Voices from the Past: Dixie Carroll on the Pflueger All-in-One

Over the next several months, I’m going to feature the fishing tackle writing of one of my all-time favorite writers, Dixie Carroll (Carroll Blaine Cook). These famed pieces of tackle were featured in his great book Fishing Tackle and Kits. They are fascinating write-ups of the tackle from a contemporary perspective. Below is Dixie’s write up on the Jamison Fly Rod Wiggler, one of the earliest true fly rod lures.\

PFLUEGER ALL-IN-ONE MINNOW - Made by the Enterprise Mfg. Co., Akron, Ohio. This new bait of the P8uegers is a very good one and will no doubt be as popular as their P8ueger-Surprise Minnow which is sure a dinger in the plug line. The AU-in- one bait is a combination 8oater and underwater affair and is made of selected red cedar. The enameling is of water-proof porcelain and is practically indestructible. Continued casting among the shore rocks, windfalls and logs failed to more than nick it on the sharp edges- no cracks or chips were noted. This hammering of a plug among rocks, however, is treatment no angler gives his artificials, but it shows that the stuff stands up under exceptional hard usage. The minnow is mounted with two hand-forged treble hooks with patented fasteners which allow hooks to be removed and attached quickly. There are four metal planes with each minnow, one to give it a rotary motion; one keeping the minnow well on the surface and throwing a natural ripple similar to live surface-swimming baits; one to make it dive shallow with a wiggle like a crippled minnow, and the other diving deep with the same darting minnow-like motion. These planes can be changed instantly to meet all conditions of water. Made in the killing colors and luminous for night- fishing. This lure proved attractive to bass, pike, musky, and the green and white to wall-eye pike. The new four-hundred-page catalog of the Enterprise Mfg. Co. is one of the most comprehensive books on fishing tackle issued for some time and deserves a place in the library of every fisherman where it can be used for reference. The original leaping-bass design on the cover is a corker and will make you pant for the call of lake and stream. The "Pflueger Guarantee" of workmanship and material is behind this new bait, and it will live up to that guarantee.

— Dr. Todd

Voices from the Past: Dixie Carroll on the Pflueger Surprise Minnow (1919)

Over the next several months, I’m going to feature the fishing tackle writing of one of my all-time favorite writers, Dixie Carroll (Carroll Blaine Cook). These famed pieces of tackle were featured in his great book Fishing Tackle and Kits. They are fascinating write-ups of the tackle from a contemporary perspective. Below is Dixie’s write up on the Jamison Fly Rod Wiggler, one of the earliest true fly rod lures.\


PFLUEGER-SURPRISE MINNOW.- Made by the Enterprise Mfg. Co., Akron, 0 . Here is an excel- lent artificial minnow, and it is a natural fellow at the same time, it does not need a bunch of metal adornments to make it do a wiggling darting dive and the swim of a live minnow. It is of red cedar, the best all-round wood for making an artificial and it is finished in all the popular color designs with a crackerjack waterproof porcelain enamel that stands up under any kind of casting without -cracking or chipping. It is of minnow shape and what makes it do the wonderful lively swim under the water is the mouth-shaped cut or groove on the front under- side, and right where the mouth ought to be anyway. It is a very effective lure, of the semi-surface class, riding about ten to fifteen inches under water when reeled in at the ordinary fishing speed and it goes deeper if speeded up, floating when you happen to stop to untangle a backlash. A few seasons.ago I had one of these minnows along up north for a workout, it was cold and snow flurries made casting a bit of rough work. For two days the game ones had been off the strike, the pal and I had thrown them everything in the outfit without much success. I had loaned my pal the one Pflueger-Surprise minnow, a perch colored affair and that afternoon he landed a five pound fifteen ounce small-mouth bass and five others that just tipped the scale a tremble below fifteen pounds, all with this Surprise Minnow. It seemed the big ones could not keep away from it. My own string was not large enough or heavy enough· to mention that day. After a lot of coaxing, and then actually stealing this plug away from the pal, I had quite a nice bit of sport with it. It is still in my outfit a trifle battered and dinted from two years' use, but it still gets the fish when it is hard to interest them in hitting the lure. For its natural minnow-like movement in the water, the fine finish and good workmanship I commend it to the bait- caster as a rattling good lure.