Get a Buzz On!

In 1977, Texas bass pro Rick Clunn won a major tournament on Tennessee’s Percy Priest Reservoir. The fact he won an important bass-fishing event wasn’t surprising for this outstanding angler, but at the time, the lure and method he used were considered somewhat odd. Clunn cast his way into the winner’s circle using an obscure bait called the Lunker Lure, which thereafter became one of the most popular bass-fishing lures in America. According to many experts, this was the beginning of the buzzbait boom.

The buzzbait craze caught fire in the late 1970s, but buzzbaits had been around a while, even then. Perhaps the earliest buzzbait of all was the Al Foss “Oriental Wiggler” patented in 1918. It didn’t resemble buzzbaits we use now, but it did feature a single, large, cupped blade ahead of the lure body and hook.

Buzzbaits are now mass-produced by dozens of lure companies. And today’s anglers know, for galvanizing topwater action for lunker spring bass, buzzbaits are hard to beat.

The late “Uncle” Homer Circle, dean of bassing writers, captured the true essence of buzzbait fishing in two simple lines: “The first time most fishermen see a buzzbait clatter over the surface of a lake, spluttering like an electric motor prop half out of the water, they conclude that some lure designer blew a gasket. Then, when they learn to use one, they bless the day buzzbaits were born.”

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