Cermele: The Clothes Pin Bass Plug

Other other day I was leafing through a copy of “Outdoor Lore” by Clyde Ormond. It was published in 1964 and just one of many great books in the F&S office library. In it was a section on making emergency fishing lures. Everyone seemed to dig my Guinness Widget lure, so I thought I’d share the clothespin bass plug I found in this book.

Ormond suggests that in a survival situation, a clothes pin, hook, short length of line, and a knife can get you some dinner. For more detailed instructions, click here. Yes, this may have been designed for survival, but I think it’s pretty clever and I bet it could work just as well as a Spook. If nothing else, it proves that fishermen are a resourceful bunch.

I once met an old-timer on a party boat that shined all his metal lures with Ketchup from packetts he kept in his tackle box. “Smell doesn’t bother the fish or pollute the water, and the acid takes off the tarnish,” he told me. It works really well. I know of a group of regular sharkers in Rhode Island that hang a bag of D batteries over the rail to send out an electrical pulse. Supposedly it brings the makos right in. I once ripped my waders on a trout trip. My guide pulled out a plastic worm and a lighter, melted it over the tear and I was good to go.

So what have you got? Any tricks that come in handy? — JC