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watching gibbs quality go steadily downhill over the last decade was a sad thing to see. IF i am to buy a current giibs lure on the wall, it is like buying a lure from one of the older custom wooden lures that used to be made - pick one up, look at it, inspect it for being true, centered, etc., and it's sad to say how many i would put one back while trying to find 2 or 3 to buy. when i do buy that new gibbs lure, the first thing i do is open the package, cut the wire and throw away the wire, hooks, and barrels. then, replace it with quality and hope the wood makes it a season. i see i am not alone in doing that and most have had worse luck w/ the lure not even making it thru a tide. again, sad.
now, i would still gladly fish a gibbs IF they changed several things. first, they need to go down one of 2 roads: 1.) keep the quality where it is now and reduce the price by at least 20-30%. or, 2.) leave the price where it is now and use better barrels, vmc hooks, seal all the plugs, dont cut corners when making darters, bottles, painting (crude at that these days), sanding, etc., (and please, thru wire that plug already!). as for the pricing comment, i have seen there prices steadily grow to try and keep up with other lure builders whose quality are always on top. gibbs has changed nothing, but increased their prices. sure, i can see a moderate price increase due to price incrase for oil, materials, etc., but not to the degree they are at now from where they were 10 years ago.
when gibbs decided to make the "pro series" needle, that was just a slap in the face. instead, why not make the "pro series" be one of their current plug designs, but w/ all the improvements already mentioned by me and others? gibbs took a 2oz habs needle and cloned it as best they could, which is still far from the quality of a real habs.
the current owners of gibbs are running off the history of the company to sell their plugs and not caring too much about their future. if they keep up business as they currently are, gibbs will only sell themselves out of the market.
capesams - i would have liked to have seen someone w/ your abilities take gibbs when the opportunity arose. i've seen your 40s and other lures. i'm sure you'd make their current danny lure something worth throwing again.
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