Club Tropicana

[Bucho]

I keep getting requests from customers who got aquainted with hairjigs in central america so I spend some quality time on the matter.

It started with Tarpon Jigs, the guy was very specific about decent hooks.





The peacock jigs start selling well so I finally moded a 3/4oz mold for 6/0 Mustad Steelhead hooks that will hopefully get a better grip around the their thick boney lip.  




With the blue crab I am still not sure. The pattern is rather time consuming. This is a tip-up with mono weed guard. Errecting the guard is easy against the plain edge of the lead head.   





I freely admit I stole this shrimp pattern from Buggs Fishing where I ordered some samples. They where very really thoughtful, threw in free glass cleaning tissues and wished me a nice vacation. Made me feel shabby.  :blush:  




They say those goofy swim jigs look awkward but catch pompano. I know my fellow Germans, they will not put anything on the end of their line that doesn`t look like somebody gave a good thought about it. The paint is a two-coat base,  pearl with a 2.nd layer of clear, white UV and blue luxan, tapped with some copper luxan. Hope the UV pigment will make it visible enough in the surf without those goofy fluo colors.  




Speaking of mole crab, I have never seen one in the flesh but from what I heard an usd wobble head should make a good imitation.

 

[slammingjack]

That is some great looking baits!

 

[midnight]

Very, Very nice ties! They do look time consuming but look worth the effort!

 

[JUNGLEJIM1]

Those are works of art, really like the crabs although I'm probably 1000 miles from where a crab resides. I modified my tip up so the 1/4 oz takes a 4/0 hook. Missed too many fish with 2/0 last year. Trying to get prepared for when the ice comes off the lakes.

 

[Bucho]

Thanks! When I say time consuming, I have local cod in mind. I would like to standardize the pattern in a more universal way so I only vary the colors. 2/0 is fine with our local perch and cod. No idea what will happen to that customer but he is warned I have no experience on the bonefish/permit side of things.

Would love to learn of a source for those flat nosed triangle shaped crab jig heads. I am thinking about moding a wobble jig mold to a 60° hook.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Nice to have customers who can afford your time consuming artistry. I really like your flash overties for baitfish patterns.

The few bonefish I caught on mostly soft lures weren't particular - an 8# took a 7" Culprit red shad color worm. Weighted jigs are limited to clean sand bottoms, more typical weedy habitat might be a reason why flies are preferred.

Mole crab aka sand flea aka sand turtle in HI looked like a beetle with whitish mottled light brown color. Females had an orange egg underbelly. A 1/8 or 1/4 Cabelas Wobble Jig head only would be a close visual replica and simulate live action appearance. I too considered adapting a WJ to a 60* hook but stock smaller size hooks have too short of an eye leg. Since you're in Europe and not a direct competitor, MAYBE you can entice Buggs to share his mold maker.

 

[Bucho]

HJ you would be surprised how affordable my artistry is

Spending 1-2 work days on 20 halfway good looking jigs that sell for 100 bucks isn`t much of a promising business model of course. But look at it this way:

- The guy will be travelling in a group of wealthy, passionate anglers. We are speaking intercontinental travel here, not weekend warriors. None of them will have seen hairjigs before. All of them have some highly pressured lake or stream at home where the fish also have never seen a hairjig. Ever.
-He seems to bee outgoing; chances are, he will post a travel report online.
- the Facebook post will reach 2000-4000 viewers organically, that means FREE of charge and at least somewhat afiliated to lure fishing. I can promote my jigs in half a dozen FB groups free just because I`m a little local venture that always has some intresting stuff to show off. 
- A good pattern needs to be so simple that I can teach it to a hung over student in 20min. Thats not a figure of speech. I have my staple patterns tied by nice girls at home and focus on head pouring, sales and r&d. Its my job to come up with such a pattern, not to tie it. Or, as a friend from school would say "A true entrepreneur will work on the venture, not at it."
-Germany, or German-speaking Europe to be more exact, is a small market and every single branch is hanging by a thread. We just had the cod stock collapse. There is a total ban on harvesting sea bass as of this year. Norway has introduced a 20lbs limit on filet to take home, which deeply changed angling tourism (to the better).

You just can`t afford to be "that saltwater guy" or "That seatrout expert" or "That casting spoon Business" or whatever.

Thanks for the insights on that mole crab! I hope the swim jigs will work. They look nice in the tank, I will personly field them in the warm ocean waters of Fuerteventura next week 

 

[Jig Man]

Awesome baits...

 

[Hawnjigs]

Had to Google your destination, looks good. Surf perch from the beach with a chance of larger predators amberjack & others. Opportunities off the rocks for pelagic species. Most YouTube vids show predator anglers throwing lipped cranks, but your jigs should be fine. One vid showed what looks like a sea trout catch similar to your browns.

You probably already know that mole crab predators wait in the drop off trough at the edge of the beach wave wash. BTW those sea beetles don't have protruding eyes like other crustaceans. Mole crabs in HI were nocturnal feeders, we used to net them daytime by hanging a string tied bait like a squid in the wave wash which would lure them out of their sand burrows.

Was wondering how you managed to squeeze in tying time, didn't realize you hired helpers.

 

[Bucho]

Was wondering how you managed to squeeze in tying time, didn't realize you hired helpers.

Yep. and I still wonder if this business model will work out. With no mouths to feed and some savings on the side, I can sustain myself for a while and carry on with the shop pulling its own weight. Then again, now after 4 years, I will eventually have to bite the bullit and invest some money into serious promo. Visualisation, professional fairs. etc.

I visited friends in Finland this summer. One of them mentioned the hydraulic press channel. In a nutshell, thats a guy making a living  crushing stuff on camera. So even if in the long run sales and labour proves to be too expensive for marketing jigs, I can imagine ways to market the know-how. I already give "tupperware - party- format" workshops street fishing the harbour etc., transporting knowledge that is off the beaten track, with good results.

 

[Hawnjigs]

JiggerJohn has known a VERY FEW jig innovators that made a good living off their craft skills thru mass production and marketing. Being content to remain a one man show self sustaining is perhaps a best realistic goal. I consider my niche as a tackle crafter an opportunity to "field test", continually improve, and share what I make with my own 2 hands. $ was never a primary goal and hope it never will be.

But, best of luck expanding. You appear to have the skills, forward vision, and motivation. As your level of success increases tho, so will copycats. Like the "River Monsters" guy.

 

[Bucho]

Depends on what you consider "mass" production. My parents had a butcher shop and party service. I learned at young age how to make ends meet in a high labour cost environment. My father used to say that making 50lbs of liver sausage or 100lbs doesn`t make much more work - weighing ingredients, cleaning machinery etc - but making 2 different sorts of them is twice the effort. With jig crafting, it isn`t. Making -and market!- a 2.000lbs sausage lot however is a whole different ballgame. Many little lure manufacturers - the ones with 1 design/idea only - went down that road and entered a playing field that simply isn`t level but favors economies of scale, both in production and distribution. None of them did well. Its either a butcher calculation (1 labour + 1 material) *2 or an industrial one (total manufacturing *8), no inbetweens.

My strategical weakness is that I haven`t got 7/8th of the end price for marketing generic mass produced lures, so I have to make the most out of every customer who comes across my "artistry" and make him a regular, trying to cover all other styles of fishing he does with unique lures that the hard pressured fish haven`t seen yet. I am aiming at 2-3 thousand customers, a managable size I am familiar with from the insurance bureaus I worked at. Shop counts 1100yet, though only 1/3 returning but that often takes time.     

I am not afraid of copycats. There is no patent on the thuringian sausage repepies that drew customers from the other end of town to my paren`ts shop, passing a dozen competitors. One of my earliest childhood memories is two construction workers talking during lunch break "you buy in there?!? They`re b...dy expensive!"  - "Yeah, but good!"  

I made one exception from my no-dealer- strategie once and sold usd wobble flounder jig heads to a shop in another town. They start to become famous here and he wanted them real badly although I couldn`t offer more than 20% natural discount. When I visited him without notice a bit later, I found my jigs which I sell at 4,90€/3pcs hanging there at 2,50 each and another similar product being offered at a more familiar 4,90/3pack. They were from another local guy who makes them on larger hooks for plastics, poorly painted with a spray can all over hooktips etc. When I first started out with the pattern I considered doing the same rather than mod my own mold, but field testing showed a magical limit between 1/0 and 2/0 that allows the fish to steal every single worm without getting hooked. A lugworm is a hard to come by, delicate being that costs around 20ct a piece....

The guy didn`t even bother to google-check the German word for flatfish for english double-meanings before introducing his "Butt-Lollies"

 

[Hawnjigs]

The problem with catering to the needs of so many customers is getting spread too thin - having to inventory different molds, hooks, & other supplies as well as finished product.  With my dozen year old website gliched into obsolescence with no fixes possible, my new one when I get around to it will be limited to maybe half the listings of the original.

Over the years a few competitors in my niche have come and gone, unable to sustain quality and pricing of my product.  Noticed by their prices a recent entry is reselling overseas mfg.  Hopefully not, but a company willing to invest more capital than you could get your designs copied by a China mfg.

Probably not an immediate problem, but there appears to be some concern about recent Tenerife volcanic activity.

 

[Bucho]

Got a nice feedback today from a customer. The rubber leg football head shrimp got him 127 bonefish, 2 tarpon, 2 snook, 6 permit and various other. Not very large specimen but he was quite happy to say the least.  

Hawn, I am not concerned about China at all. My designs don`t fit industrial marketing strategies and I have far too many to rely on a single one. Look at the bucktails at alibaba - in jig tying, there will always be demand for decent craftsmanship. That being said, I stay away from any established product I find there s.a. plain bucktails.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Dang Bucho, your customer sure had a good time ! That's more bones than I've caught in a lifetime, tho mine were bigger haha.

Congrats on a successful tie pattern, hopefully you'll get to test it someday.