In 27 years of outdoors writing for The News, I've probably been approached no fewer than 50 times by fishermen who are convinced that they invented a lure that will revolutionize fishing.
A couple of those lures were indeed impressive but most were anything but revolutionary. Some were even contraptions that made me wonder what in the world was going on in that person's head.
I was fishing a few weeks ago with Lee Sisson, the long-time lure designer for Bagley Baits. I was laughing and telling him about a lure a man had once shown me that was made from a small carbon dioxide cannister. It spewed air bubbles when retrieved and weighed way too much to be a lure. I tried not to laugh when the man assured me it was good for at least two or three casts before the canister ran out of air and had to be replaced. And, oh, yeah, you had to carry a small device that would drill the perfect-sized hole in the canister to make it work properly.
He said none of the major lures companies will even talk to outside lure inventors these days. When he gets a call from someone who says he has invented a lure, Sisson stops the caller in mid-sentence and tells him to say no more. He tells the caller that the company is not interested.
What happens, he explained, is that lure companies are always working on lures that they may introduce someday. If the inventor's lure idea is credible, a lure company has probably been working on something similar. If the lure company introduces that lure one day, the inventor is always convinced that he showed the company his idea and the lure company stole it. Troublesome lawsuits can follow.
Sisson said most basement lure inventors wrongly believe the first step once they have come up with an idea for a fishing lure is to have it patented. Patents on fishing lures are pretty much a joke, he said.
First, it is near impossible to get a patent on a lure unless it has an extraordinary design. Second, patents are expensive and pretty much worthless when it comes to fishing lures. Should the lure be a hit with fishermen, the typical inventor doesn't have the time or the money to fight lawsuits against every small lure-maker that might copy it and sell it.
What most amateur lure inventors fail to understand is that should their lure become a hit, they must be ready to produce thousands upon thousands of them instantly, Sisson said. Few have the means to accomplish that.
It may take months to have a mold built and then they must find someone who can produce the lures. Maybe most importantly, they must then find a way to distribute the lures to outlets across the U.S. The entire process is expensive and may take more than a year.
Sisson is credited with designing the first effective deep-diving crank bait. That lure, the Bagley's DB3, is one of those rare lures such as the Rat-L-Trap and Jitterbug that still sell decades after they were introduced.
The reality is that the vast majority of lures have a short life span. Sales may last only a year until interest wanes. The inventor may invest his life savings to have the lure produced and by the time it finally hits the market, the fishermen who at first were so excited about it have found something else. Sisson said he has seen cases where amateur lure inventors who believe they are going to get wealthy invest their life savings and eventually lose most everything else they own.
Where individuals and big lure companies differ is that the companies have the capability to produce thousands of lures at a moment's notice as soon as a lure gets hot. They also have the distribution mechanism to put them in stores and bait shops across the U.S. in a very short time.
When interest in the lure plunges, the companies have lures waiting in the wings that are also ready to be mass produced to fill the void.
If an amateur inventor does have a revolutionary lure, he may get lucky and find a smaller lure company to produce it and distribute it, Sisson said. Even then, he's badly mistaken if he believes he's about to get wealthy. The fishing lure business is highly competitive and production costs are critical to the final sales price. At best, an inventor may get a deal to receive a nickel or dime for every lure sold.
No comments:
Post a Comment