:

Big fan of WEC E-1

X2

Black Market Balsa squarebills will come through anything, but they'll blow through a paycheck real fast too. 

7 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

they'll blow through a paycheck real fast too. 

With few exceptions, that's been the norm for well made balsa cranks. It hurts to lay down the coin for some, but I've been addicted to balsa for many years and there are times when I need my fix. I'll be running a proven, plastic crank around wood or along the bottom and either the bite slows or stops all together. Tie on some balsa and it pushes their button.   

The Rapala BX Brat is around $10 and a really great squarebill.

I'm a fan of balsa, Rapala and Bagley make up the bulk of my collection but I also have others. 

Do I still use balsa? How's this for an answer?

 

Bagley Balsa B's - somewhere around 400 (some of which I purchased as far back as the mid 70's)

Original Tennessee Shad - about 4 dozen

Tennessee Tuffy - 2 dozen

Black Label Balsa - 2-3 dozen

 

So yes, I still use balsa crankbaits all the time.

400 ?? ^

 

I feel better about having around 100 cranks and jerkbaits all together now ?

I honestly didn't know my love of Balsa until 5 years ago.  I was throwing cranks and tearing it up with this innocent looking cross eyed crank when others were just not producing  - it was a little longer than others but had fantastic action.  I had had it in my tackle box for years and took it down to my local tackle shop...

 

Looked around and couldn't find one like it and asked him if he knew what it was and he told me it was an old Bagley Killr B.  He had a few behind the counter and I bought them...

 

 

I've got a decent balsa collection. I fish a lot of Zooms and a random hodgepodge of PH Customs, Black Label, Barron Customs, Jaw Jackers, Rapala, Bagley and others. I also like the old Stanford Cedar baits and my current favorite is Catching Concepts which are Redwood.

I live in East TN......home to several different flat-sided balsa crank makers. So yea, I am kind of partial to them.