Arbogast Sputterfuss

Today I read Bill Sonnett’s story on the Bass Fishing Archives website, “The Arbogast Sputterfuss.” It’s a great story; Bill’s a good writer and an undisputed expert on vintage fishing lures and tackle. I happen to have a couple of vintage Sputterfuss lures, aka Hawaiian Wigglers. So, after reading Bill’s story I grabbed one of them and hit the lake. It’s a surface lure, but you have to reel mighty fast to keep it on the surface. I honestly don’t know how anglers back in the day cast this lure for more than a short time - the reels were slower back then, so I imagine you’d get pretty tired out reeling those low ratio reels. I was using a new St. Croix rod and an Abu Garcia Revo X reel.

After around 20 minutes of throwing the Sputterfuss I finally got a surface blow-up, and quickly netted the keeper bass in the photo. I was glad I was using a modern rod and reel combo, with a high ratio reel. It’s so cool catching fish on antique baits.

Give Bill’s story a read. It’s good.