“SO,” MY FRIEND REMARKED, clearly not impressed with the spongy-feeling lure in his hands, “this is supposed to catch fish?”
Most soft plugs are on the large side and take big fish, but schoolie seatrout commonly latch onto big baits.
Ten minutes later, after three explosive trout strikes and with a fat 22-incher in the cooler, the questions began. Such as, “Where can I get these?”
This happens whenever I get the soft plugs out of my tackle box. Most serious anglers are familiar with the vast array of name-brand lures and don’t readily accept a genuine recommendation to fish some obscure, or non-name branded one not hawked on TV fishing shows or in magazine ads. Makes it awfully hard to try a new or unfamiliar bait that doesn’t ring a bell, or that’s being used somewhere else. Typically these mystery lures are rumored to be catching the devil out of trout or reds in Louisiana and Texas, rather than in Florida, or vice-versa. The grass is always greener on the other side (of the Gulf)!
Remember when bucktail on jigs gave way (somewhat) to nylon skirts, and when nylon-skirted jigs gave way to those funny jigheads and plastic tails? Many times we hear about new lures long before we actually see them. I recall how I learned about “soft” mullet imitations. A Florida fishing buddy back from a trip to the northern Gulf Coast took a rubber plug out of his box and proceeded to attract more hits than I was getting using whatever lure was my favorite at the time. I also remember the effort it took to get my first supply of these highly effective mullet imitations, because he didn’t remember the name.
I began my search at a few Florida fishing tackle dealers and pretty much got the same answers everywhere. Most had no clue as to what I was describing and a few had only heard of such a lure. And even fewer had something similar in stock, not really made of rubber, but of solid, soft plastic. Apparently this class of treble-hook equipped baitfish imitation lures represents a narrow part of the overall spectrum of available fishing plugs. At that point, I was determined to find out exactly what lure I had seen, and it took a history lesson to get the answer.
The heart of the matter: foil-wrapped cork insert that slows down the sink rate, and rattle chamber.
Paul Brown, a Texas City, Texas native, began his lure-making career in the early 1970s molding and assembling soft-plastic jig bodies for Texas inshore fishermen. Brown developed quite a following of local anglers and then, as now, was interested in their input regarding new methods and techniques. In the mid ’80s Brown’s customers mentioned the need for a plug that would suspend rather than sink or float. Understanding the negative, or neutral, buoyancy of the material he’d been using for his grubs, perhaps some tinkering would make possible the construction of such a plug. He got to work. Using a Heddon Zara Spook as a template, Brown carved a wooden blank for a mold and produced several prototypes of what would become the Corky Mullet. The name evolved from everyone’s reference to the piece of wine bottle cork used in the original lures to slow the sink rate.
Brown’s soft plugs weren’t necessarily the first on the planet. According to antique tackle guru Gary Simpson, of Gainesville, Florida, Burke Lures ( “Put a Burke where they lurk!”) were effective freshwater and saltwater lures produced in the early ’70s. Made of soft, rubber-like material—more for the convenience of the manufacturer than for any angling advantage—most currently existing outside the controlled environments of lure collectors are mere puddles of black goo in Grandpa’s tackle box. Nor were the Corkys the last of the solid soft plugs to arrive on the scene. Taking the original Corky as a model, the Kalin Company produced the Dorky Mullet and Dorky Pop, a popping version, until 2004. In my opinion, while more readily available in stores, the Dorky plugs were primitive in construction, lacked effective color schemes, and failed to evolve into a system of lures as did Brown’s Corky plug.
Whatever your choice, Dorky or Corky, Dorky Pop or Corky Super Devil, learning to use them is the key to making the big fish hit. Any feeding fish will attack them—including reds, seatrout, snook, tarpon, Spanish mackerel and flounder.
