April photo contest winners

This months regular photo contest winner is Matt Hom with a 3lb sand bass that was about 20", it was caught with a 5" manchovy pattern calikiller. Our halibut photo contest winner is Fabio Padilla with a 22" halibut caught while using a 3" ghost shrimp pattern swimgrub. Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone who submitted photos, and please remember to include a tape measurement in your photos with halibut, non taped halibut photos will not be entered in the contest. No measurement is required for all other fish.

Temporarily out of shad heads

We are all out of our 1/4 ounce shad heads but we should have some more available in a couple of weeks. As soon as they are available we will post a message letting you know. We apologize for the incovenience.

RANT....

Once again they have increased the price on plastisol, this makes three times in the last 5 months! I enjoy making baits that catch fish, and I love the fact that so many people have supported us right through the rising costs of materials and shipping. However at the rate things are going, that fine line of barely breaking even is rapidly approaching.

We have spent countless hours making our products for all of you to enjoy, as well as ourselves. Personally I love making baits and experimenting with new patterns, although sometimes can be a pretty good pain in the back and feet. Just when I start getting soar the emails stop, and I am relieved with a week without orders lol. Once I start wondering why I havent gotten any orders in a while they start showing up in my inbox. Its like you guys know when to say when or something haha.

Ok so back to the subject. Prices, yeah they went up... not just for plastisol but for shipping as well. Gas prices suck, but on my end I decided to have you guys come to me rather than me spend time and gas meeting somewhere. Better for me yes, for you, well maybe not so much. But if you want something you are going to go get it, sort of like going to the store for whatever.

So...where am I going with this rant? It takes a lot of money to make a lot of money. We started with practically nothing and still pretty much have practically nothing lol, but one thing we were able to do was get more colors, glitters, molds, make new patterns, and get a couple other products out there other than just swimgrubs. We were even able to do a little bit of advertising. Even with the continuing increase of materials and shipping, we will not increase the price of baits or shipping, I didnt want to do it back at the turn of the year but I had to. Once the "no more profit" margin has been reached we will simply no longer be operational. We spend too much time and energy to be doing it for nothing. Until that day comes we will keep riding the wave.

Complaint for me, information for you. Rant over....

Bait sale for the month of May :)

For the month of May, all baits will be sold at $1 less per pack.

3" Swimgrubs
$5 - dozen
$3 - half dozen

5" Calikillers and Slim Slugs
$8 - 8-pack
$4 - 4-pack

March winners!

The winners for both contests for March are repeaters, Eugene Estacio with a chunky 16" spotted bay bass caught on a custom padre pattern swimgrub, and Mike Pollard with an 18" halibut caught on the clear red flake swimgrub.

I get phone calls and text messages with people saying they caught this and caught that while using swimgrubs and that the lures are awesome, but they dont take pics... I guess we will keep seeing repeat winners until everyone else decides they want a shot at some free baits :P

Some news...

Payments

First of all, we will no longer be accepting checks for payment. Not because of anything really bad, but because twice now customers payments have gotten lost in the mail. They wonder why they havent received their baits and I am clueless since the payments were not received on our end. I am sure this might be just a fluke thing, but I have only had a handful of "mail" orders and all of a sudden this happens twice in the last two weeks.... So from now on, we will only except payments through paypal or cash in person only. For those of you who do not have a paypal account, I encourage you to get one. Paypal is safe and easy to use.

Fishing

If you fish from the shore chances are you are catching very few fish right now unless you count the mackeral that have been showing up near Shelter Island, Harbor Island, and near the Embarcadero pier. I did see a few guys fishing with live ghost shrimp catching tons of sargo up to 17". I also saw tons of baitfish being crashed into by bass and corvina, and they would not accept any artificials. I guess all these fish want the real thing right now.
Those that are fortunate enough to get out on the water by boat or kayak are finding bass in good numbers in Mission Bay and San Diego Bay.
Those of you who like surf fishing are most likely enjoying a decent bite on surf perch. Sand crabs are making their way higher up the surf line. Tons of micro sand crabs right now and the bigger ones are showing up at night during higher tides.

Photo Contests

Just reminding everyone that we are having two seperate photo contests from now until August, one for halibut only, and the other for all other fish. The grunion started showing up a couple weeks ago, not in huge numbers but they showed up. With the upcoming supermoon I am thinking there will be plenty grunion around and the halibut should be roaming in the shallow water in the surf, and of course there will be those few grunion that get lost in the bays making the bite good there too. We will be crossing our fingers :)
When you take pictures, please make sure the bait is visible. For the halibut contest, a tape measurement is required. For the regular contest, no measurement is required.

Updated Pie Chart

Top 4 baits are still:

Aquamarine, Black Widow, Razor Clam, and Ghost Shrimp. The black widow knocked the razor clam out of #2 back in february and is creeping clsely at knocking the aquamarine out of #1, but I believe with the spring bite nearing, the aquamarine and all the other daytime baits will pick up in numbers. Thanks to everyone for your reports, keep them coming so I can continue to update the chart!

T&C Meet-N-Greet update:

The next Meet-N-Greet will be on April 2nd at Harbor Island in the parking lot across from the Hilton Hotel from 9am-11am.
Whatever baits I have on hand that day will be sold at normal price, any baits pre-ordered and paid for will pay $1 less for each pack for all baits.
Come on and check us out, and maybe do a little fishing too :)

New pattern - Jacksmelt

This new pattern was very quick to become successful while being tested. It has already has a legal halibut, a spotfin croaker, and some nice bass under its belt. I am predicting this bait to be another halibut favorite :)

February winner!

The photo contest winner for the month of February belongs to Brian Johansen. He caught this 23" halibut in Dana Pt. using the aquamarine swimgrub! This picture doesnt have the bait included, but since he had one of those chest cameras strapped on and recording the battle, and the bait was visible in the video I honored the entry of this picture. There was also a taped shot but hard to see. Here is the link to the video if you would like to see it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvX506hJWGs&feature=youtube_gdata

The aquamarine pattern continues to be the bait that seems to grab the halibuts attention, out of 61 halibut I have caught last year, 44 of them were caught on that pattern. It will not surprise me if the next few halibut photos that come in will have that pattern in it.

I was going to have a seperate photo contest for halibut for this month only, but I have decided to make it last through the end of August. So starting now, there is a halibut photo contest as well as the normal photo contest(for any fish other than halibut). There have been signs of few stray grunion already and 2 weeks from now I am expecting a few halis caught. This should get interesting :) Good luck to everyone!