Quote:
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Originally Posted by BigFish
Please describe....all I am getting is a Providence Journal solicitation for my e-mail address and such and they ain't gettin' it!  |
Here it is BF:
The big-bass lures have big price tags
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, April 30, 2005
BY TOM MEADE
Journal Sports Writer
SEEKONK -- Eastern anglers are following the lead of their California counterparts, investing in expensive, handmade lures designed to entice trophy largemouth bass.
Bill Quatrucci, the owner of Bill's Bait & Tackle and a big-bass hunter himself, sells one California lure, the 3:16 Armageddon, for $250. Over the last year, he has sold more than 300 Generic Rat lures at $40 apiece and about 15 Generic Live Trout swimming baits at $100 a pop.
"These baits are designed to catch the next world record," Quatrucci says. "That's why people are buying them."
The 3:16 Armageddon is 10 inches long and weighs 6.9 ounces, requiring heavier than normal tackle to fish it effectively, Quatrucci says. For a little over $200, an angler can buy a rod, reel and line that will do the trick, but there are better and more expensive rigs also available to cast the new large lures.
"I, personally, have not thrown the Armageddon because of its price," Quatrucci says. "My girlfriend Helen would kill me if she saw it missing from the case."
The $250 lure has become a conversation piece in Bill's Bait & Tackle, Quatrucci says, but it's a hot item among collectors in Japan who pay $500 for the lure, and among big-bass hunters in Southern California. The bass there are much larger than they are in New England because of California's warmer weather.
Large bass eat other large animals. In lakes where trout are stocked, the stocking truck is like a chuck-wagon for lurking largemouths.
"Swim Armageddon slowly, dead-stick it, twitch it, walk it along the surface, or pull it underwater," lure-maker Mickey Ellis advises on his company's Web site. "It will swim nicely across the surface like a lazy trout, triggering violent strikes. However you fish the Armageddon, the bait will produce. The Armageddon is built for anyone with the guts to go after trophy and record bass."
(George Washington Perry caught the reigning record -- a 22-pound, 4-ounce lunker -- 72 years ago.)
The Armageddon's swimming action is built into its four segments, jointed with graphite hinges. A story about the lure and its California maker appears in the April issue of Field & Stream magazine. The piece should stimulate more interest and sales for the 3:16 Lure Company, Quatrucci says.
In the meantime, he is selling plenty of artificial baits made by another Californian, Jerry Rago, also featured in the April issue of Field & Stream.
Rago's Generic Rat bait has become a bestseller at Bill's despite a slow start. "I ordered 30 of them to start with, and they sat in the case for about a month," Quatrucci remembers. "Two or three people bought them, and then word-of-mouth took overA lot of people have caught the biggest bass of their lives on this bait. Word spread."
One angler who caught and released a trophy bass on the rat bait had a replica of the fish made and gave up the $40 lure so a taxidermist could incorporate the Generic Rat into the mount. The fish looks as though it's attacking the rat.
The 2-ounce lure has a jointed 5-inch body and a 4-inch tail, made from a soft-plastic worm. Terrestrial rats, muskrats, and other rodents are prey to big bass, but other fish ---- including yellow perch and crappie, have also hit the Generic Rat, Quatrucci says. Bass that are smaller than the lure have attacked it, too.
A former tournament fisherman who converted to the solitary pursuit of trophy bass, Quatrucci says he's been surprised by the number of New England bass anglers who have been buying the expensive lures. "There are a lot more people than I would have thought who are just after big fish, a lot of serious guys who don't fish tournaments," he says.
The next world-record bass almost certainly will come from waters warmer than New England's, but that won't stop eastern anglers from buying baits that may catch the biggest bass in the region, no matter how expensive the lures are.