Like most of us reading this publication, we love a good tackle shop. Especially a new one, or one in a new town that you have never been to before. You just gotta’ stop because, surely, it will have a new lure or new color that you don’t have, or something in a clearance bin that didn’t sell locally, but that is a staple back home. Jackpot!

In recent years, I travel to either southwest Florida or the Florida Keys for a week every late fall. A whole new set of tackle stores! And talk about stuff that you don’t see up here! This past trip, I was looking at a trolling bait with a tail that looks kinda’ like a spinnerbait skirt… but this beast is 18 inches long, adorned with wild tie-dyed colors, and made from a material that would also work for truck mud flaps. The head is roughly 5 pounds, plated in chrome, and about the size of a foam coffee cup. The directions tell me that this $169.99 lure could be trolled at 25 knots on 400-pound test. Holy swordfish, Toto—we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

I have no personal use for any tackle of this magnitude, but it’s incredibly fascinating to look into the world of $1,200 reels the size of coffee cans, 3-, 5-, and 8-pound sinkers, and hooks that look like something that you would see on a tow truck.

I go down to Florida and cast for inshore species from bridges, piers, beaches, and passes. Predictably, there is another section of these tackle shops that have normal lures for redfish, jacks, snook, specks, snapper, mackerel, juvie tarpon, etc. The lures in this part of the tackle shop look more like what a midwestern guy is used to seeing. They are still different, but many look like things you could use to catch bass, walleyes, pike, and muskies. Oh, and they do!

In the past 20 years or so, I have found some great inshore saltwater lures that migrated up into my Wisconsin freshwater tackle boxes that you would never see in a tackle shop up here. If you don’t travel to saltwater markets, you may need to order these baits online, but here are some of the gems I have found over the years.

Let’s start with a relatively new company, NLBN. It stands for No Live Bait Needed, alluding that their lures look so good that you don’t need live bait. Well, they are pretty close. They make a wide variety soft plastics and jigheads, but the one you will be interested in is the 3-inch paddle tail. It’s a thicker, meatier body but with a fast, quick tail action. They have some very realistic colors that are great for freshwater applications. I love their matching jigheads that fit the bodies perfectly and feature beautiful paint jobs.

They have a great tail action along with a slight rock, which is deadly in a swimbait. As with all the baits I will mention in this piece, the hooks are h higquality and will land anything that you will tangle with in the Midwest. There is a color called Twisted T, and that paired with their matching 3/8-ounce head has been great for bass and pike. They also make a 5- and 8-inch if you muskie guys like the sound of them.

Jumping to one of my favorite topwater baits ever is the MirrOlure Top Dog Junior. This is one of the easiest side-to-side, walk-the-dog lures I have ever used. It casts a mile and is literally indestructible. Plus, it sits low and works side-to-side with ease. Even if you hate working spooks or other “dog” style baits, you will love this one.

You can work it with turns of the reels if you want to save your wrist. It has an internal, one-knock clacker that is loud! I originally thought “too loud,” but after 15 years of catching bass and pike on it, the fish like it. They have black or bone colors that work well, but my favorite is color #808 which has a gold insert, brown back, and orange belly. There are other sizes, but the “Jr” is perfect for bass and pike.

Berkley Gulp products are staples in the Gulf or Keys for people who don’t want to mess with live bait but need a little help. Down there at times, you can even dead-stick Gulp baits and fish will pick up the scent an grab them. I’ve fished Gulp shrimp on jigheads down there when things get tough. I’ve also brought half-bags back and tried them for smallmouths, and they love them. The Root Beer or New Penny colored 3-inch shrimp will trick some tough smallies up here in the Midwest.

I’m jumping back to MirrOlure for a couple more. MirrOlure/L&S Bait Company has been around forever. I’m old, and even my grandfather had L&S lures in his tackle box 60 years ago. They started in Illinois, which is why you see some old ones around the Midwest. But they soon became taples of the saltwater market, and still are. They are to saltwater world tackle shops what something like Mepps or Dardevle is up here. Their lures are bulletproof, feature high-quality hooks, and are available in what seems to be a hundred colors. Two baits I want to mention are suspending twitch baits. They are precisely balanced to dart, stop, and suspend perfectly horizontal in the water.

The first is the MirrOdine. It’s a shad-shaped bait that perfectly imitates a darting, dying baitfish. It’s available in several sizes, but at 2.5 inches, the #17MR is my favorite. They only go down about 2 to 3 feet (made for saltwater flats fishing) so they are perfect for working weed or hard-bottom flats or pitching at shore features in rivers. I honestly can’t believe that bass enthusiasts in the South where there are shad haven’t discovered this bait.

A similar but beefier bait from MirrOlure is an oldie but goodie, the legendary #52MR. It’s a 1/2-ounce bait that is just under 4 inches. It has no lip to give it any action. Cast it out, let it sink a few seconds, then twitch it. It will dart, stop and then slowly sink. While sinking, it wobbles side to side. That’s when bass, pike, and Lake Michigan browns can’t resist it.

If anyone remembers the short life of the Storm Flutterstick Madflash sinking pencil bait, ugh, that bait was magic. I caught some of the biggest browns of my life on that bait and was devastated when they discontinued it. The 52 MR replaces that bait!

One last lure I would like to mention is the DOA Lures Cal-Shad. They come in 3 and 4 inches and are a solid-performing paddle tail that is available in many colors that you don’t see offered to bass and walleye guys.

There are a few things I’d like to mention about saltwater lures in general. You may look at them and say, those hooks are too heavy; I’m changing those. Be careful, because the baits were designed to sink or suspend with the hooks that are on them. You could mess up the action. You can correct weight issues with lead golf club tape, but it’s best to just use the factory hooks. Also, some of the plastics they use for things like paddle tails are a little firmer than some of the tails we are used to using. I have noticed that they don’t work as well when the water gets below about 45 degrees.

One last thing about colors. A lot of the saltwater world is based around white or bright colors. That said, they always have a watermelon or root beer option which works well for our freshwater species. Also, if you see “pinfish,” that’s actually close to a bluegill or perch color. It’s a striped baitfish—”the bluegill of saltwater.”

Don’t limit your freshwater arsenal to just what you see in your local Midwest tackle shop. There is another universe of lures out there in the saltwater world. If you can’t hop on a flight to Tampa this winter, start doing some online shopping for at least some of the ones mentioned here. Those have proven themselves to me in both fresh- and saltwater.