What was the trout swim bait controversy?
16.February, 2010
I recall that there was some controversy a few years back when the now famed trout swim bait was first developed. The maker of it was almost busted for using live trout for bait. Anybody else know the story here?
not so much of a controversy. more of an urban legend.
when the castaic trout was introduced, it’s appearance to a live trout was so close, many anglers on the shore and even in other boats thought it’s user was tossing a live trout. especially when fished during a fish stocking. "Hey! that guy’s catching trout and using ‘em!". when viewed from a couple hundred feet away, that is what it looked like. didn’t take long for the warden to recognize these guys.
and the AC plug was mentioned. alan cole had the colorado river stripers to himself for a while on his big plugs. could have also been thought to be using live fish. l seem to recall some problems he was having but as far as l know, he never got ticketed. not real familiar with his story. l do have one of his originals in my lure collection. picked it up at a swapmeet for a couple bucks.
nowadays, it is rarely given a second thought with all the big swimbaits being marketed, up to even 16 inches.
until the AC plug, very few freshwater lures were much larger than 5 or 6 inches. using a lure of 12 or 14 inches (bigger than many saltwater lures) was unheard of unless you were a musky angler, and socal bass fishing wasn’t at all connected with musky fishing. otherwise, musky lures would have been favored for years, which they weren’t.
some lifelike ones now sell for as much as 300 dollars which puts most out of my price range, so l built one of 16 inches and used it a few times (a bitch to cast). had a couple followers on it but no biters.
17.February, 2010 um 12:41 am
I’m not too sure on that one. I do know that a lot of controversy has been caused due to the type of plastic used on some of the swimbaits. A lot are non-biodegradable which will supposedly "ruin" bodies of water. Of course, this wasn’t just with swimbaits but a lot of baits. A lot of companies now have either switched or are experimenting with different polymers and what not to help resolve the issue. But again, I haven’t heard of your specific story. Seems interesting.
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17.February, 2010 um 1:14 am
Hmm…
I use those big trout swimbaits half the time I’m fishing and I have never heard anything of it. I’m gonna have to look into that…
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-B
17.February, 2010 um 1:50 am
Sounds like you are referring to the AC plug and it’s so called inventor Alan Cole. This took place in the 90’s. Mr. Cole obtained a patent on the a jointed swim bait, made from wood with a plastic tail and painted it to look like a rainbow trout. It was used originally for stripped bass at Pyramid lake and on the Colorado River in So. Cal. and later for large mouth bass in the area. Many old timers had made and used these lures for years. Cole some how got the patent which upset many people, especially when he tried to enforce the patent. One of them I knew, and claimed that he showed Cole how to make them, and this gentleman always insisted that live trout were commonly used by Cole.
Prior to this Cole had a reputation for bending the F&G rules, one of which was using live trout for bait. The joke was that the best way to know if you had a genuine AC plug was that if you didn’t get a bass with it, at the end of the day you could clean it and eat it. With his heavy handed way of enforcing his patent, it only fed the rumor mill. Cole always was in the Western Outdoor news with pictures of strings of large fish he claimed to have caught using his lures. which caused even more resentment.
I don’t know if he ever was caught doing this. I was in the tackle business full time back then and fished the lakes at the same time Cole was there. I do know he was on the F&G watch list, got this from a warden and a friend that worked at the lake for the Sheriffs dept. I was told that the method he used was to fly line a trout and kept a lighted cigarette close by to cut the line quickly if he thought he was being watched or about to be checked.
I think that some of the stories were true, and that some of it may have been exaggerated by the people that AC pissed off. I had dealings with him, and my shop actually sold some of his lures. But because of him being such a disagreeable SOB, we finally threw him and his product out of the store.
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17.February, 2010 um 2:15 am
not so much of a controversy. more of an urban legend.
when the castaic trout was introduced, it’s appearance to a live trout was so close, many anglers on the shore and even in other boats thought it’s user was tossing a live trout. especially when fished during a fish stocking. "Hey! that guy’s catching trout and using ‘em!". when viewed from a couple hundred feet away, that is what it looked like. didn’t take long for the warden to recognize these guys.
and the AC plug was mentioned. alan cole had the colorado river stripers to himself for a while on his big plugs. could have also been thought to be using live fish. l seem to recall some problems he was having but as far as l know, he never got ticketed. not real familiar with his story. l do have one of his originals in my lure collection. picked it up at a swapmeet for a couple bucks.
nowadays, it is rarely given a second thought with all the big swimbaits being marketed, up to even 16 inches.
until the AC plug, very few freshwater lures were much larger than 5 or 6 inches. using a lure of 12 or 14 inches (bigger than many saltwater lures) was unheard of unless you were a musky angler, and socal bass fishing wasn’t at all connected with musky fishing. otherwise, musky lures would have been favored for years, which they weren’t.
some lifelike ones now sell for as much as 300 dollars which puts most out of my price range, so l built one of 16 inches and used it a few times (a bitch to cast). had a couple followers on it but no biters.
References :