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Music.

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Welcome to another episode of Muskie Gear Monday on the Team Rhino Outdoors

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Muskie Fishing Podcast. I'm Jeff with Team Rhino Outdoors and this week we are going to talk to Babe

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Campbell with Big Guy Baits. And we're going to talk primarily about his 7-inch bait, his 9-inch bait,

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and his 7-inch countdown. Those are the ones you can get at TeamRhinoOutdoors.com.

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But we're also obviously going to go down the history, what got him into muskie

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fishing, what got him into building baits, kind of the trials and tribulations

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of muskie bait builders.

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So that's kind of what's up for this episode it's been

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a relatively slow week on the receiving end

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at team rhino outdoors the ups guys haven't been

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bringing much neither is speedy but we did manage to

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get a shipment of savage gear burbot tubes it's a cool new bait for 2024 it's

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got an adjustable weight system on the tube and it's also got a rear blade trailer

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already pre-installed so it's It's kind of got some additional versatility.

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And so it's just a little bit different presentation than what may be out there

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already. So go check that out. And hopefully by the time you hear this episode, I also have up there new bucktails.

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And that, again, also has an adjustable weight system. It's got clip-on weights.

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So you can, you know, if you want to run your bucktail a little bit deeper,

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you want to run a little bit shallower, it's got a little bit of versatility there too.

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So just a couple new baits, cool new baits from Savage Gear. year.

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We also have, you know, you can just buy the packs of the weights for them and things like that.

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So I would imagine they'd probably work on, you know, your conventional bucktail,

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but I haven't had a chance to play with them yet.

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It's, you know, a week short, just a little bit a week before the muskie opener.

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When you hear this one for the Southern Wisconsin opener, it'll be like five days.

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So things are happening quick.

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It's going to be muskie season before you know it. And if you're

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still getting out and you're chasing muskies this opening weekend

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and you need a few you extra items you know we

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can potentially try to get you some gear so check

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out team rhino outdoors.com like i said typically we'd

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be known for custom musky baits exclusive

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colors to team rhino outdoors and we still have a pile of that stuff but don't

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forget us for rods reels nets and tackle boxes so those are just a few things

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that we have going on and nothing else to add to this episode i'll go dial up

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my conversation i had with babe campbell and big guy baits.

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All right my guest this week is babe campbell with big guy baits babe thanks

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for taking time out of your schedule i know april can be a pretty busy month

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in the musky world so i'm i'm happy that you were able to take a little bit

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of time here and talk about your company today. Thanks. Appreciate it, Jeff, for having me. Yeah, it's getting pretty busy with

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the opener being, what, seven days away in southern Wisconsin here.

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And I know I'm getting excited to get out and throw some of my new baits that

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I got coming up. But the way things are going, I might be too busy to get out.

3:02

And that does happen. I had a friend of mine ask me the other day,

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he's like, you got any plans for the Southern opener? I'm like, yeah, probably be in the shop for the Southern opener,

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but I may slide out, you know, the week after that Monday, Tuesday,

3:13

Wednesday, somewhere in there. Like sometimes, I mean, if I realistically, babe, you know, it is like working

3:18

for yourself aside from like obligations you have with your kids,

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like realistically, you can pretty much set whatever 18 hours a day you want to work. Right.

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So if you, you know, if you want to take off on Saturday, you can do that.

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But otherwise, if you work it and then you want, you can take off on Monday

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or Tuesday or whatever and kind of work your schedule around however you want.

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You just end up paying for it at some price. You know, at some point,

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you're not you're not obligated to punch a clock nine to five.

3:44

Right. Yeah, you're definitely right there. And there's a lot of nights that

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people don't understand. Like, oh, yeah, it's nice on your own business. It's like, yeah,

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up till clock last night, the night before.

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And, you know, just really burning the can of both ends. but you're right.

3:57

I remember when I first decided I was going to go full time and do this,

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my aunt told me, she's like, make sure to take time on the weekends to go fishing.

4:05

I'm like, forget that I'm working on the weekends and fishing during the week

4:08

when nobody's out there. Yeah. I mean, certainly if you can, you know, make it work, that's a far better option.

4:15

I know typically if I'm going to schedule a, a day to go fishing,

4:19

it's kind of probably be like a Thursday because I always figure like,

4:22

you know, Monday and Tuesday, many of those anglers are hoping Hoping probably

4:27

to have their baits by the weekend. But by the time Thursday rolls around, if you order on a Thursday and I don't

4:32

ship it that Thursday and I ship it Friday, you're probably not expecting it

4:36

for the following week anyways to go fishing with it.

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Or you likely shouldn't. If you order on a Thursday, I mean,

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we'll do our best to get it to you, but there's no guarantees that it's going to work out.

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Especially it seems like these days shipping has been just a little bit slower

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than typical. You know, like usually, I don't know if, you know,

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USPS and UPS have changed up like their processes a little bit,

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but it just seems like things have been a little bit slower. So, you know, just, just keep that in mind as you look to order musky baits this season.

5:05

You know, babe, let's talk about muskies to start off with. When,

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how long have you been musky fishing and why muskies?

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Well, I think I started musky fishing in the late nineties.

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I grew up catfish bait and that's all I knew.

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And all of a sudden I found some bass fishing and then, you know,

5:23

I'm like, oh, I accidentally caught a pike. I'm like, oh, that's cool. It's a lot of fun. I was really driven.

5:28

I went to Canada with my father-in-law while I had pike fishing.

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I'm like, man, let's go catch some pike, you know? and all of a

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sudden somebody told me about muskies i'm like wait what are muskies you

5:37

know and i really really love bow hunting and

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then basically the way it was explained is like it's basically bow

5:43

hunting fishing and just the

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drive for me to catch one was just tremendous and

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then all of a sudden i caught one i'm like because i

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mean i just got chills when i said that because i can remember the first

5:55

one that i ever caught it was so exciting and now i'm

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just completely part of the business that's

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solely muskie fishing related and it's just

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been a lot of fun oh yeah

6:07

it's it's crazy how you know how the once you get bit by one once you catch

6:12

one that's it could almost can consume you i mean i'm sure there's some people

6:15

that are like yeah that was fun but i'm going to move on to something else i

6:18

mean it seems like there's a certain percentage of revolving door within the

6:22

muskie industry you know you get new anglers in and out every single year.

6:26

And I'm guessing, like I said, people are like, yeah, yeah, that was fun.

6:30

But I don't want, I don't want to spend that much time on the water to only

6:34

catch one, you know, muskie or see one muskie.

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I have a friend of mine and he was big into muskies for a while.

6:40

And that's what he, his, his kid wants to go muskie fishing with me because

6:44

his dad won't take him because he's like, ah, it's too boring. There's too much casting with no action, which I get, but

6:49

I've never caught a bass or a walleye or

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anything else that makes my heart rate change like a

6:55

muskie does once you've bitten by it for some people like

6:57

you said it just consumes you and obviously it has done

7:00

that with you know with you and it's done it with me and countless other

7:03

muskie anglers it's just it's it's a wild ride that's for sure yeah i took my

7:09

kid muskie fishing and i caught one and after he netted it for me i was shaking

7:13

he's like dad why are you shaking i'm like man i just i can't explain it buddy

7:18

he said you'll you'll feel it one day and like three casts later,

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he hooked one and it popped off, right?

7:23

We went to net it and I looked at him. I'm like, Hey, why are you shaking? He's like, shut up.

7:28

You know so it's a cool experience it definitely grabs a

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hold of you there's just no experience like it i mean outside of

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like i said shooting a trophy deer in your lifetime that's

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about the only thing i can relate comparable to the

7:40

sport that we love well it's even

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better when you get your kids into it if they're you know if they're into it i

7:45

got two that are into it and i got two that aren't i've talked about this

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on on this podcast and in backlash podcast numerous

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times like my my oldest daughter and

7:54

my oldest son they're into it i shouldn't say my my youngest

7:57

his son he's not into it he's just starting to get into

8:00

it because he's only 10 so but I think he

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I think three of the four are actually going to end up being muskie anglers and

8:06

well you know my son got his first casting last

8:09

year my daughter's you know gotten a handful of muskies and last year she just

8:14

had bad luck every time I took her out she'd hook one but she just couldn't

8:17

put it in the net and you know watching them catch one it it in my opinion those

8:23

are the best muskies I've ever seen caught in my life.

8:26

Like watching my kids do it is, is awesome just because like they're pure,

8:30

you know, the excitement is pure, right? They smile in their pictures. They're super excited about it.

8:35

You know, us grumpy old men, we don't hardly smile in pictures anymore because

8:38

it's just like, oh, ho-hum, you know, like I'm holding this muskie.

8:41

But like for them, it's just, you know, bright eyed and bushy tailed and just

8:46

super excited about it. It's awesome. Yeah, definitely reminds you why we started doing it and why we love it so much.

8:53

And my kids haven't got theirs yet, but they're driven.

8:56

My son tells me, he's like, this is the year dad, this is the year.

8:59

So, you know, if we can squeeze some time in between their activities,

9:02

we're gonna get it done for sure. Yeah. The activity is that's, that's a whole nother story. It's a baseball season for me.

9:10

So it's been lots of nights. It's a diamond already, but all right.

9:14

So babe, you got into musky fishing, you got bit by the bug, musky fishing.

9:18

Why did you decide you want to get into musky baits?

9:21

Well i was i've always been

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a woodworker i've got a woodworking shop here at the house and

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you know i've always loved woodworking and i wanted

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i love fishing minnow baits but i couldn't find a minnow bait that

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i could fish in the shallow cover like i fish a lot so i'm

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like you know there's a need for that in the market i didn't really plan on

9:41

there was a need for it that tool in my toolbox so my buddy and i were of course

9:47

sitting in the wood shop on a friday night having a couple beers and he looked

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at me he goes babe why don't you make your own i'm like,

9:55

oh well that makes sense you know i got the woodworking tools the knowledge

9:59

you know i love fishing was a perfect marriage and then i just started from there and it took me,

10:04

oh about a year and a half to get my seven inch pull minnow bait nailed down

10:11

and that thing is It's just awesome for heavy cover, for, you know,

10:16

real thick weeds, rocks, wood.

10:19

It was just a tool I needed. So I, I built it and here I am today.

10:23

All right. So you built, you basically started building musky baits out of necessity, right?

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I mean, you, you had a crankbait idea that, you know, you're a big and efficient

10:32

crankbaits and you needed a tool to get the job done because the other tools

10:36

on the market weren't necessarily exactly what you're looking for.

10:40

Or what makes your you know we're going to talk primarily about your seven inch

10:43

your nine inch and your seven inch countdown today but like you know people

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see your seven inch bait and they kind of look at it and they probably think

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oh this has got to be a twitch bait but in reality it's really not once you

10:53

talk a little bit about it yeah that that's a common misconception when people look at.

10:58

I think baits in general, they look at a bait and like, oh, it looks like that

11:02

bait. Then it should do that bait. People need to get these baits in their hands and work them and see what they

11:07

do and talk to the makers and see why they made them.

11:10

Like I said, the 7-inch shallow pull bait will run about 6 to 10 inches.

11:15

You can get it down to 18 inches if you really work it really hard.

11:19

But then it has a real slow rise. So if you got those fish that are up in that

11:23

slop and you want to run something through there other than a spinner bait or even topwater,

11:28

water you can and you know a lot of times those fish will

11:30

hit on the pause and you can't really do that with those

11:33

other baits you can't just pause them it was just something

11:36

that i saw necessary and i wanted and

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the fact of the idea of catching a muskie on something i made was just awesome

11:45

to me and now 75 of the muskies i've caught in my life have been on baits that

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i've made all right well i think i skipped a step here so let's talk about the

11:53

process of musking bait we kind of jumped into the baits a little bit let's

11:56

talk about the process because Because, you know, the crazy thing about it is there's many companies in the muskie industry

12:02

that people think are really big companies. They're, you know, they're from over, like their products come from overseas.

12:08

But the reality of it is many companies in the muskie industry are built right

12:12

here in the Midwest or, you know, or East or whatever. But a lot of it's Midwest based.

12:18

And, you know, it's not people in big shops.

12:22

Like a big, a big company in muskie fishing would be like six people.

12:26

That would be big. Most of them are one or two people.

12:29

It's usually like the maker and maybe his wife or a friend or a brother.

12:34

You know, like that kind of stuff. Let's talk about the process because I don't think people understand that you

12:38

literally do everything yourself on these baits, maybe outside of building the

12:44

lips or stamping the lips. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I was thinking the other day, too,

12:48

when you say the Midwest, I'm based out of northern Illinois,

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like five minutes from the Wisconsin border. And I'm amazed at how many builders there are within half an hour of me.

13:00

And it's nice that we all work together, too. and so that

13:03

helps a lot because it said the process sometimes like man i

13:06

can't figure this out what's going on with this and luckily most of

13:09

the builders are nice enough you can call them or text them

13:12

like hey how are you doing this or that and like we'll all

13:15

share stuff together and you're right i do everything myself

13:18

outside of you know if i can talk my wife into putting hooks

13:21

on once in a while and my kids will help me

13:24

to you know earn their keep in the

13:27

house here or a friend will have like a body making day and

13:30

they'll come over and we'll make four or five hundred bodies in

13:33

a day that way i have time to paint them and third coat them and

13:35

all that stuff and you know one of the things about

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my baits that people really like are

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they're wood all my baits are wood outside of the bucktails that i make i buy

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buy my stuff raw and i have all the fixtures that i made so everything can be

13:53

duplicated as close as possible you know i have I have a fixture to put the

13:57

lead in. I have a fixture to cut it on the router.

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And then I have, you know, certain patterns that I paint. I have stencils for most of that stuff.

14:04

And then I've, you know, I quit my job two years ago to do this full time.

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I had one rotisserie wheel. I could do 24 baits at a time.

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I now have four and I can do up to 160 baits in one day on the clear coating wheels.

14:22

So the process has stepped up quite tremendously.

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It's just fun to create stuff on my hands, something that, you know,

14:29

nobody else is doing. And in order to get the tools you need,

14:32

I think you have to do that. Yeah. Like you said, everybody finds, you know, in business,

14:36

even with, you know, I mean, we're just basically at its most basic form or

14:40

taking lures and we're putting them in boxes and sending them out. Right.

14:44

But the whole process from this business, from like the very beginning to what

14:48

it is now has changed probably 180 degrees.

14:51

And the volume that we've done has obviously

14:54

increased but it doesn't necessarily always feel like incrementally you

14:58

know how much time it takes to do it and i'm assuming you're seeing the same thing

15:01

with the you know building the crankbaits yeah absolutely

15:04

there's uh i told buddy the other day i'm like hey i don't feel like

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i'm working as hard as i used to and he's like every time i call

15:10

you you're doing something with crankbaits with the the business and i tell

15:15

you one thing i can build you anything but i definitely got a crash course in

15:18

being a businessman when i started this and that's been fun to learn something

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new and i think that's what really drives me is i love inventing new dates and

15:26

learning new stuff and it just keeps going and going.

15:30

Yeah, very cool. So, you know, before we get into the, you know,

15:34

three specific baits, let's talk about if everybody's looking for your full

15:37

lineup of baits and once you kind of talk a little bit about them.

15:39

Where can they find them all at? It um you can find everything that i

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make at bigguybaits.com that

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would include the seven and nine shallow

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pull baits the seven and countdowns the

15:55

witch doctor flap tails which are phenomenal

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you can reel them fast or slow

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big fish producers i also

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had i took over rich ronard's bucktail business

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riches ambush due to his health he was no longer able

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to keep up with the production a lot

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of people didn't even know he made these but he thought it

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would help me round out my lineup

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and also help him out by keeping his

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business going the way he wanted to go so that's

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where you can also you can find uh after probates

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by 9-inch probates and my countdown team running

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in all doors excellent so we'll get into those a

16:36

little bit here you know we kind of touched on them a little bit let's say

16:39

typical retrieve i'm casting that thing out how are you

16:42

working this bait we're talking seven inch and nine inch

16:45

on the shallow pole baits yeah on the shallow pole weights

16:48

like i said a lot of people have a misconception that's a twitch bait some

16:51

people can twitch them but they're not made a twitch bait and i'll

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tell you the difference is a twitch bait has about a 50 degree

16:57

lip angle the shallows have a 38 degree

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lip angle and when i cast them out i'll give it a couple short pulls and let.

17:06

It pause and rise at the top and then i'll give it a long pull and i'll let

17:09

it rise the top and just kind of vary your cadence in but i mean you can straight

17:14

retrieve them if you want i know some people will troll them at a very very slow rate,

17:20

yeah just let it pause and just give it a pop don't i mean sometimes i find

17:24

myself shouldn't like rubber sometimes i'm just whipping it and it's like a

17:29

lot of times i'll just reel it in and rip it and reel it in and all of a sudden like okay where's it getting

17:33

a pop up i kind of play the game of where's my bait at and all of a sudden it gets smoked by a fish.

17:39

Excellent so i mean basically what you're telling

17:42

me is that you know these crankbaits a lot of times people

17:45

see a crankbait too and they assume it's trolling bait it's definitely

17:48

built for casting oh absolutely everything that i

17:51

get that question a lot at the show is like can you troll them i'm

17:54

like you can i don't troll them i

17:57

don't i'm not a big troller right and i'm not against it but i do

18:00

have people who troll them i know they said around two two miles an

18:03

hour you control these things but everything that i

18:05

built is built for casting it's very lightweight you

18:09

know i'm not a big bait guy by any means

18:12

so i wanted to make sure that my baits were light enough for everybody to cast

18:16

all right now i'm switching up to the countdown let's talk about that is it

18:21

the same kind of cadence when you're working it is it a pole or is this is this

18:24

a twitch you can actually do both with this. The Countdown was another...

18:30

Tool that i saw needed to be put into my toolbox

18:33

and like i said once again it has

18:37

such that you throw it out there you count it down on it

18:40

you can fish it in six inches you can fish it in 20 feet i

18:42

have a friend who uses forward facing sonar and he tells me

18:45

he's seen it down to 23 feet deep and he can

18:48

watch it wobble all the

18:51

way back on his sonar just fish the

18:53

way it is and give it that pause and the thing is with this bait it's

18:57

unlike rubber where rubber will keep descending suspending

18:59

where this will kind of almost suspend it still

19:02

sinks but if you hold a tight line on there it'll suspend right in front of

19:07

these fish's face and if you have a neutral fish and you know that fish is there

19:10

you know he's from four to sixty you can probably get him to go on that because

19:15

he's going to get upset and attack that thing about what's the sink rate on these things,

19:20

i'd say about a half a foot per second now the density of wood is crazy so i

19:27

weigh every one of these, when I pull them off the rotisserie,

19:30

if they don't weigh enough, I add another. All my baits have a minimum of two coats of true coat epoxy on them.

19:37

If they don't weigh what they have to, they get another coat.

19:40

That way it's evenly dispersed until they weigh the amount that they're supposed to weigh.

19:46

And I suggest using a single strand wire leader of about six to nine inches

19:51

and then use high quality braid.

19:55

Makes it work right. Sure. I think that's one thing people don't understand

19:59

is inherently the different, you know, densities of each piece of wood, it makes it a challenge.

20:04

I think in some cases, I talked about it with Jeff Hansen last week and,

20:08

you know, we did a wood versus plastics debate. And I think that, you know, in some cases, that's what, that's why,

20:13

okay, like sometimes you have that wood bait that is the bait, right?

20:17

Because it's just slightly different than all the other wood baits.

20:20

And I mean, I'm not, I'm not knocking wood baits at all.

20:23

I'm just saying like, sometimes they are like literally just special, right?

20:27

Oh, I get guys who call me and say, hey, I have this one, this one wood metal

20:31

bait you made me, make me another one exactly like, and I'm like, I can get it real close.

20:37

I can't say it's exactly like, cause I get, I use all premium pine.

20:41

It's actually called Kiwi pine. It's from Australia to make my baits and the same board.

20:48

I get, you know, multiple blanks out of it and none of them weigh the same.

20:54

You know, I've done the testing of going through and weighing,

20:56

like, let's say I get 20 baits out of one board, all 20 of them weigh different,

21:01

and some of them are extremely different. That's crazy how, how that works. I mean, it's the same thing I get.

21:07

Some people are like, Hey, I want this headlock. I want you to weigh them all.

21:10

I want like the heaviest one, which is funny because I have some people that

21:14

are still like, Hey, I want you to weigh them all too. And then I want the lightest one.

21:17

It's just, it's crazy is, and to me, the reason that the way I get my baits

21:22

and my tackle box is if one has like a slight flaw on it, maybe it comes with

21:25

a scratch or a Nick or something on it.

21:28

Those are the ones I get. And they, they all seem to catch fish.

21:34

It's Yeah. I mean, definitely all my, the same thing, my baits,

21:37

I'm not going to pull a bait I could sell off the wall and put in my box.

21:39

There's going to be one that like, say the eye slid down during the epoxy in or something like that.

21:44

And I have like a, you know, a bait with an eye on its butt and it's like,

21:47

well, what are we doing here? And those are the ones that work too. And, you know, there's,

21:51

there's definitely all my baits, you know, are ready to use out of the box.

21:55

You know, some baits you have to buy like, cool, I'm going to switch the hooks

21:59

out. I use all quality stuff and my stuff is designed with all the,

22:03

like say it has three hooks on it. It's designed and action requires those three hooks to be where they're at and

22:10

on the bait for it to work right. You don't need to change any of my stuff out. It's ready to go.

22:15

Very cool. So, babe, I think we, based off my checklist, I think we covered

22:19

most everything. Is there anything else that you think that we need to add to this conversation?

22:23

Oh, not really. Just, you know, good luck on the opener coming up here.

22:27

And like I said, if you guys are interested in checking out my baits,

22:30

check out bigguybaits.com and you can get your countdowns and shallows at Team Rhino.

22:34

And I really appreciate you having me on here. And, you know,

22:37

I'm, I'm very excited and appreciative of where I'm at in life and being able

22:42

to do this as a full-time job. Yeah, definitely. It's a, it's a fun ride. And I mean, hopefully many,

22:48

many more years for both of us. Like I said, it's been a, it's been a journey. That's for sure.

22:52

I want to thank you for your time today. It's been, you know,

22:54

good talking about big guy baits. And like babe said, if you're looking for

22:57

your selection of big guy baits, check out big guy baits.com. We'll have everything.

23:02

And I mean, it's potential. You might see a few different items pop up on a

23:06

team rhino outdoors.com. But for now we have the seven inch shallow pole baits. You got the nine inch

23:11

shallow pole baits and the seven inch countdowns. Seven inch countdowns are new recently and they've been moving well.

23:17

So if you're looking to gear up for your next musky fishing adventure,

23:20

make sure you check out team rhino outdoors.com. And as always,

23:23

I want to thank our listeners for putting up with us for another episode.

23:26

And I hope for all of you that are getting your muskie season started this coming

23:30

weekend for the Southern Opener, I hope you guys have a very great luck.

23:35

I say guys, but I mean anglers, because there's definitely many female muskie anglers these days.

23:40

So I hope you guys and gals put some big muskies in the net and good luck fishing.

23:44

Music.