The Spoonpluggers Forum

Friends, The CLOSEST answer here is the Mudbug. Please allow me to backpedal just a little, considering someone asked me via private mail, "Just what did Buck say he would use?" I think normally Buck always used Spoonplugs, and did not say he would (need to again) use the other lure. Also, im trying to remember this CASUAL conversation from 28 or 29 years ago, so my (all of our) memory is susceptible to conflation. Buck had just explaned to me how he could, under the right conditions, catch two bass on one cast, one spoonplug, if given a schooling frenzy. That trick was to hope for a (relatively gentle) hookup on one hook, let that bass swim until (somehow!) he felt another bass try to steal the dangling plug from his schoolmate. Set the other hook, (i presume belly hook) and maybe land two bass. Then he mentioned, off hand, not as doctrine, but something like "The only other lure I liked that has action and response like the Spoonplug was the, uh... (he pauses, as if reminiscing something from past) the Heddon Tadpolly."

PS. I hope eventually someone else can verify this, for my own sanity. Ive never bought a Tadpolly, but ebay pics indicate they have changed a bit through the decades.

Heddon River Runt

https://www.google.com/search?q=Heddon+ ... oT-YFqfCM:

Click the link above to see pictures of the Heddon Tadpolly.

Thank you for posting that pic, Garry. Im sure we all recognize some pretty elegant lines in the Tadpolly. However, i'm supposing the thing doesnt swim extremely fast, and obviously not very deep. (At least not without some extra weight.) Therefore, I'm rethinking my interpretation of what Buck meant. I relayed the 1990/91 conversation as best I remember, but it now seems likely the "catching two frenzied bass on one spoonplug" should not be connected with his giving special mention to the Tadpolly. Since the one comment came right after the other, I put the two together, and probably shouldn't have. He gave special mention to the ACTION of the TP, but was not proposing it as the "next best plug." So, Im sorry I overcooked it, in this case.

[Btw, for those (like me) fascinated with the personality of BP, half of what Buck talked about that afternoon wasnt even about fishing. I mostly just listened, happy to hear him him go a-freewheelin'. Example, at one point he bundled me into a vehicle, showed me a nearby tract of land he had just purchase for a loved one. He lamented how this was his third attempt to escape local land developers and hoped finally this was enough land to keep a healthy margin of privacy for the loved one. Things like that!]