The History of the Arbogast JITTERBUG - A Top Water Favorite for 9 Decades!

[@eric_schaaf]

My dad absolutely schooled me on a black jitterbug in the 80s. I was working a big bass off the tip of a fallen log. Kept missing it. My dad tried and after a couple twitches, got hit on a long pause. It was so epic. It was the biggest bass I’d seen at the time. I was probably 12 or 13 years old.

[@ronaldcoward9576]

I'm 59 and the Jitterbug is one of my go to's for sure. They made a jointed model also, which is my favorite. And dont forget the hula popper!

[@ChrisBassFishingAdventures]

That jointed version is killer, I’ve caught several bass over 8 pounds on a jointed jitter bug in that yellow color

[@davidstone8045]

Used Jitterbugs at night on the creeks in SW Missouri.

[@martinschulz9381]

Brings back childhood memories. I loved to use both the Jitterbug and Hula popper; both were just fun to use. The guys from the south actually got us northerners using them.

[@WithTheGrain]

Not that it really matters, but I think it may be the guys from the north making lures for those guys in the south since arbogast was in Ohio,...

[@carlgomm9699]

New subscriber here, I'm 66 yrs old and have been using jitterbugs all my life, another favorite of mine is the Heddon Torpedo ❤

[@anglingarchaeology9073]

That’s awesome! Thank you for watching and subscribing.

[@gregchilders7643]

Ditto 😊

[@RWildekrav66]

Try the Smithwick Devil Horse , another dynamite top water for mornings and early evening .

[@YourDadsCawk]

I'm new into fishing and can't ever catch anything on my jitterbug

[@gregchilders7643]

@@YourDadsCawk Try when there is a light chop on the water during the day.Good luck!

[@grumpysgarage7276]

The black Jitterbug is my favorite

[@TB-zw7dt]

Frog by day. Black by night. Seems twilight is a fine line, where it doesn't seem to matter.

[@mike1261]

I'm a hobbyist lure maker. I've made 4 jitterbug lures, including brass bibs from scrap metal my grandfather gave me. I love the bubbly sound they make as they swim across the top of the water, and so do the bass!

[@rogernull6151]

MANY years ago, 3 of us were fishing a private farm pond. As the sun set, 2 of us started using Jitterbugs. The bass were loving them! The 3rd guy was trying a hula popper, but to no avail. He got skunked as we got 5 LM each. He was very frustrated! That's an understatement. A few days later, I found a knock-off Jitterbug in the trunk of my car; the same car we drove in that night. I never told my friend that I had the bait he needed/wanted all along!

[@Stumpjack]

Wow! Holy cow, what a shout out. Can't thank you enough, Mike. I'm honored and grateful. Man, do I love seeing those old Arbogast ads. The Arbogast company put out the best print ads in all of fishing, IMHO. I could spend hours looking at those. And the pages of those older Bass Pro Shops catalogs were great too. But yes, I agree, you might want to do a follow-up early morning or later afternoon video throwing a Jitterbug and showing some bass catches. The sound of that thing coming through the water is so cool.

[@anglingarchaeology9073]

Thank you David! I really appreciate your help with this video. I agree, The Arbogast Company knew how to advertise. I’m sure those color print ads from back in the day helped boost sales. Yes, agreed, I need to take that out again in the early morning or late evening to really get the full effect… but it also goes to show this lure works even in tough conditions! Thanks again!!

[@fredstopper9906]

I'm 64 and think this channel is good. He used two of my favorite coach dog patterns.

[@C_K_Williams]

Jitterbug and the Devils Horse were my favorites as a kid.

[@rhmrtrt9672]

Loved the Jitterbug back in the day, the black one with the red dot on the bottom. I used them mostly at night. Now I use a revved up version of the jitterbug, which is the Jackall Pompadour.

[@jeffreyyeater1780]

Im 62. When I was a kid I knew Dick Kotis. He was a big shot at Arbogast . He gave me a cedar jitterbug .

[@anglingarchaeology]

Wow! Thats an awesome keepsake.

[@donalddouglas9645]

I'm 76 and I have had jitterbugs in my Tackle boxes since 1965. Way back then I used the double jointed yellow JB'S In stock ponds actually a smll lake and anytime during the day you could catch 3 to 7 and even a few 8 pounders. They murdered that Jitterbug. I use the Musky jitterbug in reservoirs and catch huge Bass.

[@danielgreen8944]

Love this format. Much appreciated!

[@kevinwoolner954]

I like the jointed ones , uk pike love them

[@lanceh.5671]

They are relatively easy build for a lure maker as well. Awesome classic lure! Don't have the nerve to use an actual antique lure. 😊

[@jimamccracken5783]

My Dad was FRED ARBOGAST'S Vehicles. My Dad was rewarded with prototypes of all his lures up to 1950s. Fred fished Wingfoot lake as a test grounds.

[@aTallCool1]

That brings back great memories of fishing with friends in the 70s and 80s! Thanks for the nostalgia trip.

[@DonnaKeffer]

I love the jitterbug, was always beside the hula popper. I was able to get my catalog and follow along with you.

[@NineteenEighty8]

I love collecting antique lures and arbogast are one of my favs. Keep it up brotha.

[@DelightfulHelmet-mc8su]

I've been fishing for 45 yrs or so,there's not many lures I have as much confidence in as I do a black 5/8 ounce jitterbug.

[@ericpettyfishing]

Cool video. Got my sub. Id love to get a wooden one.

[@lloydwilliams7674]

Interesting timing! I just returned from a trip to northern Minnesota. On the last very early morning, which followed a temperature drop, I decided to use a yellow Jitterbug exactly like the one used in this vid. It had been "calling" me the entire trip during which I had been catching lots of decent largemouth and numerous smaller northern pike on Zara Spooks, chatterbaits, etc. I caught a nice largemouth on the first cast and a 5+ lb. northern absolutely crushed it 3 casts later. I've always been a Jitterbug fan and have typically used the black version at/after dusk. My Jitterbug must be more than 35 years old but now, thanks to that northern, I have to replace the back trebles. New subscriber here!

[@mattodom6367]

I used an old one as a kid from my grandfathers tackle box. It was super cool using old tackle as a kid!

[@mattodom6367]

not a super big problem but, the hooks can make concoct with each other and tangle up a bit if you get an unlucky cast. You can tell almost instantly by the action. I have caught some big fish on theses though. I treat it like a slow buzz bait that floats.

[@mattodom6367]

the hoola popper is one of my favorites in any size though.

[@seantempesta4684]

Great video my favorite lure before sunrise the jointed jitterbug is also great

[@edbrown6985]

I caught a 8 pound bass on my first jointed jitterbug,I still prefer a plain black regular one.we learned as kids back then in the 80s we could bend the lip different ways to make it run how we wanted it to.

[@hytekrednekbama4400]

I love you channel. Keep it up bud.

[@jimmcculloch5825]

These were really noted for night fishing.

[@fredstopper9906]

I caught one of my largest small mouth bass on a frog pattern. I like and use older lures. Some like the Devils Horse and River Runts. Sometimes Hula Popper but lost it when line broke

[@chadjones4236]

One thing I really miss is the BP catalog it was my everything under c the sun wishlist growing up 👍🇺🇸

[@RobertPatricelli-my1wk]

Love Jitterbug fishing , also love collecting them . Great episode, very interesting !

[@robertcooke4989]

Jitterbug is great at night another old favorite was the dalton special and don’t forget the hula popper

[@Sid-gu5qk]

The only lure I've ever caught doubles with.

[@ericbunksvintagesportsman6311]

Wish I could find old bass pro catalogs!!!

[@clintonlamar1503]

Have 3 of the plastic bills hanging on my wall. Didn't know they were that old.

[@michaelburke5907]

Still one of my favorite and effective lures! Morning, evening and especially at night. That said, I caught a four pound largemouth in the middle of a rather warm August day in Minnesota on a frog pattern jitterbug. Worked a partly shady edge adjacent to submerged timber and scattered weeds. The take was explosive and I was just hanging on. Great lure for smallies and pike as well. I scored bunch of them for about $2.50 each when Gander Mountain went out of business.

[@Stevefor1776]

Just found you. Really enjoyed the content, so I subscribed. I'm an old professional photographer and I have a couple of hints regarding dealing with the glare on your tabletop shots. 1) Your can put polarizers on both your lights and camera. This will eliminate nearly all the glare but can get expensive (filters large enough to cover your lights can get costly) and wipes out about 9 f stops of light. If you have auto exposure or auto focus on your camera, be sure to get a circular (as opposed to linear) polarizer for your camera lens. 2) Less expensive but not as effective, you can change your light angles. Based on the glare and the shadows of your hands, you have your lights positioned almost directly overhead. The light hits the table square on to the surface and it reflects directly back at the camera, giving lots of glare. Try positioning your lights to your left and right sides at 45 degree angles to the table surface. The left side light will hit the table at that angle and it will reflect at an equal angle to your right. Position the right side light in the same manner for the same result. MOST of your glare will be eliminated, though the curvature of the pages will make it impossible to remove it all.

[@anglingarchaeology]

Awesome. I’ll try that. Thank you for the help!

[@Stevefor1776]

@@anglingarchaeology 👍

[@tanker335]

I follow and enjoy a good handful of the fishing channels. Some a lot of us know and others with just a few subscribers that I stumbled across and gave a watch and liked. I posed a suggestion for a video to more than a few of them with no luck yet that involves this very lure and a few other, lets call them classic lures. I would like to see anyone of them fish and give their impression of the following lures because I don't think the younger fisherman out there give them a thought, even if they might have heard of them before. Here they are. 1. The Jitterbug, of course 2. The Zara Spook. 3. The Hula Popper 4. Heddons Tiny Torpedo. I will swear under oath these old lures still catch fish as well as anything coming out today or ten years from now. If my old butt can do pretty good with them, these kids on KZbin would have a field day. There are a lot of good fisherman on KZbin. But they all like the newest thing. Which right now should be the old stuff!

[@IMBrute-ir7gz]

As a teenager in the 1960's, I had a black two-piece jointed Jitterbug with two weedless treble hooks. Each hook had its own plastic weedguard. I can't ever recall catching anything on it.

[@toph2o676]

Love the content of your channel just came across it the other day . Just thinking here I have a couple of the original flatfish they were originally made out of wood might be an interesting subject for you to go into the story behind it's pretty amazing . Keep them coming

[@clintonroppolo1709]

I catch all my fish on the black and the clown(red and white) I've had the small with a single 2 barb hook all the way up to the jointed. Made my home town. My goto in late August just before dark.

[@d.kleiser9514]

Love the Jitterbug! I fish it almost entirely from shore in the evening, have caught many bass on it. I use as slow a retrieve as possible while still getting that lure action. One thing, the action of the lure benefits from having as little line on the water's surface as possible. I wonder if some fly floatant on the first few feet of line might help?

[@gameon2081]

Great videos. You got a new subscriber I'm going to watch all of them to get my self up today, now I saw you throwing a vintage lure with todays rod and reel, I think it should be cool to use everything from back on the day.

[@anglingarchaeology9073]

Thanks for watching! I occasionally take out the old gear… but agree that I need to use it more to get the full effect. Appreciate you writing in and subscribing

[@dclawnmaintenanceandsnowre4099]

I found one last week when I was fishing.

[@paullevine1813]

Always a great lure but you hit the nail on the head as these do work much better in the morning & best at sunset. No fisherman should not have one or two in their tacklebox & now with the Whopper Plopper we have an arsenal fish can't let swim by without taking notice that dinner is not far away & they have no clue they will end up with this lure stuck in their mouths & lucky for them the majority of us do practice catch & release. I must admit i got tears in my eyes looking at what these used to cost as compared to now ... I have one from the 40s i got in a little tacklebox along with Creek Chub for 10 bucks & the rest of what was in it was junk. I used it once & caught some Bass then back in the box as that's one Jitterbug i don't wish to lose. 🐟

[@edbrown6985]

I use my old wooden lures all the time,it's not catching fish sitting on a shelf.i snagged one in a tough spot and paid someone to swim for it so I know how you feel about not losing it.

[@way75mit9]

Nice story about one of the oldest big Bass lure ever made, and you are right it catches almost anything swimming, including that fish in the video which was a " Rock" Bass not a "bream" !!!

[@TB-zw7dt]

Seems the new rage is a whopper plopper. Action seems very similar.

[@williamsonnett8970]

Been fishing them all my life (I'm 80) I prefer the action of the very early wooden ones. There is something about catching bass on a bait that is older than me,

[@anglingarchaeology9073]

Best part is those fish go it no matter how old the lure is! Thanks for watching

[@mazobojo]

The jitterbug is killer even today, I have a vintage one I still use after I restored the paint and polished the original metal hardware. Truly some lures made to catch and last.

[@ericpettyfishing]

The hooks are so bad

[@mazobojo]

@@ericpettyfishing I agree the og hooks were not great. I swapped them when I replaced the hardware.

[@chipseiler1766]

This is only the second video of yours I've seen. I just found your channel yesterday. Since you did two of my favorite topwaters, the Jitterbug and the Heddon Torpedo, they were the videos that first caught my attention. I looked through your videos but I couldn't find anything specifically on two of my favorite lures of all time. Have you ever included the Arbogast Sputterbug or the Strike King Timber Spin? If not... I'd love to see those!

[@anglingarchaeology]

Thanks for watching and writing in. I’ll add those to the list of future videos.

[@richardkelley2016]

Watching this to figure out if Arbogast and my mother's side Arbegast are related. Good stuff

[@edbrown6985]

Great lure,I've caught many bass with them.the crazy crawler is another good one.i still use my old wood jitterbugs.a 5-8ths ounce jitterbug in black is really the only surface lure I carry all the time besides a black spook.i use them in creeks for smallmouth to, even in the middle of the day.people need to stop thinking its just for evening and night fishing.

[@gregchilders7643]

I have a couple of the 1/8oz models with the welded double hook

[@jackmehoff6302]

Hula popper all day. Get a few big ones every summer/fall

[@Cornelius798]

I have two original Jitterbugs, great lure. 👍👊

[@R.K-v2l]

What about the jointed Jitterbug? We used to use them in black and they were killer.

[@jebbohanan2626]

I remember as a kid, probably 7-13 years old, I would find those top water lures everywhere I went fishing. Hung in trees Hung in lily pads Hung on stumps Hung on docks Any where it could get hung up…I found them. I never ever had to buy one. I’d untangle them tie them on my Pic&Save or Kmart, Combo Special, which was usually a Shakespeare rod and reel or a Zebco rod and reel…. I would wear that rod and reel out, throwing that top water “popper”… I can remember….I never caught a thing on those lures. I ain’t sure if it was my youthful exuberance, trying to imitate one of the great Bass Masters of that time, or the bass weren’t interested in it and it was just a lure made to attract a fisherman’s money. But, the store sure got my money for a very inexpensive combo rod and reel….

[@ivanticristus]

I´ve caught more fishes with the jitterbug than a whopper plopper, that sentence just happened.

[@camojoe83]

I'd like to see the Eagle Claw fishing rod section from that '77 catalog sometime. Ive got a couple old ones and some emails back and forth with Wright McGill/EC basically got me a "We couldn't find that within 45 seconds of looking in our digital archives. Whatever, that's a nice rod, get lost." type of reply.

[@camojoe83]

I suspect they're older than that but who knows.

[@williamsocha]

I had the most hilarious fishing moment of my life (I'm 72) fishing a black jitterbug at dusk in Richmond, ME on Pleasant pond.🐟

[@craigslyst]

The original Jitterbug would have to have the blade pointing down to be a deep diver with body rotated 180 degrees wedge lointing down, rotating the blade only it would still skip on the water and be top water lure as it still is today., Fred Ortel said they turned around the lip or rotating whole lure 180 degrees rotation.

[@hytekrednekbama4400]

That fish appears to be a green sunfish, not a bluegill. Green sunfish have a bigger mouth than bluegills, green sunfish also are not shy to bite large bass baits. I have caught several on a 8'' plastic worm, a couple on a 1/2oz spinnerbait too. VERY aggressive fish! VERY colorful and good looking fish too.

[@craigslyst]

$1.49 in 1977 would be approx. $7.50 today cost of living ratio, why do they cost twice as much as they should? Since Covis prices have gone crazy!

[@squiggymcsquig6170]

I like 'em, BUT...they come in lovely patterns (frog spots, stripes, etc;) that are only visible from the top. The part the fish sees is almost always just white. It's as if those spiffy patterns can only make one catch - the guy who buys it.

[@bobsmoot2392]

Whopper Plopper casts MUCH farther and doesn't veer off course as much. But I've caught a bunch of real nice fish on this classic.

[@bobsmoot2392]

Real it much slower. And let it set sometimes. Lot of strikes happen when it sets still.

[@anglingarchaeology9073]

Thanks for writing in. I was reeling in slow… I had video on fast forward while I was fishing to help speed up the clip. Agreed that lure works best with a slow steady retrieval. Thanks for watching!

[@anglingarchaeology9073]

I also had some catfish strikes on the pause. Agreed it’s a great stop and go lure.

[@ericschulze5641]

Yup & don't try to hook the fish until you feel pressure

[@robertferguson533]

Cool

[@leadlacedanarchy9341]

That mouth looked more like a Rock Bass or Green Sun Fish

[@chriskolb3105]

I prefer The Hula Popper

[@eosneos]

That is not a bluegill just fyi. Looks like either a green sunfish or a warmouth. Great video please accurately id fish so we can help educate everyone!

[@YourDadsCawk]

You are wrong. That's a Bayside blue gill

[@donalddouglas9645]

I can't believe you didn't see a double jointed?