The other day I was lucky enough to go fishing with a Bassmaster Elite Series Pro Angler while he was preparing for an upcoming event.  Like any angler, he had numerous fishing rods laid out on the deck of his boat, everything from topwater lures, swimbaits, to Texas rigged worms.  As he went along the shoreline casting and pitching at lay downs, every once and a while he would change lures, testing to see which one got the better bite.  In the end, one lure stood out among the rest.  Confident that he knew what lure to fish with when the tournament started, he began putting his fishing rods up and cutting off all the named brand baits throwing them on to the deck of the boat.  Grabbing my camera, I started taking pictures of all the lures.  Quickly, the pro snatched the hair jig up before I could take a photo of it.  Sheepishly, the pro looked at me and whispered in a hushed voice, “Lets keep this hair jig a secret between us, okay.”  Since the tournament is over with, I am going to let the cat out of the bag.  Anglers, especially professional anglers everywhere are secretly fishing with handmade, hand painted, no name brand custom built hair jigs. 

In the realm of fishing lures, the jigging spoon may be the most underwritten about and unadvertised.  Expensive swimbaits and high tech lures dominate fishing magazines along with tackle store shelves.  The jigging spoon gets little fanfare and stuck deep, deep into an anglers tackle box, if they even have one at all.  The “catch” to jigging spoons is they produce fish year round but can be pimped out to increase bites.

When you think of Tennessee, two things come to mind:  the University of Tennessee students singing Rocky Top when they win and hand-crafted, hand-painted custom built balsa wood crankbaits.  No other region in the United States produces more high quality, in demand, hand-crafted, hand-painted custom built balsa wood crankbait.  The craftsmanship is second to none and jack the jaws of thousands of fish.