Rick Clunn's special lures over the years

This may have been out there before but I just saw this picture for the first time last night. The fact that he still has all these together in a special place at his home is pretty neat. Some baits are many years old and some are from a win or high finish in recent times. Been following his fishing career since the early 70s when he was in the Pasadena Bass Club. Going to see how many I can identify and correlate to when/where he used them. You can read his notes on some and the rest are just from my memory of his Tournament results over the decades. Didn't have time to do research on any of this so someone else may be able to fill in gaps.

Top row, left to right
Lucky Craft RC 2.5 Squarebill, Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn Trickster spinnerbait (Okeechobee 10+ lber on BASS TV show about 10 yrs ago?), big Luhr Jensen? crank at BASS Megabucks 2001, front end of an old Floyd's Buzzer topwater (meant a key big fish at either his 1974 or 75 Bassmaster Classic win), maybe a small Norman crappie crankbait with upsized hooks, a Poe's RC3 for the 1990 Bassmaster Classic win on the James River



Middle row
1/2 oz black Lunker Lure, very battle scarred chrome black back Trap, Rapala Shad Rap, Stanley Vibra-Shaft spinnerbait, Norman Deep Little N???, silver Bomber Model A (maybe 5A or 6A, think he won the 84 Classic in Ark. on a Bomber)

Bottom row
Jerkbait? maybe a Smithwick Rogue with Suspend Strips, shad colored Norman DD22, Lucky Craft RC 1.5?? for 105 lbs BASS at Falcon, maybe one of the original Big O balsa lures given to him in the 70s by bait maker Fred Young (doesn't look like its been fished), two Poe's Super Cedar cranks (one says Megabucks 2001), a Bagley BB3 squarebill from when the company was still owned by Jim Bagley, another Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn Trickster spinnerbait, this one from his BASS win a couple years ago on the St Johns River in FL. The last one looks like a Norman Big N for the BASS win at Livingston in 1994. An interesting side note on this one is that Clunn and former Lake Fork guide Richard McCarty were sharing the same mid lake creek and both competing for the win on the final tournament day. They reached a gentlemen's agreement about sharing the water. As I recall the story told by McCarty, Clunn fished his water with cranks and McCarty fished his water with a worm. Clunn caught bigger average fish and took the win with McCarty coming in 2nd or 3rd.

A recent wider view shot might show a RICO and maybe the new RC King Kong Shad he used to catch the 29 lb string on the first day of last month's Bassmaster Texas Fest at Lake Fork!

Very cool.

I think there is one error. McCarty fished the middle of the creek pitching a jig at stumps while Clunn fished his crank near shallow cover.

Hi Ken, hope you’re doing well. It’s been awhile since meeting you and Ken Smith for lunch in Irving. Got to do that again when this get together ban is behind us.

Thanks for the clarification. Maybe if I had seen Richard in the last 10 years I would have heard the story again and better remembered the details!

I believe that LC 2.5 was used at Falcon in 2013.

Like the chew marks on the crankbaits

hook marks

Interesting, I don’t see any triple grips.

As for newer lures from Rick, I bought a couple of his deep diving squarebills, Luck e Strike Freak, and I have to admit-I liked it!! It's weird looking with the extended squarebill but the paint job is excellent and the hooks are super sticky. One of those where you constantly hook your fingers, your sleeves or your pants while tying it on. We threw it around the deeper rocks on Grapevine recently and not only did we catch fish but it did a decent job of not getting hung up. I think it deflected well. The box will claim a diving depth of up to 20ft but on 12lb fluoro and a long cast we probably didn't get much deeper than 10-12ft.