Last week we posted a piece about Bill Dance and his book, There He Is – a book solely dedicated to fishing the plastic worm. In light of that, we thought you might like to see more vintage plastic worms via some early plastic worm ads – in this case ads placed in Bassmaster Magazine in 1969.
In the 1969 issues of Bassmaster, five companies felt it was important to place ads in what would eventually become the cornerstone magazine of the industry. These companies – Bagley’s, Burke, Creme, Flip Tail and Mann’s – all are still in business except for Burke, which was bought out by Creme. Although Bagley’s is still in business, they no longer produce soft plastics and Flip Tail was recently brought back to life by the Partee family of Arkansas.
You’ll notice that many of the ads, even back then, were capitalizing on recent wins of B.A.S.S. pros. Bill Dance, John Powell, Harold Hays, Pete Henson and Blake Honeycutt, all winners in ’68 and ’69, are shown in a number of the ads. Another interesting thing is Dance is shown not only in a Bagley’s ad but also in a Creme ad, which also states that he and Powell had just joined the promotional staff. Dance was also a member of the Burke fishing team at the time. I guess companies back then didn’t mind you double or even triple dipping.
The ad that strikes me as the craziest, or at least the craziest worm, is the Burke Chain worm. The bait actually had chain that ran through the plastic, tip to tail, in order to keep it from tearing apart. Imagine what that’d do to the action of the bait. I’ve seen and held these baits up close and they have the action and weight of a hose.
Then there’s the Creme ad where they show the jig-n-worm. Remind you of anything from today? What about the reference to the “Self-Weedless” Rustler rig in each of the smaller ads – known today as the Texas Rig?
The Flip Tail ads all have their worms rigged with a weedless hook through the head of the bait, much like an angler back then would rig a pork eel in the day. Today, that method of hooking is one of the favored methods for those who split-shot leeches (Reapers) or drop shot.
Well, we hope you enjoy looking at and reading these old ads. Let us know what you think by dropping down a comment!
Creme Worm ad from 1969 featuring Bill Dance and John Powell.
1969 Creme Lure Company ads featuring their Shimmy Gal and Original Nightcrawler. Notice they call the Texas Rig the “Self Weedless” rig.
1969 Flip Tail ad featuring San Francisco 49er Harold Hays who won the 1969 Bassmaster Texas Invitational on Sam Rayburn and Pete Henson who won the Bassmaster Rebel Invitational.
1969 Flip Tail ad featuring Harold Hays after winning the 1969 Bassmaster Texas Invitational.
1969 Flip Tail ad describing ways to rig the plastic worm, one with a weedless hook through the head and the second, what would eventually become known as the Texas Rig.
1969 Bagley’s Super Soft worm ad featuring Bill Dance without his famous UT hat.
1969 Bagley’s Hard Head worm ad.
1969 Burke Flexo-Products CO. Chain Worm ad.
As if the standard Chain Worm wasn’t enough, Burke also had the Super Chain Worm in 1969.
1969 Mann’s Jelly Worm ad featuring Blake Honeycutt, holder of the bassmaster all-time weight record for a tournament.
Another 1969 Mann’s Bait Company Jelly Worm ad.
Past Reader Comments:
Bob Thomas: Always fished the Mann’s jelly worm while I was in the West Valley Bass Masters. Caught nice bass using the black blue and green jelly worms.
Joe J: Love the old ads, even though these were still a bit before I started bass fishing…my first worms were the rigged Jelly Worms.
Rich: There was a period of at least two full seasons back around ’70 -’71 that I didn’t throw any worm other than a 9″ Flip Tail Daddy in Violet. Caught a squatload of pigs on it, too. I still have a couple hundred of them in my tackle closet, and still rig one up and catch a fish or two on it from time to time.
Back in the early ’70’s, Dad would always pick up a pack or two of the Bagley’s Hardhead worms the day before a trip to the Little Manatee River or Lake Seminole (not the famous one, but the much smaller one in Pinellas County, FL). They were usually purple or black, but sometimes with a firetail or the exotic-looking black w/ white polka dots! Good memories.
Greg, glad we sparked some good memories for you. Thanks for reading and posting your comment!
Hello Terry, Great to see your still doing this!
Thanks Pete! Appreciate you still supporting it. Hope all is well with you!
Still love the ding-a-ling from JW’s lures! It’s a great paddle tail worm but they are hard to find now!
Man Greg, you brought back some memories with that one! It was an amazing worm!! Thanks for checking out the site!
I ran out of Ding-a-ling worms years ago, but still have a decent (at 75, it may be a lifetime) stock of 4″ Ding-a-Lizards. One of the best finesse baits ever made.
Hi Rich, I have a Ding-a-ling worm mold if you wanted to borrow it.
Back in the early to mid 70’s, Arbogast marketed a worm that was molded to create a beaded profile. That was the go to worm for my partner and me. It went out of production and we bought 1,000 of them. I still have them somewhere.