Smack

Smack Tackle

Smack Tackle was formed through a friendship that started 12 years ago. Todd and I met when he started coming to my church. We found out that we both had a passion for fishing as well as for our faith. We both love all types of fishing. We love to fish for everything from creek chubs to striped bass and everything in between. The more we fished together, the more we realized that we had a lot in common. It became obvious that our passion for our faith and for fishing for all types of fish were not the only things we had in common. We found out lure making was another passion we both enjoyed.

I had started making lures when I was a teenager. My first attempts weren't very good, but I was hooked. The thought of making a lure that could catch fish was a powerful thought. Todd had undergone a similar experience. Some of our early fishing adventures were for cool water fish like saugeye and sauger, so our initial lure making get together was pouring jigs. The next step was to make our own jigging spoons. Todd came up with the idea to use rock hard wood putty to make our own jigging spoon molds. The spoons weren't of a high quality, but they caught fish. It reinforced in us the excitement of catching fish on homemade lures. We caught tons of fish of all kinds on those jigging spoons. The problem was the molds just wouldn't last long. The good thing was that it started the thought of making lures from a mold.

Our next try at lure making came as a result of our going to the Cincinnati Boat Show. There were many booths set up, but the ones that got our attention were the ones set up for people selling homemade lures. I looked at those homemade crank baits closely and decided that I could make my own. My first attempts weren't great, but that was just the start. I started making small crank baits for stream small mouths and slightly bigger ones for hybrid stripers. These lures caught a lot of fish and still do. Todd was working on bigger baits that would catch musky, stripers, and most of the bigger predator fish. This all took place over many years.

In that time frame, our fishing seemed to move toward bigger predatory fish. We targeted hybrid stripers first then moved on to stripers. One thing that became apparent was that these large predatory fish target gizzard shad. We would try to catch gizzard shad for bait, but there were times when they were just too hard to catch. We looked for lures that looked just like a gizzard shad. They had to look as close to the real thing as possible, because the fish we pursued were fish that lived in cool clear water and could be very picky. Problem was, there weren't any lures that looked like that in our opinion. This started the process of making the Gizz 4. We took an actual gizzard shad and made a mold from it. Because of Todd's knowledge gained while being a consultant for a major medical manufacturing company, he suggested we try and make our own molds and pour lures from plastic. At the same time, we were pursuing the use of new technology that Todd had learned about. After many trials and errors, we ended up with a product that is not only a lure that looks a lot like a gizzard shad, but is a gizzard shad in plastic form.

We have since caught many different kinds of fish on the Gizz 4. We have caught everything from rock bass to stripers on the Gizz 4. We hope you are as excited about the Gizz 4 as we are. This lure only marks the beginning of our journey. We hope if all goes well to use the same process and technology to bring other species of baitfish to life. Our hope is that you will be able to experience some of the awesome fishing that we have shared while using Smack Tackle!