Soft plastics in 1899

[pw-bream]

Who said soft plastics were new?

Have a look at this article from "The Scientific Australian" magazine, the date is 20th March 1899. I bought the magazine page from a Melb bookshop in the 1980's and have been amazed and amused every time I've looked at it since.

One of the shops mentioned in the article is Oxleys in Lt Collins St, Melb. I'm wondering if that was the same Ye Olde hunting and fishing shop that was near the Victoria Hotel when I was a teenager, it certainly looked old enough to have been there in the 1800's. Sadly it is now gone. The Melbourne Sports Depot in Elizabeth St is still in existence, although maybe not in the original building.

[geoff_abrams]

thats pretty interesting stuff , how did you come across that ,do you rekon that was one of the first plastics?

[pw-bream]

It is on a page from a magazine called Scientific Australian. There was a secondhand bookshop in Melbourne in the 1980's in a basement on Elizabeth St, down toward Flinders St. They had some memorabilia type stuff as well as books and mags. This single magazine page was in a cupboard with other stuff like old photos, postcards, etc. Being right into fishing (every second lunchtime was spent in Compleat Angler's old McKillop St shop) I saw the "spinning prawn" thing and bought it. It was probably about $10 or so at the time, but how often do you see something like that for sale.

This web page claims that their plastic fish eggs were the first Sp anywhere in 1959,
http://www.attheoak.com/lures.html

Then according to "houseoflures" http://houseoflures.tripod.com/hol/id15.html the first patent for a soft lure was taken out in 1870, so that is before the "spinning prawn". There might be some technical arguement too as the prawn is made of rubber according to the article, not plastic.

So it seems like this probably isn't the very first soft lures, but it must be right up there in the top ten of early soft lures.
Note that the article only talks about freshwater fish, specifically English Perch, Carp and Trout. No mention of Bream ;-)

[Plastic_Surgeon]

Yes we should thank the "Victorian Acclimatisation Society" for bringing carp and redfin to Victoria. I suppose they had a hand in importing the fox and rabbit too.
Honestly back in those days even an Englishman would surely have appreciated a Murray Cod over a carp.

[tryhard]

you wouldnt beleive the reverence they treat carp with over there - a mate of mine has just come back and a few people nearly fainted dead away at the meantion of killing carp - I suppose if thats all you have got to catch but really !!!!!

[Fishaholic]

Originally posted by tryhard
you wouldnt beleive the reverence they treat carp with over there - a mate of mine has just come back and a few people nearly fainted dead away at the meantion of killing carp - I suppose if thats all you have got to catch but really !!!!!

I don't totally disagree with ya, but their carp to them is like our murray cod to us. Have you seen the lengths they go to just to catch one? sitting motionless for hours on end under a lean-to in freezing cold, drizzly rain, miserable conditions isn't exactly my ideal fishing trip but they love it.... crazy poms, eh

Cheers,
Gab