Every angler at some point wants to build lures and dreams about owning their own lure company. How hard can that be making lures all day and talking fishing? The truth is only a few new lures are designed every year and even few new lure companies.
Most new lure companies start in someone’s garage building an improved existing lure or newly designed lure. The lure becomes popular and demand grows so much that it requires a big building and workers. A larger company then decides they want to acquire the lure company and buys it. It’s a dream come true for the angler.
The inventor of the Eye Hole Jighead Blake Phillips success story begins with a desire to build a jig that would help his wife Resee catch fish. “Resee was having issues with the crappie nibbles staying on the hook of a jighead when we were out crappie fishing one day,” Blake continued, “So, I was thinking where could we put the small crappie nibbles to keep it to stay? I went to work with a minnow Do-It Molds jighead mold made some jigheads and drilled out a hole in the jigheads. So Resee and I went crappie fishing with the hole in the jighead and it was able to hold crappie nibbles for multiple casts. We caught a crappie on the first cast and 12 more with it that day.”
That was the beginning of Eye Hole Jigheads. It turned out to be more of a challenge than expected. Phillip’s started producing 1,800 a day, but that was way under the demand for the jigheads. They ended up having a custom made spincast mold made producing 30 at a time. That was still not enough and still too much manual labor.
“I was working from 4 a.m. till 9 p.m. every day and not keeping up with demand. Covid had everyone out fishing,” Blake continued, “Every month we would have record sales. I was learning quickly we were never going to be able to keep up with the demand. It was no longer just a hobby. People don’t realize how many you have to produce every day.” Blake was wearing down from producing jigs with his arms and wrists hurting and only producing 200,000 jigheads a year.
During this period of time Blake had met and became friend with Jeff Smith owner of Leland’s Lure. “It was a blessing to call Jeff for advice on building and running a lure company,” Blake went on, “Also, early on Charlie Brewer Slider Company owner Caroline Brewer-Calton was instrumental at first with helping getting Eye Hole Jigheads going.”
In an interesting twist of fate Eye Hole Jigheads were almost acquired by a major fishing company, however, it turned out his friend Jeff Smith with Leland Lures ended up with a licensing agreement for the product, packaging and sales of Eye Hole Jigheads. “I ended up donating my old stock to charity,” Blake went on, “Jeff has made the original product better with the Double Cross side-barbs that holds lures tighter and longer while not impeding the hook gap and high quality Mustad hooks with UltraPoint technology.”
“I couldn’t be any more happier to be a part of Eye Hole Scent Holder Jigs,” Blake went on, “Jeff’s doing a great job and has everything right from the packaging to the pricing; in addition to the Double Cross side barbs.”
Is Blake and Resee living the dream? They admit it was challenging before Leland Lures stepped in. “We were blessed and it was God sent and timing for Jeff to come into our lives,” said Blake. Now Blake is spending time making up for those years of just producing jigheads to undone honey-do chores, promoting the Eye Hole Scent Holder Jigs at shows and fishing tournaments.
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