What Are The Best Fishing Lure Brands? (2023 List)

UPDATED 03 NOVEMBER 2023

If you’re a novice angler, chances are that you’re a little confused by all the fishing lures types and lure brands, since the lure market is huge, and getting bigger every year.

Not only are there thousands of different lure models to choose from, but on top of that there are also many dozens of fishing lure brands making each type of lure.

This can make it hard to choose the right lures for your purposes.

In this article we’ll cover the best fishing lure brands on the market, and will cover which lure types they’re specialized in, to help you decide which fishing lure company is best for your purposes.

20 best fishing lure brands in 2023

Below is a list of the 20 most popular fishing lure brands, which together account for the lion’s share of the market:

Rapala
Googan Baits
6th Sense Fishing
13 Fishing
Berkley Fishing
Strike King
Megabass
Big Bite Baits
SPRO
Northland Tackle
Panther Martin
Savage Gear
Lunkerhunt
Jenko Fishing
Bass Assassin
Livetarget Lures
Duckett Fishing
Acme Tackle
Z-Man Lures
Fishlab Tackle

Keep in mind that in addition to these top fishing lure companies, there are many dozens of other brands that also make fishing lures, but that only have a small share of the market.

Rapala

Originally based out of Finland, Rapala has grown to be one of the world’s leading fishing tackle companies since it was founded in 1936. Currently Rapala has the biggest market share worldwide when it comes to fishing lures.

The most popular Rapala lures include crankbaits, jerkbaits, and jigging swimbaits (such as the best selling Rapala Jigging Rap).

In addition to their own highly successful lure series, Rapala also owns Blue Fox Lures, Luhr Jensen, Storm Lures, and Terminator Lures, which makes Rapala the largest lure company in the world.

Googan Baits

Texas based Googan Baits is one of the biggest bass fishing lure companies in North America, and is best known for their deadly soft plastic baits (which are used by many anglers of the bass pro circuit).

In addition to their soft plastics, they also make a variety of crankbaits, swimbaits, and bass jigs.

6th Sense Fishing

6th Sense Fishing not only rivals Googan Baits in popularity, but is also headquartered in Texas.

The most popular lure types sold by 6th Sense are crankbaits and jerkbaits, but they also make a selection of soft plastics, topwater frogs, and bass jigs.

13 Fishing

While 13 Fishing is best known for its rods and reels, they also make fishing lures, of which the most popular ones are soft plastics, as well as crankbaits and jigging spoons. 13 Fishing is based out of Clearwater, Florida.

Berkley Fishing

Based out of Indiana, Berkley Fishing is one of the top North American fishing tackle companies that makes fishing rods, fishing line, and terminal tackle.

They are also famous for their wide variety of lures (which include all of the main types of fishing lures), as well as artificial baits (such as PowerBait) and fish attractants.

Strike King

Strike King is one of the most popular brands for bass fishing, and their lures include hard baits, soft baits, skirted jigs, and spinnerbaits.

Endorsed by Major League Fishing legends such as Kevn VanDam, Strike King is based out of South Carolina.

Megabass

As already suggested by their name, Philadelphia based Megabass is predominantly focused on making bass fishing gear, including both rods and lures. Their most popular lures include crankbaits, buzzbaits, frogs, and blade baits.

Big Bite Baits

Alabama based Big Bite Baits specializes in soft plastic lures and jig heads for crappie and bass fishing. In addition to jig heads, they also make a variety of other terminal tackle designed for tying finesse bass and crappie rigs.

SPRO

Headquartered in Georgia, SPRO designs their lures with the help of some of the best professional anglers in North America. They are best known for their swimbaits, topwater frogs, crankbaits, and bucktail jigs.

Northland Tackle

Best known for their ice fishing lures, Northland Tackle is based out of Minnesota, which explains their focus on ice fishing and walleye fishing.

Their most popular walleye ice fishing lures include jigging spoons and tungsten jigs, but in addition they also make a wide variety of bucktail jigs, crawler harnesses, crankbaits, and terminal tackle, all of which are ideally suited for walleye fishing.

Panther Martin

New York based Panther Martin is famous for their trout spinners, which have been some of the best inline spinners for trout fishing for decades, and continue to be highly effective. In addition to being great for any salmonid species, Panther Martin spinners also catch panfish, yellow perch, and bass.

Savage Gear

Based out of Denmark, Savage Gear makes a wide range of fishing rods, reels, and terminal tackle, but has become most well known for their highly realistic swimbaits, which include fish, duck, and rodent imitations.

In addition to these, Savage Gear also has a popular selection of glide baits, as well as more conventional lures, including spinners, spoons, and soft plastics.

Lunkerhunt

While Lunkerhunt produces a range of fishing tackle (including rod combos and terminal tackle), they are best known for their lures, including spider imitations, topwater frogs, and soft plastics. They are based out of Toronto.

Jenko Fishing

Headquartered in Kentucky, Jenko Fishing specializes in fishing tackle and lures for bass and crappie fishing. Their most popular lures include crankbaits, lipless crankbaits, jerkbaits, and soft plastic swimbaits.

Bass Assassin

Although their name suggests they are entirely focused on bass fishing, the fact is that Bass Assassin makes some of the best soft plastic lures not only for bass, but also for panfish and walleye.

Their soft plastics come in many different shapes and colors, including soft plastic shad imitations with paddle tails, curly tails, and straight tails.

Livetarget Lures

Canada based Livetarget Lures is 100% specialized in making highly realistic swimbait imitations of different fish species, including bluegill, trout, shiners and shad.

Their swimbaits are very popular among bass anglers since they are great for targeting trophy size fish.

Duckett Fishing

Duckett Fishing works together with bass fishing professionals to design a series of rods, reels and fishing lures ideal for bass fishing.

Their most popular lures include crankbaits, spinnerbaits, swimbaits and topwater lures.

Acme Tackle

Wisconsin based Acme Tackle are best known for their ice fishing lures, which include jigging spoons, tungsten ice jigs, blade baits, and jigging swimbaits.

The Kastmaster line of jigging spoons is Acme Tackle’s flagship product, and used by millions of ice anglers every year. In addition to ice jigs, they also have a large assortment of regular jig heads and soft plastic tails.

Z-Man Lures

Z-Man Lures is most well known for their proprietary soft plastic lures, which are widely used for finesse rig fishing for bass, walleye and crappie.

In addition to these, they also make a variety of skirted bass jigs, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, and soft plastic trailers.

Z-Man is based out of South Carolina.

Fishlab Tackle

Headquartered in Canada, Fishlab Tackle makes a wide range of freshwater, inshore saltwater, and offshore fishing lures. Their most popular lures include spoons, jigs, stick baits and blade baits.

Japanese fishing lure companies

Japanese fishing companies are world famous and especially sought after among bass anglers, not least due to the success of Gary Yamamoto in the bass pro circuit. Below is a list of the top 12 Japanese fishing lure brands:

Yamamoto Baits
Jackall
Duo Realis
Daiwa
Ichikawa
Keitech
Deps
Ima
Kahara
OSP
Gan Craft
Imakatsu

And while the list above is by no means exhaustive, it covers the biggest brands making Japanese fishing lures at this time.

What is the best fishing lure brand?

Overall, the best fishing lure brand is Rapala, based on the fact that they sell more than 20 million lures per year, which is more than any other fishing lure brand.

And keep in mind that Rapala also owns Luhr Jensen, Blue Fox Lures, and Storm Lures. In other words, if you were to look inside any angler’s tackle box, there’s a very high likelihood that you’ll come across a few Rapala lures, as well as some of their subsidiary brands.

With that being said, when it comes to specialized lure types, other fishing lure brands are often better than Rapala, and so which fishing lure brand is best depends on the type of fishing lure you’re interested in.

For example, Berkley Fishing, Googan Baits and Yamamoto Baits are widely considered to make the best soft plastic baits. And Live Target, SPRO, and Savage Gear make the best swimbaits. And it’s hard to discuss inline spinners without talking about the high quality Panther Martin spinners.

What is the oldest fishing lure company?

Founded in 1898 by James Heddon, Heddon Lures is the oldest fishing lure company still in operation. James Heddon was the first to create lures made of wood in the 1890s, and over the years Heddon Lures has made legendary topwater lures such as the Zara Spook and Lucky 13.

What is the biggest fishing lure company?

Rapala is the biggest fishing lure company in the world, making more than 21 million lures per year that are sold in 145 different countries around the world. Also, in addition to selling their own lures, Rapala owns Blue Fox Lures, Luhr Jensen, and Storm Lures.