IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!
Sport Fishing magazine, August, 2018 print addition (out now), “6 Pioneers In Innovative Lure Design,” (pgs. 70-78) highlights six current lure-makes and includes a feature on PHASE II LURES (pg. 77),re-printed below..
“WOOD CRAFTSMAN
Spend five minutes talking with Dick Fincher of Phase II Lures and you’ll know this guy is a total fishing fanatic.
Whether you ask him about how a particular plug acts in the water, which hooks are best, or how a lure needs to be weighted, his answers mysteriously turn to the striper that blew up on topwater yesterday, or the bluefish that ripped drag last week. Keep probing, however, and you’ll discover a fascination with lures made of wood that runs just as deep as his enthusiasm for fishing..
Wood fishing lures have, of course, been around for centuries, but making them is labor-intensive. Some of Fincher’s take as much as half an hour to produce – which is not quite as time-efficient as mass-produced injection-molded plastic lures.
‘Wood plugs have an action, a buoyancy, that simply can’t be matched by anything made of plastic,’ Fincher says. ‘Wood movers (through water) in ways that can’t be duplicated’
If anyone should know, it’s Fincher. His lure-making career began what a friend needed help bringing down a cedar tree just over a decade ago in his home base of Westport, Connecticut. He took the wood, made a few plugs that were by his own admission a bit crude and gave one to his son. ‘He began catching fish like crazy on it,’ Fincher says.
Today he has thousands of handcrafted cedar lures on the water, all across the country. They’ve been attacked by everything from flounder to muskellunge to tarpon.
And, these are no simple lures. He first makes a blank, then rough-cuts it, and then carves, sands, drills and paints. Some of his lures involve up to 35 steps in all.
Is the payback worth this process” Money aside, yes. ‘I love when I get to watch someone catch a fish on my lures,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing better.’
Thanks to fishing author, TV host and renowned fisherman Lenny Rudow, and to Sport Fishing for the recognition! Good fishing to all.
Dick Fincher
Phase II Lures
www.phaseiilures.com
7/1//2018
