PICO Lures rising like a phoenix from the ashes by Brad Wiegmann

Wouldn’t it be great to own a lure company? Think of all the perks. Free lures, great pro staff and you get to go fishing all day, every day.


The reality of actually owning your own lure company for most is a garage business meaning you run your business out of your home and don’t employ anyone. Garage businesses are normally a side bar from their real job. They do it to produce a better product or just build products for friends and family.


Your lure company will need a business name, registered agent, articles of organization, certificate from the state, be registered to do business in other states and so many more things like a logo. Once you get to where you have grown too big to meet the demands for product it becomes a small company being able to produce enough products to sell.


Besides starting a garage fishing lure business one can buy an existing company. Of course that requires capital. This is where the story of PICO Lures starts with one man selling it to Mitch Glenn, however, it’s fate and opportunity that results in PICO Lures being one of today’s most popular fishing lure companies.





PICO Lures was started in 1933 during the Great Depression by Fred Nichols whom lived in Corpus Christi, Texas. Nichols started just carving a cedar wood lure similar to a saltwater piggy perch. The lure was a success as anglers besides Nichols started catching speckled trout and other saltwater game fish on it. As word spread Nichols changed gears from producing the lures for just friends and family to starting a business. Nichols named the company Padre Island Company after Padre Island a favorite fishing location and proximity to Corpus Christi, Texas, but later shortened it to PICO Lures.


Starting out a saltwater lure company, PICO Lures ends up inland where anglers start fishing for largemouth bass with success. Nichols did revamp the original design to duplicate a saltwater piggy perch or fresh water bream.


Ed Henckel bought and relocated PICO Lures to San Antonio, Texas, in 1962. Henckel expanded the original PICO Lures brand to include other type of lures. Due to deteriorating eyesight Henckel sold the company in 1986 to Bob Miller. Miller phased out the spinnerbait and soft plastic line of products being produced by PICO Lures. In 1993 Miller moved the company to Kerrville, Texas and also started producing a new popular logo lure.


PICO logo lures featured an insert of a printed logo or event which was mostly done with the topwater PICO POP. The name changed to PICO Outdoor Company producing gifts like vintage tin signs and apparel. PICO Lures during that time became a fly fishing specialty shop with guided fly fishing trips in the Texas hill country and even rented kayaks or canoes.


Miller whom had other investors would sell PICO Lures in 2003 to Kim Howard, M.D., from Longview, Texas. Unfortunately, Howard was unable to sustain manufacturing and the company would be dormant until it was purchased by Steve Frick in 2012 moving the company to Lago Vista, Texas. Frick was able to produce the hard body PICO Pops and Perches from that location. Five years later Frick would sell PICO Lures to Mitch Glenn in Garfield, Arkansas, the new home of PICO Lures.


Back before Glenn had left his employment at Arkie Lures he had hired Brad Wiegmann to do the social media, photography and videographer for them. As the story goes Glenn was in the process of purchasing Arkie Lures, but the sale didn’t happen. Glenn quit his employment with Arkie and moved on to new opportunities including the purchase of PICO Lures from Steve Frick.


The rebirth of PICO Lures started with Glenn painting 6 of the PICO Lures deep diving crankbaits and sending the photographs of them to Wiegmann. Wiegmann renowned for his social media influence posted the photos on FaceBook which resulted in instant sales. That’s where the story gets interesting as unknown to Wiegmann that was the only ones Glenn actually had of these lures. Shortly afterwards Glenn would ramp up production followed by the new PICO Lures website.


Glenn with the assistant of Wiegmann would soon introduce a new line of PICO Lures soft plastic lures along with hair jigs and assorted styles of jigheads designed for crappie and other game fish; in addition to the PICO Lures Squarebill crankbait follow by bass jigheads. Recently, Glenn introduced a jighead designed for just forward facing sonar called the PICO Scope Eye Jighead.


Never one to be complacent, Glenn revealed that PICO Lures will now be selling and be a distributor for Vanguard Tackle. Vanguard Tackle is a complete line of terminal tackle and fishing accessories including floats, hooks, fishing line, wire leaders, beads, stringers, bait nets, tools, rod holders, fish cleaning products and more. “The goal is to have it so anglers can get all of the fishing products they need from fishing lures to fishing accessories at one place,” Glenn continued, “A mom-and-pops store, gas station, marina, fishing retail store or any place where anglers are stopping to get supplies. The products will also be available online at www.picolures.com.”





Adding to the excitement of the Vanguard Tackle products, Glenn released the five new colors of PICO INT deep diving crankbaits. “Christmas tree, day glo, beach ball, dusk and wonder bread are the five new color patterns,” Glenn went on, “These are some color patterns that our pro staff, guides and anglers have tested out and the results have been excellent so they are now ready and in stock for everyone to buy.”


Like a phoenix rising from the ashes PICO Lures has never been any more popular amongst anglers in fresh water and saltwater thanks to Glenn and his vision to take a once dormant brand to a successful, popular fishing lure and product company.


A special thanks goes out to Keith Bell and Bill Crumrine for additional information on PICO Lures used in this article.