Two Nuddies From Moz.

Hi there,

I was lucky enough to received just before Christmas, a present from Moz: two of his own handmade  fishing lures. He even asked me if I would prefer them as nuddies or painted.
I said nuddies.
(Nuddy or Nuddies, are the lures left without paint, on which we can appreciate the colours of the wood that the lure is made of)

In this post you are going to read about:

• Two timber fishing lures.
• Both nuddy. 
• One I will use to fish, the other will stay dry in the collection.

Yes Moz is the maker of the now well regarded Stick With Eyes, a timber lure that has earned its strips on the Darwin Harbour mud flats. With a great amount of Barramundi already caught by this little lure.

Why a name like the Stick With Eye? Well maybe because that is what it simply look like.

Look for yourself:

The Stick With Eyes.

I am sure that now you understand why...

At first glance it does look like a stick with eyes. 

But if you look at it closely, you start to see that it is shaped for swimming.

Hydrodynamic of the Stick with Eyes.

I can tell you that this very lure will be swimming, and hopefully bring me back a Barramundi.

This is what dream are made of...

And yes, it is signed under the chin, like a hipster tattoo:

Signed under the chin.

That to me is a fishing lure, who own its beauty in great part to it simplicity.

The rightly named Stick With Eyes.

At 9 cm long (3.5433071 inch), it is small, but has already proved it efficiency, it is power in a small package at its finest.

Now the second lure, called the Fall Out, is a lure that I have never fished, but this one will stay dry and safe, in my little collection.

It has already proved itself a good fish catcher too. After all, Moz caught a Barramundi that was over the metre mark on it in 2014. What other proof does one need?

And it is a rather beautiful one too:

The Fall Out.

Yes this one is a nuddy too. The more it goes the more I start to love my fishing lures to be "Au Naturel". I am yet to decide if they have the same fishing capacity as the painted ones, but on pure look, they have won my heart.

The Fall Out is a fishing lure of small size too: only 8 cm (3.1496063 inch).

Like the Stick with Eyes, it is rigged with double hooks instead of the more traditional trebles found on many hard body lures.

In fact I have myself equipped some of my Reidy's B52s with this type of hooks.

I then use them mostly when fishing land based, in very rocky places. This help to avoid getting snagged on the first rock or oysters that your lure bump into.

But I have to say that I didn't invent the system myself, no, in fact I had seen a post about it on the great blog: Secret Barramundi, written by Hiro, a legend of land based Barramundi fishing in Darwin.

Portait of the Fall Out.

When it is looking at you, you know that he means business.

From a profile point of view, the double hook, actually look like the fins.

Side view of the Fall Out.

This look like a small lure that would have a great action, destined to go snags bashing and extract fishes from the most unholy places.

The bib is made of aluminium.

Here is one last image, for the road as they say...

Dreaming of catching big fishes.

Both were made by hand, in Darwin, Australia.

We are pretty lucky in Darwin as it seems to be a revival of the cottage lure industry. It is very nice to see so many people making artisanal timber fishing lures; so close to home.

This is two lures that I really like and am very happy to now have in my possession.

Thank you Moz, that was a great Christmas present.

Now, it might be a few months before I will be able to show you a fish caught on the Stick with Eyes, so please be patient, and indulgent.

But hey, it cold be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

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A Lure With No Name

Hi there,

Today I am going to tell you the tale , not of a horse with no name, but of a lure with no name...

A few months ago, I was gifted a beautiful timber lure.

One that I believed to be a Killalure, yet something was not right. I had never seen one looking like this. The eyes, the tow point and the hooks hangers were right, but something about the shape was unusual…

Was it just a copy, or a very rare one?

It looks like a baby Barramundi.

I asked here and there if anyone had already seen a similar lure. But to no avail, the mystery grew deeper and deeper.

With a lot of people giving their opinion. Some of the answer I received, were closer to science fiction than reality.

Then one evening trolling an online lure forum, I struck gold!

I found someone who obviously had a very good knowledge of the Killalure brand (And you are soon to know why). 

I sent him a message, he replied and the enigma was no more.

The lure is indeed a Killalure, from the mid 80’s. It is in fact a 4” Killalure cut down. While making them, the good people at Killaure had a problem with a run of blank that had been over sanded. So the man making them, cut the tail off, and put on them some aluminum bib that he had laying around.

About one hundred of them were made. The run was so short; that the lure didn’t even received a name!

The Killalure with no name.

The lures were painted with Dulux Base Coat.

The colour is originally a Nils Master one, but in the Killalure range this is the colour number 70. The hooks might be 777 #2 Eagle Claws. 

A few different bibs were used for this lure model; on this one it was the 3” Barra Bait bib.

The 3" Barrra Bait bib

Who is the man who generously gave me all this information?

It is no one else than the man behind the Killalure saga: the legendary Dave Killalea.

Thanks to the Dave who gave me this lure, and thanks to the Dave who give me the information about this lure.

Two different Dave, but two top bloke.

So with about only one hundred of them ever made, I doubt that I will ever have a full colour set of this very lure...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

Another Wedding Lure.

Hi there,

This is only the second wedding fishing lure to come into my possession, and it is once again a very special one to have.
This one being a Reidy's B52, a local production, makes it even more special.

So who are the lucky couple?
Colleen and Nathan, they married in 2012, and I have had this lure for nearly a year in my collection, but life and other things got in the way of it and this very blog, sorry about that.

One morning last year Nathan gave me a lift to a fishing competition and in the car, told me that he had a present for me.
And what a present it was, a very limited edition fishing lure, that he had asked Reidy's to produce for his wedding to his sweetheart Colleen.
And here it is:

The Wedding Lure.

Yes, it is still in the box.

But lucky you, for the purpose of this blog post, I have taken it out of the box. Where it went straight back once the photo session was done.

This lure is marked on three sides, and you are going to see them all.

The happy couple names.

The importante date on the back.

And on the last side, a motto that should be followed by many people:

What it is all about.

I sometimes think that it would be nice to show them a photo of a nice sized Barramundi hooked to their wedding lure. And make no mistake the B52 is a very good Barramundi lure, one of my favourite in fact. As my first ever Barramundi on lure was caught using a B52, on the South Alligator River about seven years ago.

But there is no way in the world that this is going to happen. This lure is back in its box, and not getting out of it, not even for a courtesy swim.

Thank you Nathan, and Colleen to have given me this lure from your special day, this is much appreciated.

Yes there are other wedding lures out there, and I really would love to have in my small fishing lure collection, a section specialised in wedding lures. But so far I have only two of them…

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

Quick Bait : Very Good Looking Fishing Lures.

Hi there,

Some times ago, I received some very good looking fishing lures made by Quick Bait.
And when I say good looking, this is really what I mean.

Look at that:

The deep Buster.

What did I told you, isn't it nice?

This is the Quick Bait Buster, the deep version, and it is in my favourite colour from the Quick Bait range.

Look at a close-up portrait of it:

Portrait of a deadly lure.

From all the lures that Quick Bait kindly sent me, I think that this is the only one that I will not use…

Simply because I like the colour too much to take the risk to lose it.

The Buster also exist in a shallow version, and her it comes:

Shallow Buster by Quick Bait.

I can see this lure being very efficient, either in the billabongs, or on the harbour muds flat.

Can't wait to catch a fish on it.

The deep version swims at 4 m and the shallow one at 1-2 m.

Talking of fishing the harbour, there is another lure that should do well, this is the Zig Zag:

Quick Bait Zig Zag.

This one, I think will be interesting to work, when targeting Queenfish or Trevally.

It's action, is as its name point to, is made of continuous zigzag in the water. This is a sinking lure, so can be worked at speed, and should be fun with the small pelagic fish from the shore of Darwin Harbour.

Then comes the Slash, and no we are not talking guitar hero here, but fishing lure…

The shallow version of the Slash.

This is actually the only one that I really had the time to try, and not for very long.

It swims at 1-2 meter deep.

Between the bad weather, and other thing that have creeped in my life lately, I was not able to fish as much as I wanted/needed to. This will have to change.

Any way, as I said, I was once able to troll this lure behind a friend boat, once, for a very short time.

It was on a day, of difficult fishing, when no lures had taken any fish. But just a few minutes in the troll run and this one got me a little Catfish.

Catfish on the Quick Bait Slash.

So at least, I know that these lure look the goods from the fish point of view.

The Slash also came in a deep version that swim at about 2.5m deep.

The deep ones look nice too:

Quick Bait Slash deep version.

Quick Bait Slash deep version.

These two lures, I am sure, will catch me some good fish.

I have a good mate who when talking about fishing lures colour, often says: "If you are not using green, you are not trying."

Yes, I think that this green one, will prove to be a very attractive lure for the fishes…

And last but not least, came the Tinto.

The deep version of the Quick Bait Tinto.

This version is swimming at 4m. A shallower version exist, and it swims at 2m.

And now, if you are still trying to find Nemo… Look no more, because here he is:

Quick Bait Tinto.

How beautiful is that!

The Quick Bait range is not moulded plastic like so many mass produced fishing lures today. It is made by foam injection, a bit like the surf boards.

This mean that they have no rattles and should then work very well, when the fish are a bit shy and a silent lure is needed. And they are handmade too!

Thank you Quick Bait for sending me these fishing lures to test, I am sure that I will have a great time in their company.

Now, I know, I have not posted a lot on the blog lately, and I apologise for it. Sorry about that, but life has been a bit complicated. Things should finally start to be on the right pass from now on, or soon from now.

I will then be be able to regal you with more posts about beautiful fishing lures, and some stories about fishing trips.

But that might still take a few weeks…

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

My First Chilton Lure.

Hi there,

Last year I got a crazy coloured fishing lure.
A lure made by Blair Chilton from Karalee in Queensland, Australia.
Due to some unsuspected circumstance, it took me a long time to do a post about it. Also because I wanted to make some photographs that would give it the credit that it deserves.
It has already been too long, so in the end, here it comes.

But first things first: a bit about the story of this very lure.
I first saw a similar one on the internet, and contacted Blair, asking him if I could buy it.
His reply was that he had only made a single one lure in this shape and colour, and that it was a gift for his daughter.
Yet, he offered to make a second one for me, telling me that it would be the second and last one of these...
So I said yes!
He got to work on it, and I got to wait. But not for long, the lure arrived earlier than I had expected. And it was looking even better than I had hoped for.
Without further delay, here it is, my first Chilton lure:

Left side.

Right side.

View from above.

For a handmade, hand-painted lure, this is a rather uncommon shape and colour. Even the bib is unusual.

This is a lure, that I really don't want to scratch.

Signed and dated on the belly.

To think that there is only two of this one.The first one was for his daughter, and then he accepted to make the second one for me, a guy that he had and has so far never meet. It is hard to express how happy I am to have this lure.

Who is Blair Chilton you may ask... 

Well, he is a young lure maker from Queensland, the birthplace of so many great fishing lures. I first saw his lure, all crafted like little art pieces, on Instagram. This is where I saw the sibling of my lure, and made contact with him. Since then, he as opened his own FaceBook page, on which you can see more of his lures.

Close up of the paint work.

The paint job is so good, that I have to show you a last one for the road. How beautiful is that?

when you have the lure in your hand, it look like it is made of fine china, and not timber.

I know, I know, three post in a row about fishing lures, and not much in the form of fishing in the past few weeks... 

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

A Lure Signed by Bear Grylls.

Hi there,

A while ago, I was lucky enough to be gifted a fishing lure signed by Bear Grylls from the TV show Man vs. Wild.

Who in its right mind, would gift me such a great present you may ask...
Well no one else than Mario, the producer of the great fishing radio show Tales From The Tinny.
One evening at the Ski Club, he said that he had a signed lure to give me. It didn't take me long after that to give him a call, and tell him that we should catch up one day for lunch.

So we met up for a quick lunch, and share a few fishing stories, with me impatient to see this lure that Mario had told me about.
When he pulled out of his pocket this great big black Bomber 16A, hand signed by Bear Grylls himself. While he was in Darwin for the filming of a segment of his television show. A big smile, I could not hide.
Without any more teasing, here it is, still in the box:

The signed Bomber in the box.

Yes, for the purpose of this post, I did open the box, and made a photograph of the lure by itself, so you could see it better.

Bear Grylls signed black Bomber.

In the box it quickly went back, just after the photo, and from now on will stay in there.

Because, yes this is another lure that will never swim. Even if one of my fishing buddies told me that it would be great to see it hanging from the bucket mouth of a big Barramundi. There is no way I am going to risk losing it.

The only problem that I have with this  fishing lure, is that I now have another sub-section in my little collection: the celebrities signed fishing lures...

And that I have only one in this category.

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

The HellRaiser Worked.

Hi there,

Not long ago, I introduced you to a new little lure made by Reidy's, from Darwin Australia, who was yet to be named and released on the market. Well it isn't released yet, but has now been named and its name is the HellRaiser!
I gave it a swim on the first day of the year 2013... And it worked, it caught me some Barramundi.
Here comes the story of my fishing on the 1st of January 2013.

Once again, I was very lucky to be invited aboard Moz fine boat, for a day of fishing on Darwin harbour.
We launched at a very reasonable time, and Moz, tried to teach me how to steer the boat.
That was fun to drive between the moored yachts but I think that I must have been driving a bit slow, so he took back the helm and we quickly crossed the harbour toward the creeks where we wanted to spend the day, relaxing and fishing.

Crossing the harbour on Hard Gore.

As soon as we arrived we found a nice creek, with a lot of mangroves and some calm waters...

The place looked promising and in his second or third cast Moz got a nice little Golden Snapper on the line.

I started to wonder how he could be so fast at catching a fish, and looking at him I understood. He had a secret weapon, in the form of a remote control. That he must have used to direct the fish towards his own lure and away from mine... And yes I have the proof of that in picture:

Moz and his secret remote control.

Not long after that I sight casted to a school of bream and got one on the lure, but lost it not very far from the boat.

We then decided to move to another creek, the water was like glass.

Flat water.

In this new creek Moz repeated the trick and got on in no time, but this time to a little catfish.

Reeling in the kitten.

We moved in the creek, casting to every drain and colour change that we would come across. 

This is when Moz got the first Barramundi of the day.

First Barra of the day.

It was not a monster, but it is always nice to catch your targeted fish.

And he wasn't long before he got another one.

Then it was my turn! I finally got a fish in the boat, and it was a baby Barramundi, caught on the new lure made by Reidy's:

My first Barramundi on the Hell Raiser.

Once again, not much size to it, but the satisfaction to catch a Barra on a new lure totally made up for it.

And more importantly, this was my first Barramundi in a very long time, I was breaking the drought.

That made me really happy.

To celebrate, Moz opened a bottle of Barratastic ale, made by no one else than Doors Off.

Enjoying the Barratastic.

It was a hot day and I think that Moz enjoyed the fresh beer, nearly as much as I had enjoyed catching a  little Barramundi after being Barraless for so long.

And this was also a good way of thinking about our good friend Doors Off who is actually working overseas, you are not forgotten mate.

We moved to the other side of the river, to start to make our way back. Still casting to every good looking spot. Arriving to a place, where we found at the same time, an eddy, a little run off from a snake drain and a colour change, Moz said that this was a very fishy looking spot.

I casted my lure at the back of the eddy, and it had to cross the eddy, the little run off, and pass through the colour change before being back to the boat. This is finally in the colour change that I felt a sharp thug on my rod handle and that my line seemed to suddenly going away from the boat, instead of quietly coming back to me.

This was going to be my second little Barramundi of the day.

My last Barramundi for the day.

I was now convinced that this new little lure was working well.

From there we moved to a third creek, where once again, just on arrival, Moz got a new Barramundi.

Moz fourth Barramundi for the day.

It was like Moz, knew where to put his lure from the start, at each different location that we visited on the day.

Every times he got his fish in the first few casts, and this made me think that  need to learn how to read the creeks a bit better. Which to me is an exciting goal.

In this creek we saw some Barramundi feeding on jelly prawns, and one of them Barra, was a very big girl. We casted many times towards the drain in front of which she was feeding, but could not entice her with our offerings. I even changed my hard body lure for a soft plastic, but to no avail in the Barramundi department.

On the other hand, I did caught a small Star Gazer and this was the first time that I got one in a creek and not on the reef.

The little Star Gazer.

Not long after that, we decided that it had been a good day on the water and that we should head back to the ramp. And a good day it had been, with 5 different species of fish caught. Among them six Barramundi, despite the fact that they had started to feed on jelly prawns. So it is with the sense of  a well done job that we started to sail back to port.

Thanks again Moz, it was a great day.

For the people among you who love statistics...

The skipper got four Barramundi on soft plastic, and I got only two on hard body lure.

Yes maybe I should have see the sign earlier in the day, and changed to a soft plastic sooner than in the last twenty minutes of fishing...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.

ABU Hi-Lo

Hi there,

Just a very short story about some lures that I like...

As a child, I remember sitting at the kitchen table and listening with great attention, to my father and his friends, talking about a lure that could swim at different deep. To find the fishes wherever they would be hiding. This to me was magic and resonated in my mind as the fisherman ultimate tool. I wanted one.

Today I have a few in my collection, and in fact they are still being produced.

ABU Hi-Lo.

The Abu Hi-Lo is a well-known lure that has been used by many.

It is nearly a look-alike of the Heddon Vamp Spook from America. But it had something more, it has an articulated bib.

The articulated bib.

It first appeared in 1955 at a time when the Swedish company was called AB Urfabriken. It then arrived with a bib adjustable in five different positions. In 1958 it gained one more and now offers the choice of six different angles for the bib. Giving the lure the ability to swim from very deep to very shallow, it can be used as a surface lure, a bit like a popper.

The real collector will look for the pre-1958 version, easily recognizable for not having any patent marking on the belly.

Mines, all have a marking on the belly.

It has been available in five different sizes, included the jointed version.

As a floating, slow sinking or sinking lure.

Originally built in Sweden, the production moved to Asia in 1981.

They have since been made in Japan, Taiwan and China.

Not that many lure models have been produced for over fifty year, and are still being used now. It still sells very well overseas with Pike fishermen, and I was told that there is still some passionate using it down south. But today, for many up here, it has lost its flavor.

Still, I definitively like them…

Here are a few of them:

Three sizes and a jointed one.

Blue and all alone.

Two brothers.

Yes I know, none of my Hi-Lo were made prior 1958, so all the lure that I show you in this post are not really collector lures...

But hey, it could be worse.

Have a good day,

Me.