This durable soft plastic bait has been a sleeper hit with crappie anglers
A tri-colored soft plastic crappie lure that’s been around since 2013 remains to this day a favorite for fish and fishermen who tie it on the business end of their fishing line.
The Creme Crappie Shad that hit the market 11 years ago was from Creme Lure Co., which introduced bass fishermen to the first-ever plastic worm line way back in 1949 under Nick Creme, who died in November 1984. There’s been no slowing down for the artificial lure manufacturing plant located in Tyler, Tex.
Chris Kent, the owner and president, continues to make affordable top-notch soft plastics for bass, crappie, bream and, even, highly popular saltwater species such as speckled trout.
The Crappie Shad, sporting an increasingly popular body design, ranks right up there with some of the company’s famous panfish predecessors like Lit’l Fishie.
“They’ve been around for about 10 years,” Kent said about the Crappie Shads, noting Creme Lure Co. identified a soft plastic design that could fill a niche, a need, in their product line for panfish.
“We had some opportunities to sell it (Crappie Shad) and we brought it out,” he said about introducing the bait to fishermen.
Anglers are happy
Enter Mike Clark, a lure designer who also oversees the company’s social media platform and represents them at trade shows. The 31-year Creme Lure Co. veteran worked on many design projects with Kent’s father, the late Wayne Kent, a Tyler, Tex., resident who was instrumental in getting Creme to move to Tyler from Akron, Ohio, in 1959 and, like Creme, started his own artificial lure company, Knight Manufacturing Corp., with his wife in 1965. Knight Manufacturing and Creme Lure Co. merged in 1989.
The elder Kent carried on the tradition until his death in April 2021. Chris Kent was around the business since birth, but when his dad died he got fully involved and moved from his engineering career at Trane Heating and A/C to the Creme building across the street in Tyler.
The Creme Lure Co. president has immersed himself ever since in making artificial lures that trigger bites for crappie fishermen across the country. He’s proud of the Crappie Shad.
“It’s a very soft plastic so it has a lot of action with the very supple tail wiggling,” Kent said.
At the same time, it’s a type of plastic that’s durable.
“It holds up well,” he said. “Sometimes we get ‘I fished with one all day’ messages.”
There are those crappie anglers who swear by Crappie Shads, load ice chests with them, but keep the brand name to themselves since the soft plastics were introduced a decade ago.
“It’s been kind of a sleeper deal,” Kent said. “Kind of hidden. Some people don’t let it out.”
Crappie Shad sales still are brisk on the website, which will be redesigned within six months, he said. Also, the Crappie Shad’s are due for a package redesign, probably in 18 months.
Color options
Crappie Shads are available in 10 colors but plans call for an expansion of color choices, according to Kent. The artificial lure manufacturing company is seeking suggestions for new colors from crappie fishermen, he said.
His favorite color is the black/blue/chartreuse combination.
Clark really doesn’t have a favorite. He likes them all. But he does have his preferences based on time of year and water clarity.
“Early in the year (spawning time) they like bright colors and the bait moving fast,” Clark said. “In the summer they love shad colors. Blue thunder is consistently good mid-summer to late summer and Tennessee shad’s good, too, in the summer. And blue glimmer (a “monkey milk” color). They really like it.”
For more information on the Creme Crappie Shads and other Creme Lure Co. products, call (903) 561-0522 or go to cremelure.com.
