Ed Chambers

Ed Chambers Sr.  (1940—2018) With a full-time job selling and repairing jukeboxes, pinball machines and other coin-operated devices, Ed Chambers Sr. had to make the hours he spent bass fishing as productive as possible. To do that, he needed soft-plastic worm styles that weren’t available in the late 1970s. To solve the problem, he did what any enterprising entrepreneur would do — he began molding his own fish catchers.

The baits worked so well that Chambers began selling them, and to meet the growing demand, he began mixing plastics in a 55-gallon drum and stirring them with a trolling motor. Out of those modest beginnings in a small barn on a farm in Watkinsville, Georgia, grew Zoom Bait Company, one of the most popular and successful lure companies in bass fishing history.

An inveterate tinkerer, Chambers created numerous new designs of soft plastic creations, including some that launched new bait categories: the Super Fluke soft jerkbait and Brush Hog creature bait, to name two. Other iconic styles include the Zoom Lizard, Trick Worm, Centipede, Horny Toad and many others.

Chambers is also credited with creating some of the most effective worm colors ever, including pumpkin, pumpkinseed and green pumpkin. With Chambers leading the way, the company has devised ways to overcome technological challenges such as mass-producing triple-laminate worm colors, which enabled them to be sold at affordable prices.

By the time of Chambers’ death in 2018 at age 78, the company had outgrown its horse barn origins and was employing more than 100 employees, working 20 hours a day in a 40,000 square-foot facility. Workers pour 400 distinct color patterns into countless shapes that are bagged and sold throughout the bass world.

Chambers was revered by some of bass fishing’s most successful anglers, including Gerald Swindle and Bass Fishing Hall of Famer David Fritts. Known as the king of crankbait fishing, Fritts was in awe of Chambers’ ability to build a better balsa diving bait, and the North Carolina pro used W.E.C. Custom Lures (named for William Edward Chambers) in several of his tournament victories. Zoom’s pro staff included some of the best-known and winningest angers in competitive fishing, and its lures are credited with winning millions of dollars in tournament prizes.

Known as one of the most selfless leaders in the fishing industry, Chambers is said to have helped other companies overcome manufacturing challenges. He reportedly helped Lew Childre get his lure company going, for one example. He never sought the limelight and at times resisted others’ efforts to honor him, according to friends and associates.

He even declined nomination for the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, according to one report. Chambers was inducted into the Hall posthumously in 2019 for his leadership and many contributions to the sport of bass fishing.