Meat and Potatoes Tackle Company

Diving Crankbaits -

We currently have a floating/diving hard-plastic crankbait, the HotBack™. Charter member of our "No Fear Crankbaiting" series. A lure that is the most snagless on the market today due to its top-mounted, single wide-gap hook (instead of the standard snagging devices hanging on the belly and known as treble hooks). Comes with a "V" wire snag-guard to further brush aside wood, weed and rock.  We patented these unique features. First tournament we used it was in 1982. We won theBig Fish Award with it and placed 2nd overall. So many more fish since then -  more money in the bank by being able to fish the thickest cover fearlessly.  No holding your breath during each cast for fear it's going to hang up.  Life is good with this lure! Big bass, musky and calico bass off San Diego are especially partial to this lure, although while fishing a thick wood snag in a river last fall, we got a 24lb catfish on it! Predators are predators.

This "meat and potatoes" look is what big fish are always looking for: a chase that will provide the highest calorie content possible with the least amount of effort expended. Big fish are not lazy, they are just expert at what we'll call "effort management". Throw this tool directly into the scariest looking places you can find. Work it thru the cover nice and easy, letting it bump into, over, and through the cover. A big fish that calls that cover "home" is watching so get ready.

Lipless Crankbaits -

Our Termite™ is so named because it, like its cousin, the HotBack, really likes wood environments. Another of our patented "No Fear Crankbaiting" series tools! We don't like losing lures. Just like the HotBack, it is extremely snagless because of the same hook and weedguard configuration found on the HotBack. There is no tactic more apt to elicit a fish to attack without delay than to have a crankbait come into contact with something solid (weed, rock, wood, old shoe - whatever is down there). Why? Because things that are healthy do not do such things. Further, things that are not healthy are the things that predators not only look for first when they're hungry - easy pickins, but crankbaits banging off things triggers a response that predators just don't have a lot of control over. Mother nature has programmed predators to attack when something looks injured or is otherwise "not right". Again, bass of all colors and musky like jumping on this lure.

First tournament we used our prototype model was in 1991. Caught enough fish out of the wood structures to win money. It has done nothing but keep producing fish around wood when nothing else prompts them to bite. So don't just chunk this lure out and wind it in like with other commercial lipless crankbaits. Find laydowns, brushpiles, lily pad stems, and any other nasty cover and wind the Termite back through it trying your best to snag it up all the while. What will happen is the Termite will bang into and over everything down there until the resident fish will have no more of it. Fish on!

Spinnerbaits and Buzzbaits-

The Musky Meat 'n Spud™ or Bass Meat 'n Spud Long Arm Pro Spinnerbait is the lure that started it all for our company. The year was 1972. We began to believe that the bigger fish in our local lakes were deep 9 days out of 10 during the year. So we made a heavy (for its day) spinnerbait to get down there with them. The result was a 7/8 ounce, single #5 Colorado blade, "bigger than anything else on the market" tool. It also had a longer blade arm than anything else on the market. It also had thinner wire than was being used on any other spinnerbaits of the day. Shucks, I guess we're just different kind of folk at Meat and Potatoes. But thinking out of the box is what makes every lure we make something really special. And what makes fishermen more successful. This new blade bait promptly started catching really big fish deep. Big largemouth 7- 10 pounds came to the boat with regularity. Our kind of fishin'! From that point on, we pretty much didn't bother using plastic worms and jig 'n pigs deep - the lures that the "pros" of the day told us worked best in deep water. Those slow presentation lures have their place, but not when you're just after big fish deep. Big bass and even bigger musky are partial to this tool. That's just fine with us because we like run and gun and taking monsters doing it..

The Musky Dinner Belle or Bass Dinner Belle tandem blade spinnerbait is beyond special and like no other spinnerbait on the market. Tall words, but consider what it has going for it. Twisted eye or R-bend for using on fish with teeth or not, respectively. Meat and Potatoes Tackle's custom tinted wire frame. Straw-coffee color instead of shiny/guady like all the rest. And people wonder why fish follow or don't attack with eating on their minds. 6/0 wide-gap, black nickel Mustad Ultra Point. Sharp! And again, black nickel for stealth purposes. Outlaw shiny/guady! Beautiful paint and eyes. Our blades are hand-dipped in lacquer to retard tarnishing. Then, hand-painted to give the blade just a "splash" of color. We like nickel and brass, but we fully believe that just a splash of color on a blade makes a much better blade. It's a continuation on the "stealth" fundamental we fully believe in. And that we catch a lot of fish and a lot of big fish all the time, we're not going back to the shiny/gaudy commercial crap that's out there. Tournament-grade or we won't throw it. And we certainly won't make it or sell it. Why would we? Add our black ball bearing swivel. Finally, the dressing. We haven't thrown plastic or rubber skirts for 8 years now. We found out how much better marabou is while in Canada. Brought it back south, and we found that predators are predators. Bass, striper, walleye, pike, musky - and guys in the Gulf and off the West Coast tell us about fish we've never heard of - are all the same. They want action, they want the perception of more meat for the chase. The Dinner Belle supplies both perfectly. Finally, and this is so important, we have twin trailer feathers on every blade bait we sell. Spinnerbaits, inline bucktails, buzzbaits. Even our marabou jigs. Marabou is a remarkable dressing, but the twin trailer feathers literally double the attraction.

The Sloppy Joseph single blade "weedbait" spinnerbait is proving to surpass its design. We needed a spinnerbait that would actually penetrate thick weeds to catch fish hiding in there. They're in there for a few reasons. Fishing pressure. Bait. Security. So we built a 1 oz lure with a short arm off the lead and a short, sharp rake on the blade arm. Put a #4.5 Colorado on it. Perfect! Did the job. Then we were fishing cold fronts and early and late season cold water. We found to our surprise (you Go On Learning Forever - GOLF) that our little Sloppy Jo was an outstanding blade bait in this cold water. Not only outstanding, the reason for its existance in our arsenal changed from being our "weed bait" to being our "cold-water or weed bait"! Same black, ball-bearing swivel. Same Mustad 6/0 wide-gap black nickel Ultra Point hook, same hand-dipped in lacquer and hand-painted blades, same custome-tinted stealth wire frame, same nice paint job and eyes. Just a really excellent lure for weeds and cold water situations. All species we go after - - - go after it.

The Coot buzzbait is another pro-grade lure in our line. The thing that truly separates this lure from all the other commercial junk is its Quad Blade on a single shaft. What this enables you to do is burn it to wake the dead when it's choppy, or provide the lift necessary to crawl the Coot dead slow. Far more times than not, you'll get bit more with this dead slow presentation because fish will see it as something that is not going anywhere fast, barely able to move, and vulnerable for the eating. Predators that are looking up and will hit the surface usually don't pass up such an easy meal. Of course, it's marabou with twin trailer feathers, has the 6/0 wide-gap black nickel Ultra Point, and the blades are lacquered and painted as are all our other blades. It's hard to make a better buzzbait. We did and one famous KY guide, Crash Mullins, says: "It's the best buzzbait on the market". He's right.

One important note:  Marabou, like most other natural feathers, has a waxy finish to it that causes raindrops to bead off a bird - keeping it dry and warm.  The first time you throw a quality spinnerbait with a lot of marabou built into it (i.e. Meat and Potatoes models), you'll need to prep the feathers in order for it to run straight and true on the first cast.  Repeat:  This is something you'll want to do only the first time you throw it - once done, you will not need to repeat this process.  So, here's what you need to do;  Slosh the lure on the surface for 15-20 seconds to thoroughly soak all feathers.  I actually prefer this method:  Dip the lure into the water and squeeze the feather mass with your hand like it was a sponge.  Repeat this dip-squeeze process about 3 times.  Now you and your premium lure are ready to go!  Set the drag for big fish because it just may happen on the first cast...

Inline " bucktail " Spinners -

Some of our first lures we bought when we were kids were little little inline spinners.  AKA " bucktails " to some. We caught the heck out of all kinds of fish on these little things! Now decades later the reason they were so effective seems obvious. These lures are the shape of baitfish - almost always the prey you'd find in any fish's gut. We caught a few good fish on these little things, but the lure usually provided quantity versus quality. When you're a kid, quantity is what you want. Now decades later we are needing fish that pull back hard.

What to do? Hmmmm. Build out a better bucktail inline! And manufacture our own big weedless treble hook that does not exist anywhere else in the world so we can put our inline bucktails around cover without holding our breath and praying they don't get hung up. Pull our resulting Weedless Inline Special™ over laydowns and thru stumps and around dock pilings and weeds snaglessly and with reckless abandon! Catch big fish! Monster bass are swallowing our Weedless Inline Specials - even our double-tail, double-treble, double-blade foot-long models. Remember that an adult predator bass (6+lbs) thinks nothing of sucking in a 12", 1lb bass for lunch. Don't think 'small' unless you want to catch small fish for a living.

The Weedless Inline Special comes in 3/4 oz, 1 oz, 2 oz sizes. Single blade (Colorado, Indiana or Willow from #5 sizes on the smallest model to #9 on the largest models). The 2 oz size has two marabou tails with twin trailers, and has two weedless treble hooks. Hand-lacquered and hand-painted blades of course. But the kicker nobody else on earth has chosen to do is to make a weedless treble hook (in sizes 3/0 to 6/0) for big fish of all species. Fish around cover without fear and pull more fish because of it!

The Hefty Girl Weedless Inline Special comes in more sizes than our original Weedless Inline Specials, but it has two blades to put off an enormous vibration. Same pro-grade features as found on our Weedless Inline Special. 3/4 oz, 1 oz, 1.5 oz, 2 oz, 2.5 oz. All sizes work on bass, pike, musky, striper, and saltwater fish we've never heard of - until lately when guys in the Gulf and on both coasts are calling in to tell us about their catches.

The High-Calorie Jig is something else. Released in late 2008. We're kinda proud of this little puppy. As we preach here over and over, and prove in the boat fish after fish and year after year, bigger fish are looking for the most meat for the effort of the chase. So guys have been on us to put out a marabou jig to give that bulky look - perception - but without making a big honky jig in the process. Truth be told, we've had these jigs in our boat for a couple years and we just refined them into production models. We wanted a swim jig so it would penetrate weeds nicely, and because we catch a LOT of fish swimming the jig back to the boat instead of hopping or crawling it excruciatinly slow which is what 90% of guys do. We give it a few hops in the cover we're targeting, but if there are no takers, we just pick it up and start swimming it back for another cast. So often a fish will either jump on it immediately a few inches from where we where hopping it (he was watching it all along, but for some reason, he needed a chase), or we get hit somewhere on the way in by a fish that just looked up, saw the beauty of our long marabou with our trademark twin trailer feathers, and just came up to gulp it down. Comes in 3/8, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 oz sizes. Big wide-gap, Mega-Bite black nickel hooks on the larger sizes. Blood red wide-gap Mega-Bite hook on the 3/8 oz size. We'll come out with big 2, 3 and 4 oz models for trolling and offshore guys soon. If you like throwing jigs (one of our favorite lures for big fish), or if you've never gotten into it, you need to try one of these in your favorite color.

We are always expanding our product line because we find new ways to catch fish and then work to build a tool that optimizes this new-found approach. When it has been proven to be a "go to" lure in its specific use, then we'll put it in production.

Lures that are poised for production in 2009 include:

A swimbait made for big bass/striper and musky/pike. Hook configuration allows this swimbait to swim thru weeds and cover without hanging up.

The Dirty Rat™. A topwater "rat" type lure for fishing over weeds and open water. But with a twist like no other in this class. Bass/striper and musky/pike sizes.

We call our lures "tools" because that is what a fishing lure really is - or at least what it should be. For maximum effectiveness and success, every lure should be seen as a specific tool that is used in a specific circumstance. Example: You determine the spinnerbait is the right tool given the pattern you have developed on the water today. Now is a 1 ounce spinnerbait the best tool, or is a lighter ½ ounce size the better tool for the given situation? It's up to you to define the pattern and then put the best tool into use to take advantage of the pattern you have found. If the pattern is fish in less than 3' of water, the ½ ounce size seems the likely best tool for this occasion over the 1 ounce.

Edge - Predators look at the edges of prey rather than the whole body. Because it is the edge that identifies the prey in the predator's brain. Another term for edge would be silhouette, but edge is more meaningful for our purposes. Because it is in the edge that vulnerability can be detected by the predator - and we have the ability to make an enticing, life-like edge. The HotBack's pectoral fins show a natural edge. Marabou feathers show an astoundingly life-like edge. Each feather is pulsating independently around the body. It is this undulation around the body that differs from just a plastic skirt. The skirts tentacles move, but there is no body that shows the predator the bulk that it is wanting. Can you catch fish using plastic skirts? Absolutely. But you will catch many more with marabou. And the average weight using marabou will be heavier. Period. Take that to the bank.

Perception - Animals are no different than humans in one regard. We both think we know what reality is. It is whatever we perceive it to be. And that is very important when you're fishing. There are times when the fish you're chasing will eat the kitchen sink. Doesn't care what the bait is or how big it is. But far more times the same fish wants to eat, wants a square meal, but will not approach something outsized. So what we've learned over the years is that you can make a bait look meaty without making it big and in doing so, you catch more fish and their average size is larger than if you constantly throw something resembling the kitchen sink. If you don't understand the breakthrough that this represents, you've not been fishing long enough to understand the subtle truism here. But take it to the bank for it is a fact and so important to your success.

Pattern - Pattern fishing is the key to consistently being successful at fishing. Pro fishermen put on their pants just like anybody else. The difference, and what sets them clearly apart from most fishermen, is that they have learned to think "pattern" every day they go fishing and they think about it all day.

Fish, especially those that school, can be "patterned". Bass, crappie, walleye, pike, musky, etc. school. Sometimes tightly, sometimes loosely. But generally, a pattern means that, for example, if you find a school of fish at 10' at the base of a weedbed, you can find many more schools of the same specie all over the lake if you can find 10' of water at the base of a weedbed. As you continue to refine this pattern during the day, you find that the weeds must be Coontail because the pattern does not hold true if the weeds are a cabbage or a lily pad or an emergent weed. Or, you determine that the 10' has to be a hard bottom (rock or sand) because the pattern does not hold true if the bottom is just muck. The reason you have to continue working the pattern through the day is not only because it makes finding and catching fish easier (find everywhere on the lake that has 10' at the base of Coontail and you catch fish), but as the day goes by, the pattern may start failing. The fish may go deeper, shallower, or even abandon the area completely and you finally find them again, but now in 15' on the steep sides of points that dump into 24' or more of water. It's like work, pattern fishing, but then again, catching fish all day long according to a pattern you develop is like no job I've ever had!