July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Woodworker carves niche with lures (11/21/07)
By By MIKE SNYDER-
Sometimes, things just fall into place.
A lifelong woodworker who has "always" tinkered with building his own fishing lures retires as the Internet gains in popularity.
What do you get? A hobby that combines two life-long loves and pays pretty nicely.
John Mills, a retired teacher who like his father before had spent much of his life hand-making wood fishing lures for his own use, has developed an impressive niche business out of selling his custom crankbaits to fishermen who are way above average on the scale of fishing seriousness.
Mills' creations, each of which is hand-signed, sell for $12 and $15 for flat- and round-sided models, respectively.
Mills, who has scores of finished lures literally hanging around the shop at his rural Jay County home, says he feels fortunate to make money doing something he loves, and still retain the freedom to pursue fishing - his favorite hobby.
"The neat part is if I want to go fishing, I just shut the door and go. I don't have to (make lures)," says Mills, who estimates that he will sell about 1,500 crankbaits by the end of 2007.
Given the painstaking amount of time and effort which is poured into each lure, Mills says that's about maxed out.
"I don't want to get a whole lot busier ... it would kinda ruin the retirement thing," he says.
Mills, whose favorite aquatic prey is the smallmouth bass, offers a wide variety of shapes, colors and styles for fishermen to choose from - with all an offshoot of three basic styles.
In addition to his own line of custom baits, which are machine- and hand-carved from blocks of balsa or basswood with "lips" of lexan or circuit board, Mills also does re-painting of existing paints, or will built a lure to customer specifications.
The MDL 40 "CS" is one of Mills' signature crankbaits. Developed with the help of Illinois professional fisherman Chris Sink, Mills says that an extra wide lip, body style and extreme buoyancy enable it to be pulled through almost any type of cover.
And cover, bass fishermen know, is where the fish are.
Mills, whose wife Anita is Jay County Assessor, says that he's not one to sit down to watch a baseball game or golf tournament on TV.
So when he's not busy making lures, he will likely be found wading up and down rivers in the region - including the Mississinewa, the Wabash and the White.
Winter time is preparation time for Mills' lure-making hobby/business, although if the rivers are not frozen ("I don't ice-fish," he says) he might be found fishing. During the winter all the "blanks" - or blocks of wood that will be cut and sanded down into lures - will be made.
Although a blank can be trimmed and formed into a ready-to-paint lure in less than an hour, the entire production process takes much, much longer, as each layer of paint must be allowed to dry before adding another layer. A final top coat of epoxy must also be applied, giving the lures a showroom shine and durability that meets or beats the majority of factory-made lures - the majority of which are now molded plastic or synthetic materials.
All of the components - eyelets, hooks, lips, etc. - have a tolerance of less than 1/64th of an inch. Those tight tolerances allow the bait to run straight and true in the water.
Mills, who taught vocational automotive classes at Jay County High School for 26 years, makes the majority of his lures to be fished.
But he does offer a line of mostly oversized "presentation" baits, meant more to attract the eye than a fish.
Those baits, he says, are big sellers at pre-Christmas craft shows, when women are searching for gifts for hard-to-buy-for boyfriends and husbands.
It was a craft show which got his retirement vocation kick-started, as he attended his first show with a few lures and other carvings just before retirement. From there, he sold a few lures on eBay, and then set up his own website (www.jm-woodcraft.cabanova.com), which has links from a variety of bass fishing websites.
A large box of lures on a table in his shop - all painted to mimic a small shad (a common bait fish for bass) - is bound for an Ohio couple. But Mills says that the majority of lures he sells go to just three states: Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
In fact, he says he can, on a fairly reliable basis, determine the destination of the lure simply by looking at the colors ordered.
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A lifelong woodworker who has "always" tinkered with building his own fishing lures retires as the Internet gains in popularity.
What do you get? A hobby that combines two life-long loves and pays pretty nicely.
John Mills, a retired teacher who like his father before had spent much of his life hand-making wood fishing lures for his own use, has developed an impressive niche business out of selling his custom crankbaits to fishermen who are way above average on the scale of fishing seriousness.
Mills' creations, each of which is hand-signed, sell for $12 and $15 for flat- and round-sided models, respectively.
Mills, who has scores of finished lures literally hanging around the shop at his rural Jay County home, says he feels fortunate to make money doing something he loves, and still retain the freedom to pursue fishing - his favorite hobby.
"The neat part is if I want to go fishing, I just shut the door and go. I don't have to (make lures)," says Mills, who estimates that he will sell about 1,500 crankbaits by the end of 2007.
Given the painstaking amount of time and effort which is poured into each lure, Mills says that's about maxed out.
"I don't want to get a whole lot busier ... it would kinda ruin the retirement thing," he says.
Mills, whose favorite aquatic prey is the smallmouth bass, offers a wide variety of shapes, colors and styles for fishermen to choose from - with all an offshoot of three basic styles.
In addition to his own line of custom baits, which are machine- and hand-carved from blocks of balsa or basswood with "lips" of lexan or circuit board, Mills also does re-painting of existing paints, or will built a lure to customer specifications.
The MDL 40 "CS" is one of Mills' signature crankbaits. Developed with the help of Illinois professional fisherman Chris Sink, Mills says that an extra wide lip, body style and extreme buoyancy enable it to be pulled through almost any type of cover.
And cover, bass fishermen know, is where the fish are.
Mills, whose wife Anita is Jay County Assessor, says that he's not one to sit down to watch a baseball game or golf tournament on TV.
So when he's not busy making lures, he will likely be found wading up and down rivers in the region - including the Mississinewa, the Wabash and the White.
Winter time is preparation time for Mills' lure-making hobby/business, although if the rivers are not frozen ("I don't ice-fish," he says) he might be found fishing. During the winter all the "blanks" - or blocks of wood that will be cut and sanded down into lures - will be made.
Although a blank can be trimmed and formed into a ready-to-paint lure in less than an hour, the entire production process takes much, much longer, as each layer of paint must be allowed to dry before adding another layer. A final top coat of epoxy must also be applied, giving the lures a showroom shine and durability that meets or beats the majority of factory-made lures - the majority of which are now molded plastic or synthetic materials.
All of the components - eyelets, hooks, lips, etc. - have a tolerance of less than 1/64th of an inch. Those tight tolerances allow the bait to run straight and true in the water.
Mills, who taught vocational automotive classes at Jay County High School for 26 years, makes the majority of his lures to be fished.
But he does offer a line of mostly oversized "presentation" baits, meant more to attract the eye than a fish.
Those baits, he says, are big sellers at pre-Christmas craft shows, when women are searching for gifts for hard-to-buy-for boyfriends and husbands.
It was a craft show which got his retirement vocation kick-started, as he attended his first show with a few lures and other carvings just before retirement. From there, he sold a few lures on eBay, and then set up his own website (www.jm-woodcraft.cabanova.com), which has links from a variety of bass fishing websites.
A large box of lures on a table in his shop - all painted to mimic a small shad (a common bait fish for bass) - is bound for an Ohio couple. But Mills says that the majority of lures he sells go to just three states: Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
In fact, he says he can, on a fairly reliable basis, determine the destination of the lure simply by looking at the colors ordered.
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