Fun on the 4th of July with a Lindy Shadling Baitfish Lure

Collecting vintage tackle and owning MyBaitShop.com gives me access to tons of fishing lures I never would have found on my own at the local big box stores.  Sure they carry a nice selection but it is all current stock and basically from a handful of companies product lines.

Fishing lures have been made in this country for over a hundred years and by thousands of companies and individuals.  Almost every one of those designs caught fish in their day and still do today.  The beauty of fishing some of these lures today is you are almost guaranteed to be fishing some lures that today’s fish have never seen.

Let’s be honest, Rapala’s are fantastic as an example, and I fish them, but on any given day at your local lake how many other people are also fishing them.  Now take yesterday when the pressure was high and I couldn’t get a bite on a variety of lures I was trying as an example.  I switched on my third lure to a Lindy Shadling Baitfish in a great orange color.  On my third cast it got slammed by a Northern Pike.  My first fish and hit of the day!  About ten casts later, another Pike!

All told I would go on to land four Pike on this lure in a very short trip out on the 4th and had a few more hits.  I would have stayed out longer but I was literally surrounded by pleasure boaters and got tired of bouncing up and down from all of the wakes.

Lindy Shadling Baitfish Lure:

I’ll be honest.  This is the first time I’ve ever fished one of these.  I try to fish as many different lures as I can and earmark a bunch of new vintage lures each year to try out.  There so many to try and some stay in my tackle box and some don’t.  This one is a keeper for me.

We come across these and sell them in our shop and they sell pretty quickly.  They normally go for around $9.99 give or take a little depending on condition or color.  I’ll be adding a few more colors to my box.  The orange I was using really showed up well in stained color.  Here’s my take on the action of the Lindy Shadling Baitfish.

It’s a plastic lure and lighter than you might think.  Despite that it casts pretty well.  The diving lip that is built in doesn’t give a digging action that you might get on a bigger bait but it sways more subtly side to side.  It reminds me a plastic version of Creek Chub Baby Pikie but lighter.  The action was pretty decent.  It floats at rest so gives you some buoyancy though that is offset a little if you are using a leader (a must in toothy critter land like me).  I bet down south these might kill for bass.

All in all for the first time trying one of these I have to say I am a fan and will be using them again.  Check out our ever changing selection of Lindy Shadling’s for sale on our Lindy page.

Best of Luck Fishing!