sports

outdoors with Lou Rodia

Ubiquitous Bucktail Started in S. Jersey

limit yourself to one peice of equipment which would serve you best to catch fish in an emergency situation. The surest choice for survival anywhere in the world- fresh and salr water- is a white lead headed jig. How valid is that So much so that the U.S. Armes Services in World War II decided to package

up as urvival kit which in cluded line, hooks, sinkers, some other basic fishing tackle AND an upperman Bucktail. South Jersey and Cape May county played an important part in that effort THE UPPERMAN bucktail was the creation of Mirris and Bill Upperman. late of Atlantic City. They made up lead headed jigs

and flashed them all over the place, but they spent a lot of time perfecting the jigs they later marketed in Cape May, Atlantic and Ocean Counties The military orders gave the Upperman firm a big push toward success. But what really made the market grow was boredom on the one hand, and crisis on the other. Thousands of

downed airmen used the Upperman bucktail to catch fish which helped them to survive when on a life raft waiting for rescue. Some used the bucktails in similar emergency situations when they found themselves adrift in lifeboats or life rafts after naval vessels or merchant marine ships were sunk. thone who wore forced to depend on the Upperman Bucktail in those situations remembered the lure AND the name of the lure when they returned life THAT'S THE kind of crisis which made the Up perman Bucktail a well known watch-word in fishing circles. The lure got mentioned in write ups worldwide An for boredom and how it got the lure popularised, that's the other side of a war-time story. Those same Upperman Bucktails were stored in the emergency kits on all sorts of military transport. As we said, the kits were in all aircraft, on all life rafts and in all lifeboats. Time hung heavy on the hands of some of our military forces. Stuck on small island bases far from the din and destruction of battle, many a service man who bad time on his hands reverted. Having fished at home before Uncle Sam called, these angler Gl's dug out the emergency gear and fished up a storm FOR MANY, it was a chance to fish places they had never heard of. for fish they had never seen and in waters they might never revisit And for many, it was their first chance to fish a lead headed jig that was perfected and produced here in South Jersey Did the lures work? With absolule certainty Both Bill and Morrie Upperman said on more than one occa sion that their lures had caught every type of sports fish that anglers could catch on rod and reel We have never tried to make a list, but for starters, we know that bucktails work on fluke, weakfish. bluefish. mackerel, striped bass, dolphin, wahoo. tuna, albacore bonito. barracuda. sea bass and sea robins, skates, herring, rays, sharks, king mackerel, spotted weakfish. spot, croakers, and puppy drum AS FOR FRESH water, the list of fish is equally as broad Largemouth and small mouth bass, white and yellow perch, sunfish. calico bass, trout, pickerel, muskie,. northerns, walleyes, rock bass, shad, catfish, sauger all have hit bucktails for me over the years On our last trip to the St Lawrence River, over half of the smallmouths. northern pike, rock bass, largemouths and yellow perch we caught were taken on a 1/8 oz. yellow and green bucktail tied on a yellow head To make the lure work, we had to nip off the hair just behind the nook .Adding a chartreuse twister tail made a killer combo out of the little jig Bucktails have saved the day more than once for us in both fresh and salt water. They can be fished

with little effort, or the angler can put a lot of action into the use of a bucktail. The lead head jig has a versatility of its own It can be finished with or without bait. It offers a wide choice of colors, sizes shapes and hook size. BUCKTAILS are readily available at most tackle shops. Or the angler can in vast in a mold, some kind of a lead melting furnace and some jig hooks. So equip ped, he can mold his own heads from scrap lead or ds from scrap lead or from pig lead from any plumber's supply house. word of caution, never put cold bad or a i oW ladle into a pot of hot bad Never put wet bad or scrap bad with moisture in or on it into a hot bad pot Never pour hot bad into a cold jig mold or sinker moid Once you tie a few bucktails you will master some of the tricks of the trade Bucktails tying is not as creative an art form in as tying fresh water fishing flies There is a limited finesse needed in tying hair on a bad head jig HEADS CAN BE painted in a variety of colors and bucktail hair can be dyed all of the colors of the spec trum Every color and every combination of colors we have fished on lead head jigs has worked at one time or another Buy them or tie them, but make sure bucktails are in good supply in your tackle box. Be sure you have variety in sizes, shapes and colors Fish them often for all kinds of fish The more you fish them the more con fident you will be to use the best lure Talking to the Upper mans was an experience in itself. When both were alive, they could regale receptive audiences for hours with their tales of catches of fish on bucktails from customers all over the world MORRIE OUTLIVED Bill by a number of years In the last years that the factory was in Atlantic City. some of our most interesting times were spent visiting in that second floor loft where millions of bucktails were poured and tied One day we got there in time to see a large order of baby blue bucktails being packaged for shipment to Texas for use on sea trout

Morrie said the anglers in that area were finding suc cess on sea trout (weakfish) in fairly shallow water Naturally we had to try light blue locally With light blue bucktails we caught fluke and biuefish in shallow water behind Avalon We caught weakfish at high noon in bright light on several Jersey Coast jetties We caught stripers, spotted weakfish and bluefish in Crisfield and a half dozen kinds of fish on light blue bucktails in the Bahamas WE STIL TIE light blue and white teasers on our fluke and weakfish killer rigs. We still have light blue colored bucktails in our fresh and salt water boxes It was Morrie Upperman who taught us what he call ed the "Jersey Whip" for retriving bucktails at high speed while "whipping" the rod to give the lure ac lion Morrie also taught us another lesson on the Second Street Jetty at Cape May He showed us that weakfish could be caught at dead low water at high noon on a day when even bait had been non productive His technique was to cast the bucktail and let it settle to the bottom. It probably took Morrie longer to get the bucktail back to the jetty after every cast than it did for you to read the column MORRIE'S TECHNIQUE? Reel in as slowly as possible and then cut that speed in half while alter nately lifting and lowering the rod tip to make the lure "jump" up and down over the bottom. Bucktails are commonly called just that Today's generation didn't have to spend time in lifeboats or on lonely desert islands looking for something to do and settling for handlining a few fish with an Upper man Bucktail Time changes things. A generation back, the lowly bucktail was fondly refer red to as an Upperman While the name is no longer universally applied, millions of anglers all over the world in fresh and salt water owe their fishing successes on bucktails to two anglers who pioneered the art of bucktail fishing right here in South Jersey

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