Trolling Bass Orenos for Pike

[Scott M]

For years my father's go to trolling lure for northern pike has been a Bass Oreno in red and white. The "red-headed plug" has been a lure put on a pedestal for him, and he's caught his fair share on the lure. The Bass Oreno has always been a casting subsurface plug, but its trolling action is a good selection at times. It has a herky-jerky unpredictable motion, is very bright and flashy in clear water with the red and white body, and since it doesn't dive very deep it works well over submerged vegetation.

Now comes my question. For years South Bend produced their Bass Oreno...

(on another note, what a great name! South Bend sold a ton of lures with Oreno on the end - Pike Oreno, Surf Oreno, Plunk Oreno, Tease Oreno, Plug Oreno....Everybody uses it for a nickname with their buddies - e.g. watch out for Steve Oreno!)

...and I can remember buying them in hanging packages on pegboards. The old versions when the company was still churning them out with metal hardware, glass eyes, and occasional scale paint patterns were sold in boxes. What is being sold today that is equivalent since it appears to be a retired design and the company doesn't produce it? I know Pflueger and Paw paw made equivalent lures in the golden age of wooden lures, but what's equivalent today? I see Heddon is still making their Lucky 13, but it doesn't have the same face/lip shape to produce the wobble of a Bass Oreno.

I want to get Dad a few "red-headed plugs" for Christmas, but I'm not sure what I should be searching for. I'm not about to raid my antique lure collection and the Bass Orenos we have left are missing a lot of paint and have some chunks missing on account of 10-20 years worth of pike strikes.

Thanks for any help, and if any of you have fond (or not so fond) memories of trolling this lure, I'd like to find out if Dad is the iconoclast he claims to be.

[uffdapete]

This could've been written about my Dad as well. He loved trolling and casting for pike with a Bass-O-Reno, either with 3 treble hooks or 2. He always had a few of each size on hand. They were attached to a 9" steel leader on the end of 20-25 lb black braided line using a fiberglass rod with a Pflueger Akron or Summit!

I still have at least 1 or 2 in my tackle box but haven't used them for years.

Fond memories dating back to the mid 60's.

[20lbSloughShark]

It looks like you can still find them on the e.bay.

[jcpmn82]

It looks like you can still find them on the e.bay.

Dang, beat me to it! What he said.

[Early Riser]

I have great memories of my grandfather and Uncle Jim teaching me to fish. When I was a boy, my grandfather used exclusively a Fenwick Lunker Stick rod, Garcia Ambassador real, 36 pound braided nylon line, and a steel leader attached to a wood Bass Oreno lure. That was all I ever saw him use and I was with him when we pulled in many gamefish, especially pike, with this set up.

I recall one trip in particular to the cabin on Pillager Lake, MN in 1973 or 1974 when I watched him catch two bass over 5 pounds on consecutive casts with that lure, in addition to all the other fish, bass and pike we caught that weekend.

My largest bass, a 7 pound large mouth, was caught surface twitching a frog pattern Bass Oreno in the pads on September 10th 1985. I had the fish mounted and I still use that same plug.

They stopped making Bass Oreno plugs years ago. I still use mine, in fact it is my go to summer lure for casting and trolling. Last summer on our annual family BWCA trip we used them to take many pike, a 28" walleye, and some big smallmouth. Over the years we have hammered the gamefish in August with this plug by both casting and trolling around weed beds.

This past summer one particularly huge BWCA pike stripped two of the hooks at boat side off of one of my green/yellow perch pattern Bass Orenos. I just ordered 2 more perch, and 3 red/white off E Bay.

I have some left from my youth in both two hooks (the Babe Oreno) and the three hook Bass Orenos painted in sunfish, crappie, orange, and a brown perch pattern. I used to buy them at the old Burger Brothers store by Lake Harriet.

One friend's father used to paint some of his Bass Orenos black to fish for large bass after dark on Prior Lake in the 70s and early 80s.

They were initially made of wood, then they moved to plastic, then back to wood. The later wood ones were cheap and did not hold up. You need to find the ones with the hooks attached with the metal hardware, versus the hooks screwed right into the bottom. In fact the older, the better with these plugs. I am sure your dad will appreciate getting some "new" ones from you.

I have yet to find another lure that casts, wobbles, and works as well in relatively shallow water as the older Bass Oreno plugs. The Lazy Ike and Rapala plugs work well, but have a smaller profile for late summer fishing, and don't cast into the wind with the old Ambassador reals like the good old Bass Oreno!