25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Bomber 16A
It wasn't the first plastic minnow-shaped plug to come on the salt water scene, but it was certainly
the one that popularized them for millions of anglers, whether they fished from jetties, beaches or
boats. At 7 1/2 inches long with a molded-plastic lip and thick-walled, hollow plastic body, it floats
at rest. The original came with weak hooks and split rings that had to be replaced, but it was more
than worth the trouble because they caught heavy-duty fish. Worked slowly, it rolls seductively
just under the surface, leaving a V-wake. Pick up the speed and it dives a couple feet. In black it's
deadly at night. Sold today under the name Bomber Long A, it has the right hardware out of the
box and it's still the favorite swimmer of tens of thousands of fishermen.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Bucktail
Doodlebug, Smilin' Bill, Lima Bean, Upperman, Hopkins Hammered, SPRO Prime, ProFish Fishskin
Jigs - no matter the style, brand or nickname, a painted leadhead jig dressed with the hair from the
tail of a whitetail deer was and still is one of the most fish-catching lures ever devised. Cast one
out, let it sink and retrieve it by lifting and dropping the tip of the rod to give it an up-and-down
motion and something is sure to eat it. For drift-fishing, drop it straight under the boat and yo-yo
to get the same results. Add a strip of bait or Uncle Josh Pork Rind, maybe a stinger hook, too,
and it is twice as effective. White is the number one color with yellow a close second. If you could
only have one lure to fish with anywhere in the world, a white bucktail would be a wise choice.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Bunker Spoon
These enormous trolling spoons were originally fashioned from the headlight reflectors of LaSalle
automobiles, most probably by New Jersey angler Jessie Howland to imitate full-grown menhaden
and catch really big striped bass. Early commercially available spoons were made by Wil-Arm,
which is no longer in business, and Montauk Striper brand, which has been in production for 65
years under the watchful eye of veteran tackle-shop owner Joe Julian of Highlands, New Jersey.
All bunker spoons are meant to be trolled using special, long rods and wire line to control depth,
and they are still a favorite. An even larger, heavier version developed by Montauk skipper Jimmy
George and marketed under the name Secret Spoons, has been responsible for huge striped bass
in recent years, including fish to near 70 pounds. You either love or hate bunker spoons, but you
simply can't argue with their propensity to catch big bass.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Cedar Plug
This lead-and-cedar-wood creation could very well be the hottest tuna catching artificial lure of all
time. The shape is simple and it's rigged by simply running a leader down the center and crimping
on the hook, which extends up inside the body. Don't let the simplicity fool you - fished as singles
or in daisy chains trolled at around seven knots, the plug comes alive with an erratic swimming
action that drives tuna to distraction. They come in a variety of colors, but most would agree that
plain, unpainted cedar will always be the best.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Creek Chub Pikie
In 1920, the Creek Chub Bait Company of Garrett, Indiana, introduced one of its most popular and
enduring plugs, the Pikie. Initially made in fresh water sizes, this fat-bodied wood swimmer
featured glass eyes and a metal lip that induced a rolling wobble. Larger sizes followed and found
their way to the coast. Through the '30s and '40s, its popularity in salt water grew and led to saltwater-specific models and the creation of the Creek Chub Surfster in 1953. But its larger
contribution was as the catalyst for the East Coast salt water plug-making revolution in the 1940s
and '50s.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Danny Plug
Originally made and sold by Danny Pinchney in the early 1960s, this flat-face metal-lipped wood
swimmer is a striper fisherman's dream. While debate rages if Pinchney or plug-maker Donny
Musso came up with the original shape, the Danny Plug is the name everyone knows it by
regardless of who makes it. Worked slowly, it has a seductive side-to-side roll and stays right on
the surface where big stripers find it irresistible. Today, Gibbs Lures makes them true to the
original design in their Rhode Island facility and interpretations abound by custom plug makers
too numerous to name.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Diamond Jig
In 1929, John Schumke, an avid Connecticut fisherman and employee of the Bridgeport Silverware
Company, developed a four-sided, plated metal lure and called it the Bridgeport Diamond Jig.
Made by the silverware company, its finish was dazzling and its fish-catching ability remarkable. In
1955, the diamond jig division was sold to Bead Tackle Company and Schumke went with his lure,
which had gained worldwide distribution and popularity. Today, Bridgeport Diamond Jigs and
Bead Tackle are manufactured in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and are still the highest quality
available. The diamond jig is a beach fisherman's go-to lure when sand eels are in the wash, and
from a boat it catches pretty much everything. Stripers, bluefish, weakfish, cod, pollock, tuna,
grouper, snapper - the list is endless. Cast and retrieved or fished vertically, it's hard to beat.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
D.O.A. Shrimp
Build a better mousetrap - that's exactly what Mark Nichols did in 1989 in his garage in Palm City,
Florida. He grew up on the Gulf Coast, spent years running a shrimp boat and all his spare time
fishing. His experience helped him create a dead ringer for the prime shallow-water forage. His
original three-inch shrimp became so popular that in 1993 he started D.O.A. Lures to manufacture
and market them. In a few years they were being sold all over and catching fish wherever shrimp
were found. Today anglers gobble up four sizes in a variety of colors.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
L. B. Huntington Drone Spoon
Patented in 1919 after nine years of development by Levon B. Huntington, a.k.a. Fishhawk, and still
in production in Norfolk, Virginia, today by his grandson, Lev Huntington III, the Drone spoon
catches pretty much anything that swims and eats other fish. Originally designed to mimic the
flash and movement of Chesapeake Bay alewives when trolled behind Fishhawk's rowboat, it was
eventually available in many sizes and color patterns. Its unique shape and action is deadly.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Green Machine So simple and effective, the original Green Machine was introduced more than 20
years ago by Sevenstrand Tackle Company, and while it never gained popularity on its West Coast
home turf, it became synonymous with tuna trolling 2,000 miles to the east. It is an unassuming
lure with its clear, bullet-shaped acrylic head molded around a stack of interlocking, multi-faceted
green beads, finished with a single green skirt for a total length of 12 inches. Rigged with a 10/0
tuna hook using red beads under the skirt for proper placement, it is a tuna-catching machine.
Youd be hard-pressed to find a single boat fishing the Mid-Atlantic canyons that doesn't have one
or two in the pattern. The original is still available, but dozens of companies make a version of this
canyon standard.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
High-Speed Spreader Bars
Okay, so it's not a lure per se, but about 20 years ago some enterprising tuna trollers figured out
that if one daisy chain was good, three on the same line was even better and the high-speed
spreader bar was born. The original commercially available bars were crafted by New Jersey
tackle-shop owners Grant Toman and Dave Arbeitman of the Reel Seat, and featured a thin
titanium wire bar with three chains of hollow soft-plastic squid. Only the last squid down the
middle is armed. The combination of the near weightless squid and flexible bar brings it to life in
the water, expanding and contracting as it skips across the surface raising tuna to attack the
"school" of baitfish. After a hookup, its light weight does not hinder the fight.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Hopkins NO=EQL
In 1949, Robert Hopkins filed for a patent on a fishing lure he called the NO=EQL. Forged from
stainless steel with a unique, slab-sided shape and hammered finish, little did he know he had
created one of the most enduring metal lures of all time. His initial objective was to develop a lure
that could be cast for distance, had good fish-attracting action and could hold up in salt water.
After a lot of trial-and-error, he hit on the NO=EQL No. 3. Beach fishermen could cast it a mile and
its tantalizing action proved effective jigging and even trolling for a wide variety of gamefish.
Today, Hopkins Tackle is still making them in Norfolk, Virginia, in various sizes and models
including the popular Shorty, all true to the original Hopkins design.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Ilander
Ask any offshore captain south of Cape Hatteras about his go-to lure and there is no hesitation - a
blue-and-white Ilander. Most frequently fished over a rigged ballyhoo, the chromed, bullet-shaped
head with its big gold and black eyes and slightly offset hole for the leader is complemented by
long strands of soft nylon - blue on the back and white on the belly. The combination catches all
types of pelagics, but sailfish and marlin find it particularly tough to pass up. Trolled fast or slow,
one thing remains unquestionable; they produce. There probably isn't a charter boat that runs
offshore south of the Mason-Dixon Line that doesn't have a stash of Ilanders on board.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Johnson Silver Minnow
If there's another lure that's caught more redfish and specks, please let us know, because after 90
years of continuous production without a single change, the Johnson Silver Minnow still slays
'em. It has a unique, elongated teardrop shape and the metal is slightly thicker in the middle than
on its edges, which is the key to keeping the hook up and imparting its side-to-side wobble on the
retrieve. Add a plastic grub, twister-tail or pork rind trailer and it's even more effective. It's as close
to snag-proof as a lure gets and runs slightly nose up just under the surface leaving a noticeable
wake that pulls in shallow-feeding fish like a magnet. Gold-plated in 1/4-ounce and 1/2-ounce
weights are the most popular models.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Lefty's Deceiver
Back in 1950, salt water fly fishing was in its infancy, but Lefty Kreh and pal Tom Cofield, a writer
for the Baltimore Sun, were fly-fishing regularly for stripers in Chesapeake Bay. Kreh was already
a noted long-wand specialist and creative fly-tier and it was during his days here that he came up
with what is arguably the most effective salt water baitfish fly pattern of all times, Lefty's Deceiver.
Consisting of white saddle-hackles placed facing inward like praying hands to help mimic the
deep-bodied appearance of an alewife and dressed with white bucktail for the belly and colored
bucktail on top, it can also have some Mylar or tinsel for flash and eyes for added realism. The
pattern can be fished at any depth, and the bigger the tie, the bigger the baitfish it represents. The
Deceiver has probably caught more species of salt water gamefish around the world than all other
flies combined. Take a well deserved bow, Mr. Kreh.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Mann's Stretch+Plug
Horace Greeley said "Go west, young man," but when Mann's Bait Company introduced their
Stretch 25+ and its variants anglers found it far more productive to go deep. These long, minnowshaped plastic plugs use diving lips and careful weighting to achieve consistently accurate trolling
depths. Use them on outfits loaded with Spectra braid and youve got a deadly controlled-depth
presentation without having to resort to wire-line or downriggers. From striped bass in the
Northeast to grouper in the Gulf to wahoo and tuna offshore, they are versatile and capable of
swimming at a wide range of trolling speeds.
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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
MirrOLure 52M
Manufactured by Harold LeMaster's and Phil Shriner's L & S Bait Company around 1950 as their
first foray into the salt water plug market, the MirrOlure 52M, also dubbed the "Troutmaster," came
in shallow-, medium- and deep-running models. With a strong following in fresh water dating back
to their first headquarters in Bradley, Illinois, in the 1930s, the company opened a second facility in
Clearwater, Florida, and this plastic, lipless lure with the tight wiggle generated a legion of fans in
the Southeastern and Gulf states. Cast and retrieved, it caught everything from reds to tarpon and
remains popular today.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Mold Craft Wide Range
A chance meeting between Captain Peter Wright and inventor Frank Johnson on a fishing trip in
Cozumel, Mexico, in 1977 sparked the creation of one of the most popular and productive offshore
trolling lures of all time and the beginning of the soft head revolution. The Mold Craft Wide Range,
so named because it tracks well in a wide range of sea conditions, has set numerous marlin
records, including catching the current 80-pound line-class Atlantic blue marlin record of 1,189
pounds and subduing a monster blue of 1,742 pounds. The popular Wide Range has spawned
many Mold Craft imitators.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Pencil Popper
After World War II, an explosion of interest in salt water fishing, particularly for striped bass,
became the driving force behind some of the most enduring lures of all time, and master angler
and lure maker, Stan Gibbs, was one of the craft's true innovators. His company opened its doors
in 1946 and rapidly gained a loyal following with such creations as the Casting Swimmer, Polaris
Popper, Needlefish and Darter, all still in production today by Gibbs Lures and copied by a host of
imitators. His original Pencil Popper quickly became known as truly great fish-catchers. The wild
side-to-side action imparted by well-timed up-and-down action is deadly. If youve never fished
one, pencil in a tackle-shop visit and stock up.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Rapala Magnum
In the 1930s, a humble Finnish fisherman with an uncanny ability for observing fish behavior
realized that gamefish homed in on baitfish that swam with a slightly off-center wiggle that
distinguished them from the rest of the school. After years of whittling, he hit on a minnow-shaped
lure that captured that defect and the world of fishing hasn't been the same since. Lauri Rapala's
original balsa minnow became so popular that a through-wired salt water version made from
hardwood was developed and became as popular as the fresh water original. It also spawned a
host of plastic imitations, some that worked and many that didnt. No list of the best of all time
would be complete without a Rapala.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Salas Jig
Slinging iron is West Coast jargon for fishing metal jigs using a variety of methods to catch
yellowtail, sea bass, albacore, tuna, barracuda, wahoo, marlin and a host of other species. And the
iron that started the craze was the Salas jig. Designed and produced by the Salas family since the
early 1950s, they are anything but iron, cast from metal of varying densities to make lighter and
heavier models and painted in a wide variety of colors. The Light 7X model is actually a surface
swimmer with a seductive action on retrieve, while the Heavy 6X and 7X are more effectively fished
deep or yo-yoed in a vertical manner. With color designations like scrambled eggs, senorita, nacho
and mint sardine, these are California lures that catch fish locally and in Mexican waters.
Fishermen in other areas of the country should be giving them a shot, too. Results will be
surprising.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Slug-Go/Fin-S Fish
Soft-plastic lures have become the preferred light-tackle baits for millions of anglers since they
started tearing up the inshore scene in the early 1980s, and one company lays claim to the two
most popular of the genre - Herb Reed's Lunker City Lures. The Fin-S Fish is a fish-shaped soft
bait that can be threaded on a leadhead and fished like a jig or impaled on a plastic-worm hook
and fished as a weedless jerkbait. It comes in sizes from 2- to ten inches and catches everything
from weakfish and snapper blues in estuaries to horse-size striped bass and bull redfish shallow
or deep. The Slug-Go (shown), Reed's unique soft stickbait, has a slender, flexible body with a
tapered tail and is usually fished without added weight.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Storm Wildeye Shad
There's another revolution in soft-lure design underway popularized by the internally weighted,
realistically shaped Storm Wildeye Shad that has been available for about eight years. Originally
thought to be too pretty to be effective and too fragile to stand the test of time, it has wormed its
way into the hearts of fishermen with the pulsing action of its swimming tail and the way fish
gobble it down on contact. It is a dead ringer for a menhaden, the most prodigious forage species
on the East and Gulf Coasts, casts like a bullet, sinks on a tight line and swims like a live baitfish
on the end of your line. Even though a toothy critter can snip off the tail in a single bite, fishermen
still cough up dough to buy more.

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25 Greatest Salt Water Lures of All Time
Zara Spook
Every fisherman has heard the term "walk-the-dog." Well, this is the lure that the phrase was
coined to describe. Its unusual left-right flopping action imparted by flipping the rod tip up and
down with a bit of slack in the line is killer. The original James T. Heddon design introduced in the
1920s and made from wood was called a Zaragossa 6500. In the late 1930s, it was reintroduced as
the Zara Spook with a plastic body carefully weighted to create the same action. Salt water anglers
have been using it for redfish, seatrout, snook, striped bass and other species in shallow water
ever since with some very remarkable results.