Tag: vintage lures

July 28, 2009

Past vs. Present Pt. 3 – A Midnight Delta Duel: Vintage Pike-Oreno vs. MS Slammer

Part three of this series brings us to the first battle of old verses new. I have taken two lures – one vintage, one modern, and given them a fresh coat of paint to even the playing field.

I painted both lures last week in Kokanee trout color so they would be sort of a generic color to cover the different bodies of water I have planned for the fish-off.

For those of you that did not see part one and two here are the links

part one link

part two link

Battle Round #1: California Delta

The first battle begins on the Ca Delta – but this will not be just any normal trip. It started with a call to my friend Matt Allen yesterday. He had known about the lure duel and wanted to be part of it.

We decided to go night fishing. Those of you who know and fish the delta probably think were fucking crazy at this point, and well you may just be right.

For those of you who don't fish the delta, it can be a crazy place to fish even during the day. To make it even better Matt's Lowrance GPS crapped out on us half way back to the launch ramp on the way home.

Back to the story:

We got to our area to be fished a little after 9:00 pm and started to fish. We really had no idea what lure was going to out-perform the other. Matt got the vintage 50's Pike-Oreno and I fished the modern MS Slammer.

Not more than a half hour went by when Matt got the first bass on the Pike-Oreno, it was about a 2 pounder and the game was on.

The next couple hours went on – I got hit a couple times on the MS Slammer with no hook ups.

Matt on the other hand had two more 2 pounders and sealed the deal with an 8.2 pounder!
We were both pretty impressed by this time and traded out the lures.

Another hour in and Matt got the fifth fish of the night on the Slammer. Another cookie cutter 2 pounder.

This left the final score at 4 to 1

South Bend Pike-Oreno: 16 plus pounds for 4 fish

MS Slammer: a measly 2 pounds give or take for 1

We have two more lakes to fish before I call this one, but things are looking grim for the Slammer. I guess sometimes new does not mean better.

To be continued on Clear Lake. . .

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.