Tag: topwater baits

December 13, 2009

First Look At The New 5″ Lunker Punker

5" Punker shown next to 6" Punker inject

When the 6" inject Lunker Punker from Black Dog came out I took my Zara Spook and other topwater box out of my boat, and now this!

This bait is seriously going to hurt the sales of companies that sell traditionally-sized topwater walking baits. I was lucky enough to get ahold of one of the first eight in existance. I threw it for the first time today and could not believe it. It has about the same side to side distance capability as the 6" version, and due to its size can literally be jumped and hopped out of the water. It will sell for about $17.00 to $18.00.

It will be available sometime early in 2010.

Shown here next to a custom painted Reaction Innovations Vixen

This bait is sure to make a splash among the bass fishing world, I would even venture to say its gonna be one of the best new bass baits of 2010. Link to Black Dog Baits

June 12, 2009

Past vs. Present Part Deux: Vintage Pike-Oreno vs the MS Slammer

The two baits that will fish in a head to head battle have been stripped to their birthday suits.

The craftmanship on the old plug is crazy. It has a full wire-through loom and the hooks had to be cut off. I honestly don't even know if split rings existed when this bait was made. I will have to add split rings as a result but will try to match the original hooks as best I can when re assembling the bait.

Now the baits have a thick coat of rock hard epoxy primer

I will get them sanded and painted next week and ready them for the face off. Stay tuned

May 30, 2009

Past vs. Present – Are You Ready To RUMBLE!!!

Like a lot of anglers, I have been collecting old lures for many years now and have never even once tied one on to see how it worked.

I was pondering this just this morning and came to a conclusion: why not put a modern lure head-to-head, mano a mano with a vintage bait? Since I'm not one to sit on my ass and over-think these things, here we are.

I have had an old South Bend Jointed Pike-Oreno sitting on my shelf next to my paint station for a couple years now, so this was the first bait to come to mind. I wanted to show how little basic bait design has changed over the last decade. Sure, there have been many innovations – don't get me wrong, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find a worth competitor that was similar in design and size. I started lookingaround and there sitting on another bench shoved in a pile of swimbaits between a couple broken Castaics and a few early Snack Size Trouts and behind my rod wrapping machine was a brand new MS Slammer. As happens so often at times like this, a light bulb went off in my head.

This was to be the Pike-Orenos adversary.

Here's the basic plan: I will take the South Bend Pike-Oreno from the mid 1950's and the MS Slammer from October of 2008 and repaint them with the same pattern to even out the competition a little.

I will then plan a couple trips – probably one on the Delta and one on Clear Lake. At this point a friend and I will fish the baits head-to-head and see what the outcome is in sort of a war of the ages.

So stay tuned – my next post will be the tear down restoration and repaint of these two baits.