It has been 114 years since Ans B. Decker and William Jamison conducted what many believe to be the first, formal bass fishing contest in June of 1910. It was billed as the “World’s Championship Bass Fishing Contest”. The story of the events leading up to this contest, as well as the advertising wars leading up to it and following it, are legendary. The two ads presented here give a good taste of the conflicting results in which both men claimed victory. It was great stuff for the sporting magazines of the day who were able to sell many ads to both parties countering the advertisements of the other. These two full page ads were laid out facing each other in the August 1910 issue of Field & Stream.
The lead-in photo shows the two lures in question. The Decker rotary head lure on the left and the Jamison Coaxer on the right. Both were well known and successful surface lures a century ago.
Tight Lines, Bill Sonnett
What a fantastic moment in history. And what an interesting media battle that followed. The Coaxer interests me. How was it fished? How was it retrieved? Did it come in multiple colors? Any sort of trailer used?
One of the vary popular bass baits in the day was the Pork Chunk. It was extremely effective ( I’ll have to tell you about my day fishing with an old timer (born 1913) using only pork chunks, WOW!.) The biggest problem with the pork Chunk is it sinks so one has to keep it moving with a high rod tip. The Coaxer was introduced in 1904 and is a simple floating cork copy of a pork Chunk. The Coaxer is light and somewhat air resistant and thus difficult to cast.
So, I’m assuming that the angler imparted action with his rod, as Cal Johnson described for fishing with pork (as I discussed in my story “Cal Johnson Writes for Uncle Josh” from a couple weeks ago). The Coaxer does seem to be a weirdly chunky lure. I’m assuming that it doesn’t dive or have any action other than what the angler gives it on the retrieve. It’s interesting that anglers back then often seemed to fish with pork alone, while that’s probably pretty rare today (most anglers just see pork as trailer material). Did W.J. Jamison have any other baits in their catalog that approached the Coaxer in popularity? I did a newspapers.com search and came up with several stories that mentioned the Coaxer as one of the top baits in that era.
Jamison had a large catalog of lures in the teens and twnties. Google Jamison fishing lure pictures and several will show up. They also had the rights to the Shannon lures.
Dave the Pork Chunk hits the water with a soft spat that brings a feeding bass on the run. Its white color and soft texture as well as salt trail is a combination that most bass cannot resist. The biggest down side is like most actual pork rind products it is messy, the salt is carrosive and one usually get only one use out of it as it is difficult to preserve in it original condition once it has been used.