Several years ago I read on article in Bassmaster Magazine where one of the pro's said his favorite lure to use in lily pads and certain other slop applications was a thing called a Herb's Dilly. The Herb's Dilly is a lure that has been around a long time, in fact some say it was the first buzzbait ever made. It was most recently made by Luhr Jensen, but as far as I know they have been out of production for a number of years. As you can see from the picture a Herb's Dilly is part buzzbait, part spoon, part inline spinner. Not long after reading the Bassmaster article I was shopping at Trail's End Bass Pro and I happened to spy a lone Luhr Jensen Herb's Dilly on the wall. Since the pro was so high on the bait I thought I would buy it. I am glad I did because this buzzbait was slick when it came to fishing certain types of cover situations where just a few reaction baits excel. One day at a tournament I was throwing it on lighter line than I should have been and ended up losing it to some vegetation that I snagged. Normally the Dilly is quite snag resistant coming through vegetation, but it was super windy on this day and my line got bowed which caused it to snag up.That was several years ago and I have been keeping my eye open for a Luhr Jensen Herb's Dilly ever since. This lure:
The Nemire Spoon Buzzer is quite similar to the Dilly and is a lure in production that I can find in stores and I picked up a few, but I don't think it works quite as well as the Herb's Dilly, so the search continued. Nemire Spoon Buzzer's sell for more than 6 bucks per lure.
Probably the best place in the world to have a shot at picking up a favorite discontinued lure is Ebay. Herb's Dilly's are auctioned on a fairly regular basis, but every time I have checked the one's being sold were antiques that didn't have the modern buzzbait blade that you find on the Luhr Jensen Herb's Dilly that I lost and wanted to acquire. Just by chance after not having looked in a long time I did a Ebay Herb's Dilly search a few nights back and low and behold there was a lot of 6 Luhr Jensen Herb's Dilly's with the modern buzzbait blade up for auction. I jumped at the chance and was the only bidder so I picked them up at what I consider to be a pretty good bargain at under 3 bucks per lure shipped and insured (Yea!).
This lure is a perfect match for the Rock Platte River Outlet.
4 comments:
they stopped making the old style herbs dilly some years back ?10 or so? . they did continue to make a cheaper , lighter version. the old dilly had real buck tail and was heavy, used in creeks,rivers and throw it up to the bank from a boat and you need to be reeling it when she hits the water.the first one i used was in 1975 at the old bowie texas lake. every serious fisherman i know has a dozen or so of the "ratholed" but wont sell for any price. a man named earl bates showed me the lure and how to use it.he died and i miss him so...... david ,ft worth tx.
I bought a Nemire Spoon Buzzer and it doesn't work at all. The spinner is too tight on the wire, the wire is too short, and there aren't enough beads between the blade and the spoon to allow the blade to freely rotate. All in all, a pricey piece of junk.
I grew up watching my dad use a Herb's dilly. I remember a day of fishing with my dad and grandpa at Lake Texoma. We were fishing in large coves with stumps and brush. My dad secured a large stringer of bass with a Herb's dilly. I remember him exclaiming that this was his largest one day stringer of bass. He is a life member of bassmaster, since the mid seventies, and I think he had read about the technique of stopping the retrieve of a surface lure as it swims next to stumps (letting it sink next to the stump). He landed three nice bass, including a 4 pounder using this technique. They really responded to this! Yes, the herb's dilly requires a more positive faster retrieve than conventional buzzers. As a kid, I had trouble keeping one on surface with my Zebco 33 (it did have a lifetime warranty though). Nothing beats fond memories of fishing and I'm grateful my dad gave me the passion for bassin! Sidney, Houston
The buzz bait lure shown doesn't work as well as the original Herb's dilly because it does not have the offset spinner which makes the lure shimmy as it is retrieved. The original is a deadly lure and when used with a short plastic worm or pork rind strip behind it - look out! This thing catches largemouth bass like no other lure except an Al Foss Shimmy or Al Foss Oriental Wiggler. I grab all these lures up I can find and use them.
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