Lunker Punks

The Rise of Black Dog Baits

By Annetta Black

Reproduced with the exclusive permission of Bass West Magazine, Please Click on the Bass West Enhanced banner to subscribe.

It’s one thing to mess around with lures in your tackle box, carve your own plug, or pour the odd worm or two. But it takes a special kind of crazy (not to mention drive and talent) to take that passion and turn it into a successful business. There’s a lot of competition, and a lot of potential pitfalls. But in just a couple of short years, and against the odds, Black Dog Baits has established itself as a major player.

Jeremy Anderson and Grant Olguin started Black Dog Baits two and a half years ago. The two friends thought they might have some fun, sell a few lures, and make some extra cash. But what started with a couple of homegrown, hand painted wooden baits quickly expanded into a full time business that has them busy keeping up with orders, traveling to industry shows, and entertaining manufacturing bigwigs

Jeremy and Grant met each other when they both worked for UPS. They would commute to work together in Jeremy’s truck, his beloved black lab Bo between them.

A friendship sprung up over fishing, both having grown up fishing Northern California waters, and they shared an interest in making and modifying baits. Interests sparked by a bait making contest with his father as a teenager, Jeremy taught himself how to paint custom baits with an airbrush, and soon gained a reputation through word of mouth in the angler community as the go-to guy for custom paintwork. Grant also toyed with bait making, even selling a few in stores, but neither of them considered it more than a hobby until they decided to form Black Dog Baits.

Somewhat surprisingly, although they were avid bass anglers, they were not swimbait guys from the get-go. Grant admits Jeremy was the first to take to big bait fishing. Jeremy describes himself as having been a “pretty traditional fisherman,” armed with the usual assortment of worms, jigs, crankbaits and traditional topwater baits. Then he started to notice some of the giants getting caught in Southern California.

He started with an 8” Osprey swimbait, which he says he threw until his arm nearly fell off, catching his first swimbait fish. From that point on, there was no going back. He was in his own words, ruined.

Jeremy says, “It just opens your eyes, and you realize what the true potential of a big bait is. That’s when you’re just ruined. It completely consumes you and changes the way you think, the way you fish, and the way that you even approach any given situation. At the end of the day, big fish eat small fish.”

Since then he’s fallen under the sway of the Huddleston Deluxe (“one of the most effective, killer swimbaits that’s ever been created.”), the 3:16 Lures by Mickey Ellis, and caught his personal best, a 16-2 on a Jerry Rago Generic Trout. But, even though he had found some big baits that he liked and worked for him, none of them were exactly what he wanted. Once a bait maker - always a bait maker. After one particular afternoon of getting skunked on trout filled waters, he decided that what he needed was a very specific lure.

“I really needed a bait with the profile of a trout that really had a tendency to want to jump out of the water, and I wanted some side flash to it, and I wanted the bait to roll a little bit on the twitch, so it would give the fish a good view of the side of the bait and recognize it as a trout. I would see trout jumping out of the water, jumping up the bank, and they were getting chewed on. And that’s where out of necessity, I went home and decided I needed to really make a bait that really duplicated what those trout were doing.”

That bait became the first Lunker Punker, a deceptively simple looking 8” cigar-shaped wooden topwater bait, with a couple of treble hooks, a feather tail, and Jeremy’s hand done trout paint scheme. It worked like a charm, and for the next few years it remained a closely guarded secret weapon for just a few friends in the know

“I’ve always been hand carving stuff and making stuff for myself, but I never really thought about selling it until I started Black Dog with Grant.”

In 2006, he and Grant decided to take it to the next level. They sat down to work out the details. Jeremy would be the designer, bait maker, and painter. He would spend his time hands-on, creating prototypes, testing, selecting components, tweaking, painting, and testing again.

Grant would handle the business of Black Dog Baits, which, between managing orders, negotiating with manufacturers, and keeping on top of the expanding web site, has become a full time gig.

“We really form a perfect team,” says Jeremy, “because I can be creative and I don’t have to worry or be stressed out about all these other things that come along with owning and running a business.”

When it came time to choose a name, it was easy. When Jeremy carved and painted lures on his own, his dog Bo was always at his side. To share the credit, he signed those baits as made by “Bassman & Black Dog” - a sort of bait-making super team. So they knew it had to be Black Dog Baits, for the loyal sidekick.

Bo passed away just months after they started the company. But a new heir to the throne, Mikey, has settled into his role as bait making sidekick, and bass boat co-pilot.

To launch the business, they decided to focus on a new bluegill design. The Shell Cracker would be a completely new two-piece jointed body, developed with the Delta and California lakes in mind. Says Grant, “No one had a really good swimming bluegill out. . . so let’s do something different.”

Jeremy set to work designing a prototype and started a year of rigorous testing and redesign until they settled on a final design. Grant started to pursue a manufacturing partner. Things did not go well on that end, and they spent a year just trying to get an acceptable sample from uncooperative prospective manufacturers. Finally Grant found a contact at Persuader Lures who hooked them up with a reliable manufacturer overseas. Within 3 months they had a working sample. They crossed their fingers and ordered the first 1000 baits.

Starting with little insider knowledge, and no previous experience in either the tackle industry or in manufacturing, the industry was intimidating at first, and the first few months were rough. The boxes were stacked up neatly in the garage, and although they had sold some, orders were not exactly pouring in. But both of them remained optimistic. They had faith in their design and that it was going to work out. They started to process again, setting out to release a commercial version of the Lunker Punker in spring of 2007.

In August of that year, they packed up those boxes and headed to ICAST, the huge annual Las Vegas tackle industry show, and what happened there took them both by surprise. The Lunker Punker was a hit. They sold every lure they had, and then some. They then spent the next eight months trying just to get caught up with orders.

They were surprised by how quickly it took off. “We didn’t expect anything like this,” says Grant, “We just thought we’d have a small lure company; have some fun with it. But it’s taken off more than we expected.”

Since then, business has been on a steady rise. They’ve introduced new versions of the original baits, as well as three others. They launched a new website a year ago to sell their baits online as well as show off big fish catches, video, gear recommendations, and the latest news. They’ve been well received both in the industry and by anglers. And in this short time, they have already taken on the mantle of experience, offering advice to other bait makers.

Going into business is always a risky proposition; going into business with your friend can be a disaster. But the combination of the creative talent that Jeremy brings to the table, matched by Grant’s business acumen, as well as the passion they both have for the sport has made the gamble a success. “We’re even closer buddies now,” Grant says, “We have to be.” In fact, it may be their friendship that kept them from quitting when things were tough. “If we didn’t know each other, we’d probably have killed each other. With so many letdowns in the beginning, most people would probably have given up.”

For the first time this year they manned their own booth at the BASS Master Classic expo in Louisiana. Big bait fishing has been a west coast phenomenon for a while, so they were not sure how they would be received outside of their territory. But they were pleasantly surprised by story after story of people who knew and fished their baits, and had stories to tell. As the rest of the country starts to catch on to the swimbait phenomenon, it’s just a matter of time before you’re seeing some of these big baits in the south and east.

Jeremy says, “It’s not a California phenomenon. It’s more of a state of mind. You just have to change the way your mind is geared, because these baits will work anywhere. It’s not necessarily a feeding response – it’s a defensive response.”

Grant adds that a lot of guys seem to be intimidated for the wrong reasons, because although huge fish will go for a swimbait, he points out that a 6-8” bait is very close to the size of the baitfish that those 4 to 10 lb. bass are already eating.

When asked about their success, and what advice they’d have for other aspiring bait makers, both are quick to point out that it’s been a lot of hard work, and also that it’s been worth it. Happily, one of the biggest challenges they are currently facing is staying on top of demand, which is a good kind of problem to have. They attribute their success to a combination of having a good product they both stand behind, optimism, and pure stubbornness at times. Stressing how important it is to test new lures and adjust the design, Jeremy says, “Take your time and do not rush is the biggest single piece of advice I could give. Never be 100% satisfied in your development, and always strive to be better and better.”

Grant advises, “Be patient. Be ready for a lot of let downs, and keep going and don’t ever give up.” There are new baits in the works. They see their success as an opportunity to keep innovating, and to keep improving. Grant says the goal is to “just continue to make better baits . . . keep up the high quality and keep doing the best we can do.”

Jeremy admits to having a lot of irons in the fire, creatively speaking, but he’s sticking to topwater. “My true passion is topwater baits. Period. I am just hopelessly addicted to topwater. I just don’t think there is a funner [sic] way to catch a fish.

He also recognizes that there’s a lot of up and coming bait makers out there and he welcomes the company. He says he doesn’t consider it competition, saying, “There’s a lot of creative minds out there that haven’t been discovered yet, and I see nothing but good things in the future [and] if it’s a hot, new, incredible bait, I just want to be the first to fish it.”

How do They Fish It?

Jeremy likes the 8”or 10” Lunker Punker on freshwater, trout fed waters. He likes the Shell Cracker on the Delta. Specifically, “the billed Shell Cracker on the Delta – that’s my baby.” He’s quick to point out that he’s not a guy that has to always be fishing his own lures. “I’ll fish whatever they’re eating. You don’t even want to know how much money I’ve spent.”

Grant goes for the Shell Cracker in the bluegill pattern. He says he has tons of confidence in it on just about any lake, but he also especially likes the Delta. “I can just throw that thing in between weeds and tulles, rocks, give it a couple of twitches, and then it disappears, because the fish love to eat it.”