Old Fishing Lures Made by Miscellaneous Makers

For a more visual representation without all the details of these antique fishing lures please visit the Misc Lure Gallery from the lure button on the right side of the page.

Flying Hellgrammite

Made by Harry Comstock, Fulton, New York. Circa 1883. This is considered one of if not the first glass eyed antique fishing lures produced. The inventor Harry Comstock a noted gun enthusiast, salesman, inventor and designer from Fulton Ny.

 The Comstock flying Hellgramite embodies not only the future or what the artificial minnow or lure would evolve from, but also has ties and roots in a common insect that was used in Fishing. The Dobsonfly in its Larvae stages is called a Hellgrammite, and is a water dwelling insect which ferociously fees on its predators.

However, what I find interesting is that the lure itself resembles the Dobsonfly an not namesake. Also noted for its nocturnal feeding habits, the Dobsonfly had 2" wings which folded down its back. Interesting enough by themselves, Harry's eccentricity, combined with his travels to China as a gun salesman, his noted efforts as a inventor of guns, and yet we only ever would see this one fishing lure come from this worldly thinker.

The Enterprise Manufacturing Co., Pflueger, would eventually take over this fishing lure from 1883-85 still calling it the Hellgramite, while utilizing its own patent process of applying a luminous paint to its wings for its addition. It would also later have in its lure line up another Hellgrammite, which resembled the real water dwelling insect.

As far as I know Harry is one of the more famous, and if not the only antique fishing lure maker to ever commit suicide. Harry ingested carbolic acid in April of 1895 to end what must have been his own complete metamorphosis from the Hellgrammite to the Dobsonfly.