Dewey Hunt created ‘the king of bass lures’ in 1950s

By KEN BECK
Special to The Wilson Post

WATERTOWN -- A fishing lure collector trolling into murky historical waters has brought to the surface a late Watertown man’s crafty angling genius.

The Hunt Lure Company opened in 1960, and for a few short years produced what Dewey E. Hunt and his partner Elby Jennings Jr. claimed to be “the king of bass lures.”

Hunt's Special Wolf Pack featured the charmer, the enticer and the hooker. The package of three sold for $4.

Helen Hall, the daughter of the late Dewey Hunt of Watertown, displays the original fishing lure that her father whittled from a piece of cedar along with the patent her father received to allow him to begin manufacturing Hunt Fishing Lures in 1960.

This photo of Dewey Hunt, probably taken in the 1950s, shows the fishing lure innovator with a bass taken on one of his plugs. The picture was included on the promotional literature inside each box when a customer purchased a Hunt lure. Top Photo KEN BECK / The Wilson Post -                         Next two Submitted.

Dewey Hunt created ‘the king of bass lures’ in 1950s

By KEN BECK
Special to The Wilson Post

WATERTOWN -- A fishing lure collector trolling into murky historical waters has brought to the surface a late Watertown man’s crafty angling genius.

The Hunt Lure Company opened in 1960, and for a few short years produced what Dewey E. Hunt and his partner Elby Jennings Jr. claimed to be “the king of bass lures.”

“Hunt was bucking a trend by making his wood lures,” said Dr. Harold Smith, a fishing lure enthusiast and author of The Encyclopedia of Creek Chub (The Creek Chub Bait Company was a top manufacturer of lures for much of the 1900s). “In the early 1960s most of the classic lure companies had gone out of business or had been sold or went to making plastic lures.”

Smith, who lives no more than 2 miles outside of Wilson County near Percy Priest Lake, has more than 30 Hunt lures in his collection, most of them in their original boxes. He snagged his first Hunt lure in an old tackle box that he purchased at a garage sale.

The other thing that made Hunt lures truly unique was his inspiration to add a tiny hook midway between two bigger hooks at each end of the lure which were the norm. Filing for his patent Aug, 31, 1953, as “Dewey E. Hunt, American Hardware Co., Watertown, Tenn.,” it was not until seven years later, on Oct. 25, 1960, that the patent was granted, and it was the middle hook that did the trick.

“He got the patent by having a small hook in the middle. His theory was that a bass struck its prey first to stun it and the second strike to kill or eat it. With the small hook in the middle, he claimed he had a larger catch ratio that went from 18 percent (on lures with no middle hook) to 80 percent,” said Smith, an emergency room doctor for 25 years who now teaches chemistry at Lipscomb University.

After tracking down Hunt’s children via Watertown’s rock of Gibraltar, Edsel Floyd, more history of the Hunt lures has been revealed. 

“It began on a Sunday morning. He was always a whittler, making little things,” said Hunt’s daughter, Helen Hall, of Orlando, Fla. “He sat on the front porch with a piece of cedar and whittled out a fishing lure. When he got through with it, they (friends) said, 'You got to go catch a fish with that,’ because it looked so real.”

“The original one that he made from cedar is the one that he got the patent on,” said Hunt's son, Glenn Hunt, 71, who lives in Gordonsville. “The patent is not on the lure itself, it is on the hook. He couldn’t get one until they changed the design. He started looking through the patent book and found there wasn’t one with the small hook in the middle.”

Hunt’s daughter recollects it took years of working with lawyers and working through red tape to get the patent. Her father’s partners on the lure included the late Elby Jennings Jr., whose family owned and operated Watertown’s American Hardware Company for the better part of the 20th century, and a Nashvillian whose name has been forgotten.

Glenn remembers there was a lot of experimenting with the lure until his father got it up to snuff.

“He had different designs and he would whittle them out and try this and try that to see how they would work. They’d take it to a tank somewhere and fix different lifts on the front and finally he found the one that had the action that he needed. He worked a long time on that thing trying to get it right. We’d take them to Center Hill Lake and fish ’em,” Glenn said.

“He was thrilled with his lures. They told him that his were the only one made just like that with the little, tiny hook in the middle,” said Helen, who possesses the original patent papers as well as the original lure her daddy whittled that fateful day in the early 1950s. “He made three different lures named the charmer, the enticer and the hooker. They came in different colors. The first one he made, I just remember him putting spots on it, and he painted it himself. You could buy three in a box, and they called them Hunt’s Special Wolf Pack.”

While Hunt’s lures may or may not have been produced originally in his garage in Watertown (Edsel Floyd recollects, “The first ones he made were sold at Slim Winfree’s radio and TV shop as Slim sold fishing licenses and lures”), for the most part they were manufactured at a location on Highway 70 in Wilson County near the Davidson County line.
As Glenn remembers the business was never a big moneymaker, so his dad and partners ceased operation in the mid-’60s.  

Whittling entrepreneur Dewey Elvis Hunt was born June 25, 1908, in the Brush Creek community of Smith County, about 3 miles north of Alexandria. He moved to Watertown in 1938 and worked a variety of jobs, from driving a milk truck and farming to building airplanes at AVCO in Nashville and doing carpentry work. He built his own house in Watertown on the corner of Main Street and Lynn Avenue. He also worked for several years at American Hardware for Jennings, his partner in lures. Later, he operated an Esso gas station where Main Street hit Highway 70. Hunt died in February 1986 at age 77.

Lure collector-writer Smith has uncovered more details on Hunt’s handiwork and also shares a bit of history on American-made fishing lures and the rise of bass fishing in Tennessee.

“Most artificial lures beginning after 1910 were made out of wood. Plastic lures began in a small way in the 1930s, but in the 1950s and 1960s plastic was taking over,” Smith said. “At the point Hunt began, plastics were beginning to dominate, so his wooden baits were against the trend of the day.

“There were between 30 and 40 individual lure companies in Tennessee, some who became big and others who stayed small. They were as famous as the Big O that was invented by Fred Young in East Tennessee, and some were individuals who only made a few lures for friends and other people.”

Smith’s dive into Hunt’s history allowed him to snare all three styles and the fact that they were made in a total of 16 different colors. The lures originally sold in a white box, but later the white box held the charmer, a green box the enticer and a yellow box the hooker.

Hunt’s trio of bass catchers sold for $1.50 apiece or an angler could purchase Hunt’s Special Wolf Pack for $4. As collectibles today, Hunt lures range in value from $10 to $80 depending on color and condition, according to Smith.

A brochure inside each box of a Hunt lure included the following claim: “You can be sure that this fish-like plug has been tested and proven to be tried and true over a period of several years. It is also proven fact that out of 114 strikes, 101 fish were taken. When using the ‘Hunts Special' lure, the percentage of take home fish jumped from 31 to 88% over and above all other lures of this type.”

“I have found Hunt lures predominately in Middle Tennessee,” Smith said. “He was selling bass lures primarily, and the most likely places for use of these lures would have been Old Hickory and Center Hill Lakes. Bass fishing was catching on in Tennessee. Prior to TVA and its dams, fishing was in rivers with bait and/or with cane poles, mostly for catfish and smallmouth bass. Bass fishing really took off in the ’60s as the reservoirs were filled up, not only in Tennessee but also across the country.”
While Hunt surrendered to manufacturing lures, he never quit on his love of the sport as both children recall that their father was avid about his fishing.

“Daddy, he loved it,” Glenn said. “He’d go every chance he got. He was a bass fisherman and loved to stripe fish a lot at Center Hill Lake. He did a lot of catfishing and creek fishing growing up. He fished Center Hill and Percy Priest and Old Hickory Lake.”

And today lure collectors explore garage sales, flea markets, antique stores, eBay and collector meets in hopes of hooking a piece of Dewey Hunt’s handiwork, spawned from a simple cedar fishing plug that sprang to life on a Watertown front porch more than 50 years ago.

Ken Beck may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .