On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 07:27:54 -0400, Ronnie Garrison
wrote:

I picked up a news article about their plant burning in Henderson, Tenn.
They made soft plastic baits. Anybody know anything about this company?

Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

More like "knew"...rather than "know" as my memory isn't quite
what it used to be...especially when it comes to stuff like this. I
do remember Harville was one of the largest manufacturers of plastic
worms back in the 80's and had a ton of lines of plastic worms. They
made every kind of plastic worm/jig that you could think of and had a
lot of stuff that was unique (or at least so I thought). The
president (possibly owner) of the company was Hugh Harville and he had
a huge following down in your area (Tennesse/Alabama/Georgia). It
seems to me that Harville made plastics for other companies and it's
possible that they made plastics for us at one time. I know we dealt
with them and bought a lot of plastics from them...but I can't
remember offhand if they were one of the companies that we had make
plastic worms for us. (when you have manufacturers make plastics for
you...you can get unique colors and sometimes unique designs, etc.).
I do know that they were one of the big boys at the time (almost
everybody got their plastic worms from 1 of 3 big plastic
manufacturers back then). I do know that most of em' have went out of
business and among these businesses there was a lot of buying and
selling going on of company assets...so it got real confusing as to
who was carrying what...when it came to soft plastics. (ie. I can't
remember if it was Hawg Hunter Lures that bought some of their assets
and then sold their stuff to Erie Dearie, it's possible that Luck E
Strike was one of the companies that bought their plastics out
too...bc their product line is very similar to what Harville used to
carry). Regardless, I know Harville has been out of business for
quite a few years (bankrupt, I believe) and we haven't been able to
buy from them and they aren't making soft plastics anymore.

I do remember Harville Lures was pretty innovative when it came
to making lures and was pretty reliable for a long while...which was
one of the reasons we dealt with them. They produced a copycat of the
Gene Larew salt craw...which was real popular back in the 80's and
probably still is in some parts...especially among river rats. They
may have even made the salt craw for Larew...or had a huge hand in the
process...as Harville was making worms for a ton of companies back
then.

The best resources would be Hugh Harville himself...who I know
was alive back in the late 90s...or one of the companies that they
dealt with. Possible one of the trade magazines like The Fishing
Retailer (BASS publication)...might have some information on them too.

Which reminds me...anyone know who the major manufacturers of
plastics worms are nowadays? I don't believe there are many left...

--
Dwayne E. Cooper, Atty at Law
Indianapolis, IN
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