Some exciting news finally!!!!!

After 5 long years of wondering when I'd ever get another opportunity to re-open my bait business, it appears that time has come.  I am moving into a place with a garage, and plenty of room for my stuff, and that means the swimgrubs will be coming back to life very soon.  I start moving in the first week of June, and once we are all settled in I will start pouring again.  I will work on a new website, probably something similar to this one, and once the light turns on, I will inform everyone on here, SD Fish, and SCSurffishing.  I won't do any social media, at least not anytime soon.  The new company name will be "Tay-lures".  The swimgrubs will look the same, only with. "T" on the tail instead of the old T&C Lures text.

As soon as I have some more solid information, I will post it.  For now, hopefully this message can still reach some of my old faithful customers.  I hope the smile on your face is as big as mine, and I look forward to reconnecting with all of you.

Kevin Taylor

Almost a year since last post, still no change...

Like the title says, almost a year ago since my last post, and still no progress. Let me tell you, buying terminal tackle has been killing me lol. I really appreciate those of you who check in every now and then just to see how things are going. Even though it kills me to not have any better news for you, it makes me happy knowing I still have some supporters out there. Lots of you have been following my posts on SD Fish, and have been sending me tons of messages there as well. Thank you. Its been quite a while since I have even poured a bait or a jighead, and I am running out of all my old Big Hammers haha. I need to at least fins one weekend I could just go pour crazy so I have some more. Trust me, you guys arent the only ones who miss the swimgrubs, or the jigheads. I go through Hammers left and right, no where's near the durability of my stuff. But it is what it is. I still use the same email address if anyone wants to drop me a line. tclures@hotmail.com. I have been meeting several new people from SD Fish lately, mainly for bassin. This year was a crazy good year for it, matter of fact it was good enough to keep me away from bean stalkin at the beaches haha. I will be having a little minus tide bass fishing get together if anyone is interested. That will be during the next full moon in a couple of weeks. Email me, or find me on SD Fish, my screen name is DJ Thrillz.

Still no news...

So it's approaching the end of the year with still no good news to report as far as the new business goes. Nothing has really changed, if anything, it's become a tad bit harder to accomplish anything since life keeps throwing me curve balls. I'll keep swinging though... I appreciate everyones emails, and support. And I really appreciate the fact that I have gotten to meet a lot of you for some fishing! Please enjoy your holiday season, be safe out there!

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to give you guys an update as to where I stand with bait making, and also include a fishing report/summary for the 2013 year(so far). 

Unfortunately, not too much progress on the new company yet.  Still not sure when I will be able to get this going.  On a personal level, too much going on right now for me to even be focused on pouring plastics, but it is something I will continue to do once I have the appropriate work area to make everything.  You will not see me make a post that I will no longer be doing this at all, so whatever rumors people may be spreading, pay no attention to them ;)  As always, you can contact me with any questions you may have or if you just wanna talk about fishing.  My email address is tclures@hotmail.com if you want to get a more detailed explanation of where I stand with everything. 

On my down time, I have been able to fish more often, mostly sessions of an hour or less but hey its still being out there.  Since the turn of the year, all of my best sessions have been at minus tides.  Sadly the last new moon we had was probably the last real good chance at having a stellar session from the shoreline the way I do, and I was only able to get out one day.  Since the turn of the year I have caught 191 spotties, and after being bored and curious, I figured I would break them down by size.  Here is what it looks like:
49- 10" and under
65- 11"
42- 12"
14- 13"
12- 14"
4- 15"
3- 16"
3- 17"

Average size by math, 11.6", well below the 12.8" from last winter, and there were more fish caught last year too. 

38 spotties caught in the morning(before 9am), 112 caught in the late afternoon/early evening minus tides(1pm-5pm), 41 caught at night time(after 7pm).  Every single fish caught on plastics.
This winter season has been the slowest one for bassin in at least 4 years.  I really expected it to be crazy, I was well prepared for it, but wasnt prepared for the disappointment lol.  Those who are able to get a little further out there on boats or yaks should have way better numbers than mine, close to shore fishing from foot or tube was really hit and miss.  A couple weeks ago the moss bloom has taken over the shoreline in Mission Bay, making a pain to deal with.  I hate trying to get the junk off my bait after I reel it in, and I cant stand the smell when the low tide exposes it.... 
So, not only have I began my vina hunting(classified- sorry), but I already made an early transition to surf fishing.  North County beaches are getting really nice numbers and sizes on spawning perch.  If gas wasnt an issue I would be all over it, but I am stuck to my home grounds in Mission Beach where the micros are willing to play.  Honestly, its a breath of fresh air compared to Mission Bay right now, pun intended. 
For those of you who like soaking baits for big fish, there have been some rather huge bat rays being caught lately.  I will also be dusting off the cobwebs on the Teremar to take part in that action soon. 

I want to thank those of you who have kept in touch regardless of my situation, I appreciate you all checking in on me.  Anyone interested in surf fishing, send me a message.  I will be out early on weekends. 

Hopefully I will have some good news about the new company soon...  Keep the lines tight!

T&C Lures no longer available

Well it looks like time is up for T&C Lures.  I want to thank everyone again for all of their support.  Its pretty satisfying seeing and hearing about people catching fish on plastics that I made.  In the near future, It will happen again with several of my other upcoming products.  I just hope that its sooner than way later.  Although the bait making hault altogether wasnt expected, the time off will be welcomed.  There is a lot going on in my life right now and putting lure making on the back burner will really help with the rush rush effect. 
The new company will definitely start sometime in 2013, but I do not have an exact date yet.  The best way to find out the latest news is by emailing me at tclures@hotmail.com.  I will continue to update here as progress is made.  Once I have a website up I will put up a notice here for a week or two, and then this blog will be taken offline.  If you try to reach me through facebook, it will probably take you a while as I do not go on there very much,  as I mentioned before I dont like social networking.  You can also look me up in the local fishing forums, Im pretty easy to find. 

Thanks again everyone!

Final T&C photo contest winner

Arnold E. caught this nice spotted bay bass while using the 3" razor clam pattern swimgrub and wins the October contest. 

Thank you for all of the pictures you have sent in.  As soon as I start the other company there will be more photo contests.  The last day for making last minute orders is tomorrow, November 6th. 

Please be sure to check back here for any updates regarding the new company.   Once again, thank you for all of your support! 

Thank you!

I just wanted to thank everyone who showed up for the BBC3 contest, and also give another thanks to those who donated in anyway from near and far away.

I am not sure why the turnout was so small, but we still had a decent raffle anyhow :)

Congratulations to Joel(aka fishing4hali) for winning that beautiful custom spinning rod that Len wrapped and donated.  Also congratulations to Greg K(aka frombigisland) for winning the $100 gift certificate to Pt. Loma Sportfishing that was donated by Ron Huber.

An unexpected change of plans.....

I was just informed that my mother is losing her place, and will more than likely not be living where she is at past the 15th of November.  How does this effect me?  My moms place is where I make everything at.  Baits, jigheads, and molds....  I am not able to make anything at my current place for certain reasons that I will not really go into, its just way easier and more convenient for me to do everything at her place.  This puts me in a tough position to move forward with anything to do with bait making.  As of right now I have to deal with finding a new place to continue doing what I do.  I am not really sure how long it will take.

Since I have been trying to fade out of T&C and bring in the new company, I will not reopen under T&C Lures, it will be under the new company name.  Before today, the soonest I seen that happening was maybe the turn of the new year.  But that was with my previous complications of bait designing, schedule, and life happenings.  Not having a place to make anything is just going to push it out further, unless I can find somewhere else to make everything soon.  

Even though I expected to shut down T&C, I surely didnt expect it to go down like this.  I expected to shut it down one day, and reopen a new the next.  Not close it one day and reopen months later....  This is not something I am very happy about, but at the same time, a little downtime will give me some time to get things in order on a personal level.  So many things are happening in my life aside from the bait world that makes temporarily haulting the bait business not seem that big of a deal.  I hope to find solutions to all the issues that have presented themselves to me in the recent weeks, especially this new one.

I will be keeping T&C Lures operational until November 6th.  If you plan on making any orders, please keep in mind it may take me a couple extra days to complete orders as several people have expressed wanting to make a final order of T&C products before the shut down.  I would need to have all orders completed by November 9th since I will be spending a lot of time moving stuff after that.  If the orders get out of hand to the point where I know I wont be able to complete them and still have time to help my mom move out, I will notify you via email, and refund your payment.  Please know that its definitely a likely scenario.  As always, I will make the orders in the order received/paid for.

I am sorry to put such an abrupt stop to things, believe me I am still shocked over it.  I will not take the blog offline since this is where I will be updating any forward progress that I make as far as starting the new company goes.

I am not a big social media kind of person, I have always hated facebook lol, so you will not find any updates there.  For those that do not know, I can be found on some of the fishing forums that a lot of people frequent.
www.sdfish.com  (username- dj thrillz)
www.scsurffishing (username- staylor)
www.oceanicangler.com (username- T&C Lures)

There are other forums some of you have bumped into me on, but the three mentioned ones are the main ones I post on.
You can still send me emails on tclures@hotmail.com.  Even after I start the new company I will still keep this email address(I will have a new one of course too).
Those of you who know my cell number, dont be afraid to use it.  Those who want to aquire it, just send me an email, its attached to my signature ;)

I cant wait to start the new company, I hope its sooner rather than later.  Hopefully all of you will check in and stay updated on whats going on.  Hopefully you all become fans of the new company also.  Remember, the swimgrub will still be available once its underway.

And YES, we are still on for BBC3!!!  I hope to see a lot of you out there :)

I want to thank all of you for supporting T&C Lures.

Kevin Taylor

Update: T&C Lures, and a side view sneek peek :)

So it looks like T&C Lures will remain operational until at least the end of the year.  A couple of things have kept me from moving forward, both on the personal side, and the bait side. 

This week, I am testing my larger swimbaits.  They are very wide....  I like them, but they will require so much plastic for each one it may not be worth it to sell them unless I put a high price on them, and I dont really want to do that....  But we will see how they do.  I did a quick pour of each size for your viewing pleasure ;)

                                 
Not the greatest looking pours, or the greatest looking photo, but you have a better idea of how they look now.  I call them "Tubbo's" and the sizes in the photo are 5", 4", and 3". 

I have 3 prototypes finished but not molded.  After the molds are made, baits are poured and tested.  If they are satisfactory(to me) then I will post some pics.  If they are not, then its modification time all over again. 

Report/News: A great week of spotty fishing :)

Report:
I think I fished more in the last week and a half than the last month and a half combined.  Let me tell you, it sure felt good to find some consistency out there.  Summertime fishing for me isnt normally that great anyhow, but this year was the worst out of all the years that I have been logging my outings.  With limited time for fishing, I am limited to fishing only a few areas to take advantage of the time that I do have.  On 9-28-12, I took my nephew out and we got into some bass in SD Bay.  I caught 14 spotties and he caught 10 spotties.  Last Sunday(9-30-12) I was able to get on the tube for a couple hours.  I fished in SD Bay and caught 21 spotties and a corvina.  The next day I was out for about 30 minutes and found 3 decent bass in MB.  Tuesdays sesh was short but sweet, about 20 minutes in MB for 1 bass.  Wednesday I was able to leave work early and hit one of my favorite stretches of MB for 4 nice spotties in about 2 hours.  Thursday I was back in SD Bay for about 25 minutes for 5 spotties and a lizardfish.  Let me just say that I am so excited to not have a ton of lizardfish attacking my baits anymore, its like as if they have disappeared all of a sudden....  Friday I hit the tube for a couple hours in SD Bay but only caught 9 micro bass.  Yesterday, I went back to SD Bay for some more action and finished with 15 spotties and a corvina.  I woke up a tad late this morning and rushed out the door and hit the same grounds where the action has been almost nonstop, and again it did not fail me.  Finished with 31 spotties in about 2.5 hours.  From June-mid September I have barely logged about 20 spotties(mostly due to all the surf fishing I was doing this year) but when I did fish for bass it was really slow.  Since 9-28-12 I have caught 103 spotties, 2 corvina, and a lizardfish.  A nice change of pace for sure.  Most the fish were caught in SD bay, but a lot of them were sub-legal.  Every fish I caught in MB was legalish or better.  Anything with orange in it was getting bit for the most part.  In SD Bay, I used a modified xmas oil pattern(put an orange belly in it) and it slayed....  I used 3 styles of baits: swimgrubs, curly shrimp pours, and my new swimbaits. 
Bonito....  I have only seen a few bonito in SD Bay following my bait, never hooked up to any.  Havent heard of any reports of them inside the bays, but I know they have been roaming around Ocean Beach Pier, Imperial Beach Pier, and at the end of the jetty (Dog Beach side) near the channel entrance.  The ones at OB have been small, about 12"-14".  In IB, there were reports of them being a lot bigger. Guess its a slow year for them too.
Bigger migratory sand bass should start to move into SD Bay pretty soon.  Xing fingers ;)

News:
Good news.....  Looks like once I start the other bait business I will still be selling the swimgrubs.  Wasnt sure if I was going to redesign it, keep it the same, or even sell it at all but as of right now it will still be available :)  A slight change was made, instead of a 5" calikiller, there will be a 4" swimgrub.  The 3" swimgrub was scaled up to 4", so the body of the 4" is actually a little wider than the body of the 5" calikiller.  I used it already and it works just fine, I actually like it better then the 5" version.  There will not be a 5" swimgrub available under the new company name.
Most of you know I have a 3" swimbait already completed and tested.  Some of you got to see some teaser photos on the T&C facebook page.  I also scaled this particular bait up to 4", and 5".  I am finding that a full scale is not the proper way to make the baits bigger, but whats done is done.  I have not tested the larger sized swimbaits yet, and am not sure if they will be available, but the 3" swimbaits will be. 
I am in the process of creating a simple worm for fishing weedbeds, and I am also working on yet another swimbait design.  I put the craw design on the shelf for now until the other projects are completed.  But you can expect to see one in the future, the craw bait will be mainly for pitching near docks and rocks. 

BBC3:  Dont forget to sign up for our Bassin for Breast Cancer III contest, the information on this is a few posts down :)