Too Many Commercial Plug Builders Now?

[Clogston29]

Selling them without hooks may result in a decrease in because less serious anglers, ones who would never think to change a hook never mind do it, would just not buy the plugs because they came without hooks. You’d be targeting a smaller group of serious fishermen. This would only be a good idea if you had to quality and reputation to support enough of them to sustain the business, like Beachmaster. Personally, I use Gibbs needles and pencil poppers quite often and just except having to change the hooks, much as I do with Super Strike plugs. To me, the main problem with Gibbs plugs over the last few years has simply been quality control – something that is difficult to control while keeping costs down in a labor intensive industry. Most of them are pretty good, you just have to look them over before buying one, difficult to do on-line. Shipping the work overseas would lower the cost of labor but is the industry large enough to offset shipping, insurance, etc. Just my opinion.

As far as being too many builders out there selling their stuff; I don’t think there are too many. The market will sort itself out. I don’t think there is room for many people to make a living off selling plugs commercially because the market is very regional and specific, but there is plenty of room for hobbyists, for lack of a better word, to make some extra money doing something that they enjoy doing anyway.