My favorite lures! The original gold plated Al’s Goldfish and their new Living Lures in baitfish living colors, are hooking and holding our backyard neighbors.
APtravelnews- Bob & Barb “Stopping to Smell The Roses” in our backyard images–November 26th, Port St Lucie, FL-OK! I know, goofy about fishing and all things involved in fooling the finicky and the foolhardy gluttons too! I know Largemouth are touted as being finicky feeders, yet i found a lure group that slays them (I carefully release all top predators, bass are in that category) with ease. Just 15-feet from our screen door lanai, down a slightly sloping grass backyard, lies a very large rain holding pond. This 10-acre pond is interconnected with several additional ponds in our private, HOA (hate HOA, except the ponds are protected from unabated, indiscriminate catch and take use) neighborhood. When I want to check out anything I offer it to my dozens of backyard neighbors; Largemouth, giant brim, and the invasive, but fun loving Peacock bass. Of all the many hard and soft lures I’ve tried and had fine success with, nothing has been more consistent in having a neighbor visit their side of the pond mud and weed than by them accepting the invitation I offer with AL’s Goldfish Co. lures. We will also be testing these lures in the Keys with our son and daughter Brian and Diane on our Mako. Stay tuned to see if our old neighbors when we lived in the Keys will come to visit again! For a good look at AL’s Goldfish Co. go: www.alsgoldfish.com
Barb loves to fish when she has an edge and doesn’t have the whole day to hopefully hook a neighbor with shoulders enough for us to spar with! She has become an Al’s lover too!
Chasing Trophy Fish lures would be “what’s for dinner” if I was a predator. They actually look real and better in many cases than the real thing with fins and smell!
APtravelnews- August 2nd, Goose Holler’ Farm– Product Reviews–When I met Vaughn Holderman (owner of CTF Lures) at ICAST, in Orlando, FL., I knew from his passion about his excellent products and his obvious love and knowledge at such an early age, that this lure company was special! He mirrored many generations of would be anglers who grew up marveling and loving their tender-years experience down at pond, lake, ocean, bay, river and stream. Well, Vaughn has really outdone the hard-lure genre and soft as well, with his jointed and straight stick and swim lures. The lures are available in the following patterns: Brook Trout, Perch, Shiner, Shad, Tiger Trout, Pickerel, Northen Pike and Palomino. There are divers, square bill crankers and wobblers in big and littler bait sizes. His soft jointed and wire jointed are in large and small sizes as well. These lures as stated on their brochure are “As real as it gets.” www.chasingtrophyfish.com
Aptravelnews-Throw-back and forward- Goose Holler’ Farm-Several decades ago, I proudly owned a Mitchell 300 Spinning Reel with “fat” (compared to today’s diameters) 6-pound test monofilament, attached to a clear fiberglass spinning rod from the long gone, Davega, Brooklyn sporting goods store, and a small metal tackle box, (I still have today) whose little compartments contained the few lures I could buy, after begging my Grandfather David and Uncle Sid for a buck or two! In that steel, brown painted box was a shiny, golden metal lure called Al’s Goldfish. It shared compartment spaces with a Jitterbug, Hula Popper, a Mepp’s spinner or two, and 3-sizes of red and white, and black and white Daredevils spoons.
Playing with 5 of Al’s Lures and after using them to catch several fish, I popped the treble hook covers on and no finger hookups!
I lived in Brooklyn, New York in a tenement building with my mom, Mary, Dad, Nat and Brother Mike. My dad was an amputee (his toes) from being in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, during the Nazi War. He was an excellent musician, and never had the patience or interest to take me fishing. The only fishing I could reach at my early age, was when I cut school to head over to the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard docks, and I let none of these lures ever touch the diesel coated waters, I used grizzle and fat I collected from my grandmothers garbage pail, impaled on a size 8-hook, under several pinch-on lead split shot, the kind a kid used his teeth to clamp them on the line with, and hoped for the tug of an eel, so I could yell triumphantly when I felt the bend and throb of the rod.
Only during the summer, when my grandfather rented a bungalow in the Catskill Mountains, did I choose to use my prized lures. Before I was 10-years old, I caught trout, bass and sunfish always referred to as “Bluegills” in the lake regions of upstate New York. My favorite lure then was Al’s Goldfish! All my lures worked, but the action this little shiny, gold-plated, brass spoon always offered, seemed to guide my hand at decision time, to tie one on, as I opened my treasure chest, tackle-box; like a Ouija -board pointer, my fingers selected the “gold.” Many years, and trillions of gallons of rushing waters later, I heard that Al’s Goldfish had been languishing in the hands of folks that finally sold the business and patents to someone new, a young entrepreneur named Mike Lee from Maine. From all indications he is dedicated to resurrecting Al’s Goldfish to the “top-of-the-mind” of freshwater anglers once again and genuinely wishes to offer jobs to Americans as well.
I’m here to tell you, even though I’ve drifted over to the fly fishing genre of fishing, I still love and use spin, conventional and if I have to, in far-away places like the Congo, for one of the many places I’ve fished; hand-lines too! Look for more on Al’s Goldfish story and heritage in upcoming posts. www.alsgoldfish.com
As you will see, from Al’s new Living Lures, to Field and Stream naming Al’s as one of the “Top Ten Lures” and still being made only in the USA, together with Al’s treble hook covers, as Arnold said: “Al’s be back!!!!
Always like great fishing tools and Frabill makes excellent fishing pliers and forceps to help preserve the fingers and the fish when unhooking them!Al’s new Living Lures have just been introduced and I tried a fingerling bass. Bass are more than big mouthed predators, they are also cannibalistic! 1st cast, hit hard!
