For November’s Lure Of The Month, I am featuring the Bass Hog for everyone likes to “pig out” for Thanksgiving.
This floating wooden bait is guaranteed to make a large “pop” when jerked on top of the water, attracting the “hawgs”. Many lures were manufactured with this same concept in the early 1900s and are many times referred to as “woodpeckers” or “peckerheads”. I will let you think about why they are called that….
This bait only came with a red head and white body and with hand painted “gill marks” on the bottom of the white body. Or these stripes and dots could have been meant to imitate blood coming from a wounded creature struggling on the surface of the water. How could a large bass resist this? Obviously not, as Bolton advertised this as “The Greatest Bass Bait Known”.
T.J. Bolton had a small lure manufacturing operation and his baits are hard to find. Many of the baits found are in less than perfect shape as far as the paint is concerned…such as my example. Boxes for these baits are indeed a treasure and rarely seen.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
The “Bass” Hog
T. J. Bolton
Detroit, MI
1910
November 2023
