I recently picked up a large box of older soft plastic baits at a yard sale. Looking through them, I found a 3 pack of 9" pre rigged Delong plastic worms.                       These are rigged with 2 hooks, and a short leader, but don't have the spinner like the early Creme worms.                                                     We've all learned that Nick Creme is given credit for inventing the first soft plastic worm in 1949.                      Doing a little research, I've learned that the Delong Co was started in 1946, first in Ohio, then moving to Indiana. This would make Delong molding plastic worms three years before Creme.                     The Delong company was put up for sale by the original owners son this year 2020.                                These are a large stiff plastic bait, and, they look more like an eel than a worm as we know them now. As I've read, the Delong worm was a favourite of Bill Murphy, and were used with his stitching method, to catch many huge bass in California years ago.                                           Did Delong start making plastic worms before Creme? There could have been other companies that made them also, as early as the mid 1940s, but they may not have had the strong marketing and distribution that Nick Creme had. I like learning about the history of bass fishing, so I thought I might throw this out there to see if anyone may know more about the Delong bait Company.

DeLong was one of the first injection molded soft plastic worms to have blood line or vane. The DeLong Otay Special was a 10" worm with dark brown with black blood line. Still have a few of them!

Soft is relative and Delong worms you had boil in water to soften them.

To answer your question, I don't know if DeLong pre dated Creme?

Tom