"The Thing"

[rcrudder]

I enjoyed the post on the Dalton Special. Could some of you old bait detectives find me some usable bream lures called "The Thing." I think they were sold by a company in Columbia, Alabama. This was probably 25 years ago and the building is now vacant. The lure was small with a lead body that formed a keel to make the lure track. It had a plastic or rubber body that resembled a spider.

Bob Rudder
rcrudder@gmail.com

[DixieReb]

I'm sure you can't find any of those lures now, but as a boy I remember catching a lot of bream and redfin pike on them. Must have been about 35 years ago. I think we stopped buying them when small beetle-spins came out that were cheaper and could be bought by the cardfull. We lost a lot of lures fishing on stumpy creeks around here.
On another note, do you remember fliptail worms? They caught a lot of bass.

[sundown]

I well remember the "things".. great bream bait...Like DR said, they were easy to lose..no kind of weedguard. They may have been made in Columbia or distributed by Columbia Bait and Tackle which was a wholesaler in Columbia. They used to run routes all over the south to bait shops and hardware stores.

[MudDucker]

Great bait and one of my favorite for bedding blue gills. They came in weighted, unweighted and with a spinner. I really like the unweighted version on a flyrod! I haven't seen any in years.

[rcrudder]

I too am one who switched to the beetle spin. Yes, the beetle spin would not hang up quite as badly. But, now almost everyone is using the BS and the bream seem to have become somewhat accoustomed to it. I was hoping that someone had a card of "The Things" and would part with them. Thanks for the replys.

B

[Tidedancer]

I'm sure you can't find any of those lures now, but as a boy I remember catching a lot of bream and redfin pike on them. Must have been about 35 years ago. I think we stopped buying them when small beetle-spins came out that were cheaper and could be bought by the cardfull. We lost a lot of lures fishing on stumpy creeks around here.
On another note, do you remember fliptail worms? They caught a lot of bass.

Yes I do remember FlipTail worms. Here is an old photo of my first Bass Boat.

[DixieReb]

An old man my dad used to know would somehow put small, white rubber bands through the bodies of his Beetle Spins and they caught more bream than plain-bodied ones. I may try to do that using a big sewing needle to thread the rubber. I guess it looks like the spider the Thing had on it. Nice boat, TD. Looks like a '75 model.

[big bend gyrene]

Rcrudder, did about every search I could think of to find "the thing" but no luck on that one. It was much easier finding info on the Dalton lures.

As for the flip tail worms, think I may have found a guy using their old mold (or at least doing his own knock off). Laughed out loud at his website, as he's using a nickname I sure never want!

http://www.softbaitmaker.com/worms1.html

Items 14 and 15 are using the flip tail name.

Be curious to know if this is the worm you all remember as afraid that it was just a bit before my time. I fished freshwater daily from the time I was 9 until I left for college, but that put me starting in about '76 and pretty sure we were using beetle spins and creme worms by then.

[bman]

Found it!
There may be a "thing" in one of my dad's old tackle boxes.

[Harmsway]

Attaboy, Bman.