FloridaFishinFool

Yes sir I said it should not be load bearing if it can be helped, but if the line is putting any pressure on that guide under load when it tightens up and wants to straighten out, I said I would rather that pressure be directed down the guide to the rod, not side to side in any way. I think placement is critical.

I don't recall which line it was, either copoly or fluro, but when I stretched it, any kinks disappeared. If you don't have our Florida weather where you are at and won't be fishing with it until spring, then come spring time you will probably have a full reel of line memory! A corkscrew of line will come off that thing in the spring. New line! Try braid!

I could not locate any spiderwire rods, but I did find a couple of Fenwick pistol grip rods on ebay with one being sold for $175! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fenwick-HMG-graphite-pistol-grip-casting-rod-GFC-556-Fuji-handle-/291652329517?hash=item43e7d5602d:g:7FEAAOSwLN5WiaEU I also found this interesting old Grizzly Fenwick rod with a really cool featherweight pistol grip I'd sure like to get my hands on just this handle: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Grizzly-Fenwick-Model-CA-624-Rod-Fishing-Baitcasting-Original-FEATHERWEIGHT-GRIP-/131677036978?hash=item1ea89021b2:g:RiQAAOSwbdpWZxDS And while scoping out some old pistol grip rods on ebay tonight I found this neat old Quantum pistol grip that is designed to look like the shimano rod I mentioned above in another comment: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quantum-Magnum-Plus-graphite-fightin-rod-style-pistol-grip-casting-rod-/291652300373?&_trksid=p2056016.m2518.l4276

Another way you could try is an epoxy sealant. Gluvit is a common one to use.

A lot of interesting information for sure. I have been constructing my own spiral wrap rods for years and in practice I keep changing with each new rod done in a spiral wrap. I read all these formula's people use which do work, but not all rods are the same and one formula may not be ideal for every rod. On my latest spiral wrap I just finished today, I did something a little bit different because the rod told me to make the change on the 90 degree guide. I put the rod under load and watched the spiral transition change because of a slight curve in the rod shifted the angle the line flowed through the guide under load, so to straighten this out I had to readjust the 90 degree guide to closer to 100 degrees. I have build spiral wraps in several different ways with the first guide at 0 degrees, the next at 90 and third at 180. And I have even used up to 4 guides in the spiral wrap, but today I only use 3. (And for the record as mentioned in this thread, I am not one of those people who would just use two guides and let the line rub on the rod. Not me, but to each their own if they like it. I prefer 3 guides, and the rod I did today was more like 10 degrees for the first guide, 100 degrees for the second, and 170 for the third with the last 10 degrees between 3 and 4th guide out. I suppose technically it is a 4 guide approach but really seems like 3. When I approach doing a spiral wrap the first thing I do is a bend test on the rod blank and determine where the rod really begins to bend under load, and I look and see where the rod is within 97% straight under load and I mark this spot on the rod blank usually with a piece of tape. This boundary tells me that all of the guides north of the mark should be on the under side of the rod, and the guides South of this mark towards the reel can be on top of the rod blank. And usually my spiral wrap around will have this mark about in the middle of the spiral wrap. As I put the guides on a rod I usually start with the underside guides, the ones I know have a fixed specific location and I work my way back to the marked boundary between the bend under load and the straight part of the rod under load. All but the last guide on the bottom will be epoxied into place. I will then usually put the tip on so the top of the rod is done. Next I will put the last 3 guides on and not put any epoxy on them at this time. This allows me the opportunity to adjust their angle to the ideal locations so I can visually judge the angle of transition in the line from guide to guide. The ideal "look" would be a straight line spiral, but each guide is actually putting a small degree corner or angle in the line and what I want to do is divide out this angle evenly throughout the spiral so that there is not a larger degree of turn in one section of guides to the next. You can't do this sort of thing on paper. There is no real formula for it either. Every rod bends differently so the guide placement for each rod will or should be slightly different from one rod to the next. As I tweak the angle of the guides while under load with line in them as if I had a fish on the hook, I look at how the line transitions from guide to the next and what I want to see is the line under load pulled to the center of the bottom of the guide. I don't want it to ride up the sides of the guide when under load. If you have the angle of the guide too much to one side under load the line will ride up that side and if at too much of angle in the other direction the line will ride up the other side under load as the line is trying to pull itself straight I want to adjust the angle of the guide to be centered on where the line would pull straightest if that makes any sense. Ideally when I look at the line under load wrapping around the rod, I want each guide to be in alignment with the line, not the line in alignment with the rod which could be pulled too much to one side or the other as it spiral wraps around- especially under load. Casting is not under load in my opinion, only simulating fish on the hook is bending the rod same as it would with a fish on the hook is how I want to visually watch the line flow through the guides. On to another subject... should the first guide be 0 degrees or not? I am well aware of how line on a reel can be pulled heavier to one side if not going in and out of the reel straight out the front, but there is a little room for play in this area and I have experimented with it and I have concluded that the first guide can be as much as 10 degrees off center without a line stacking problem in the reel. I started down this road because the very first spiral wrap rod I ever saw I bought at a garage sale 20 years ago, and even then the rod was and seemed old. It is a custom rod in every sense of the word. There is not one word anywhere on the rod and it has a hodge podge mix of guides used on it, but it is a true spiral wrap, but it did not have a first guide at the 0 degree or even the 10 degree position. It only had the 90 degree guide and went immediately to the 180 guides on the bottom. I have used this rod with every baitcast reel imaginable and none of them had a line stacking problem. Not a one of them. So I know today that my use of the first guide being no more than 10 degrees off center is no where near as extreme as going from the reel itself straight to the 90 degree guide, so 10 degrees off center should not even be an issue for line stacking up on one side of a reel and it has not been an issue for me. So I now use the strategy of distributing the 180 degrees out over a wider spiral path and adjust the guide placement angles based on how the line is pulled through them under load because that is when it will matter most. If it is a tad off when casting so be it. Not an issue. The line when casting is far looser and free flowing than tight under load with a bent rod and that is when I want those guides to give me the straightest line in the spiral wrap just like the straight threads wrapping around a screw or bolt. If the line is not straight as it flows through the spiral then every degree it is off and caused to make a sharper and sharper turn is when friction will jump up. I want each guide to experience about the same load when under load and not just go with some formula on paper that may or may not be right for whatever rod I am wrapping in a spiral wrap. I hope this makes sense... If I did the standard 0 degree, 90 degree, and 180 degree and pulled the line tight under load through that, I would see some serious angles in each turn as the line goes through the 0 and makes a hard turn down to the 90 degree and so on. By doing a wider spiral path programmed in the straight portion of the rod under load so it transitions to the underside after the bend begins, the line on my rods follows the absolute straightest path through the guides I can possible give it. So if you were to put a ruler on the tight line under load from the first guide to the 3rd guide it would be darn near ruler straight through the transition. For my way of thinking this is the most ideal I can strive for. So in all honesty, my latest rod finished today I said was close to 10 degrees, 100 degrees, and 170 degrees, in reality it could be more like 8 degrees, 97 degrees, and 167 degrees. It is not a specific science of degrees. It is more of a science of how straight can you make the flow of the line through the spiral wrap portion when under load and rod is bending. It has nothing to do with a straight rod with no load and some formula on paper everyone says works. For me, that is just a guide for a starting point. I let the rod and straightest line flow under load show me where the guides should be. Then I epoxy them in place and go fishing with it. Some of the first rods I did with a spiral wrap were according to the standard 0, 90, and 180 and even some with 4 guides, and today I don't like them as much as the way I do it now. I really like the spiral wrap around to center up on the bend in the rod under load. I don't want the spiral wrap around to be too close to the reel. I want it as far out onto the rod as I can push it and finding that magic spot between the bending rod and straight portion under load is where I want the spiral wrap to do its thing so by the time the line is reaching the bend in the rod under load, it is all suspended under the rod with no twisting to the rod blank at all. It is a smooth straight line transition all the way through the spiral wrap. I found some images on line to illustrate what I am trying to describe... This is a good image of a rod under load with a spiral wrap, and in my opinion this is a nicely done spiral wrap, but I wonder if they tested it under load when they epoxied the guides in place??? Take a look at how the line flows from the first guide on the left, the 0 degree guide, look at how it flows through the 2nd guide and to the 3rd guide. Do you see how the 2nd guide is actually now lifting up the line under load? That 2nd guide could actually be moved to the right just a couple of degrees and it would straighten that line out through this transition under load. You won't find this out with a straight rod under no load and some degrees from a standard formula off some paper somewhere. If I had built this rod, I would have caught this slight misalignment before those first three guides were epoxied in place. I would have seen this situation and adjusted that 2nd guide to be in line with the tight line and not lifting it under load causing more friction in that guide under load. On my rods I want to be able to put a ruler across 3 guides under load and see a straight tight line no matter how bent the rod is. I want those guides coming into alignment under load, not going out of alignment. What is happening here is that now that the top end of this rod is being bent and pulled down under heavy loading, it is bending and pulling that 3rd guide down now causing that 2nd guide to carry more weight of the load in the line and making the line make a sharp turn in that one guide. Take the load off this rod that line will straighten back up between the 2nd and 3rd guide. I am saying I want it straight under load. This rod is slightly out of adjustment, but close. Close enough to work, but is it ideal? In the photo above, ideal would be a straight line, ruler straight tight line under load from the reel to the 3rd guide. End of story. Make that happen. And to do so with what this rod is showing me under load, the first and second guide now under load should be slightly shifted to the right. Both of them- in order to straighten that line out under load through the transition spiral. This is why I carefully choose the location of where on the rod blank the spiral transition takes place. You can not simply pick a spot at random. You don't do the wrap around in the bend under load and doing all of the wrap around on the straight part of the rod is not ideal either. Use the bend under load in your favor and adjust the guide spacing and angles to take full advantage of the beginning of the bend and use it in helping you create a smooth spiral wrap transition sort of like how a masted sailing ship sails under an arched bridge. Use the arch (bend) in the rod under load as a way of improving line flow around the rod shaft under load. I hope this makes sense! This is a perfect example of why following degrees off some chart in some book may not be ideal for every rod! In this image the rod is not under load, but it almost looks like the line is going straight through the first guide and resting on the 2nd guide out from the reel making its spiral wrap from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th guide out. It may be an optical illusion, but if the line is resting on the guide insert in that first guide, it appears to be riding up on the left side. If so, that guide could have been tilted over to the left a few more degrees so the line would flow down the center of the guide which is ideal to me and what I strive for. From this view it almost looks like that first guide is not doing much at all and if removed it does not look like it would have much of an effect on this rod's spiral wrap design. In other words, the 180 degree transition is not evenly spread out from what I see here. On my rods I want the line under load pulling the guide straight into the rod blank down through the guide stems, not riding up high one side or the other of a guide putting an off-center pull to that guide- a twist pressuring the wrap threads and epoxy sideways under load. In other words, the guide is preventing the line from pulling straight and rather than that guide be glued in the wrong place, it should be able to adjust to move to where the line pulls straightest and puts the least amount of pressure and friction on each guide. There is an optimal position and it can only be found under load. This is why I do not epoxy the spiral wrap guides in place until I do a line flow check under load and carefully adjust each guide to its optimum position whatever the degree is- and spacing. Let the rod and line under load show where the truest placement of each guide should be! I know of no better way- not yet anyways... My .03 cents on it anyways.

I think one of the most interesting pistol grip rods ever made was made by Shimano, their Magnumlite Fightin' Rod series. Shimano made a rod and the handle one piece by basically cutting the handle out of the rod blank itself. To my knowledge I don't think anyone else ever made anything like this shimano pistol grip rod: It was a uniquely shaped all graphite rod blank with an unusually large diameter base that the handle was carved into.

Right now on ebay is a pair of St. Croix pistol grip rods I was looking at today: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TWO-ST-CROIX-PREMIER-2403-ML-56-PISTOL-GRIP-CASTING-RODS-MADE-IN-USA-/172042909482?hash=item280e8e772a:g:S44AAOSwo3pWgDq5 Wish I had one- or, both!

One of the issues I have had with pistol grip rods over the years is the reel seat. I prefer the type that has a nut that threads down the handle going around the rod shaft like this one: The type of pistol grip reel seat I have had problems with is the type with a screw going up through the bottom of the pistol grip that pulls down a piece onto the reel foot. I had some of these that simply would not tighten down all the way and the reel was loose and rocked around in the reel seat. Anyone else have this problem? Here is an example of the type of pistol grip presently for sale on ebay I would not buy nor use: http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Vintage-Casting-Rod-Handles-w-pistol-grip-USA-NICE-Reduced-/281899056002?&_trksid=p2056016.m2518.l4276 I also don't like the cheap plastic construction for pistol grips. I know they are heavier, but after some bad experiences breaking a pistol grip with a big bass on the line I now prefer all metal pistol grips to plastic.

And also voids most warranties too if you go outside the manufacturer's rated limitations for rods and reels.

So its that long lake with the island in it? Google satellite looks like it is surrounded by houses all the way around. Is there public access to this lake? Here is the google image of where I think you are talking about: https://www.google.com/maps/@30.2420537,-81.6141174,700m/data=!3m1!1e3 I grew up across the river in Orange Park and I never knew of this lake. I grew up fishing the St. Johns River and small ponds in the area. The only real lake I knew about was off of Wells Road on what use to be a cattle ranch but is now all developed. The lake is now clogged up with grass and weeds. But there is still some good ponds in the area to fish. I now live in central Florida and still have a fondness for the St. Johns river, but I tell you true, the river down here is far superior to how it is up there in north Florida in my opinion. Up there in Orange Park it is over 3 miles wide and fish scattered out wide all over the place. Down here it is usually less than 100 feet wide in a lot of places. Up there fish were harder to hunt down especially for a kid without a boat. Now that I have a boat fishing the river down here I can easily cover the entire width of the river. And there is virtually no development along the river down here. All natural. I love the differences! When I was a kid growing up in the Jacksonville area, some of the men in my Orange Park neighborhood who had bass boats- and my dad too- liked to head South down highway 17 and head into the Ocala National Forest to seek out some untouched lakes in the backwoods. Or, they would go to Kingsley lake and others around Ocala/Gainesville area. I remember those days as some of the best bass fishing times. It was a shame as a kid growing up one block from the St. Johns river that I had to give up fishing it by the early 1980's. It became too polluted for any of us to fish it or enjoy the river up there any longer. The blue crabs we caught were missing legs and had black ends on the stumps, and fish were coming up with fins eaten down probably by chemicals and other in the water and had black cancerous looking sores on them. It just became too poisonous to enjoy back then. The river flows north all the way up through nearly 2/3's of the state for 310 miles collecting everything that ran into it along the way so by the time the water reached Jacksonville it was rancid. I think those paper mills in Palatka were some of the biggest offenders. But all along that river were thousands of cattle ranches letting all that cow dung get washed into the river, and even some polluters along the river let their raw sewage flow into it at one time. It got so bad that as the water flowed by Orange Park it had a tan brownish slimey foam floating on the surface and then when it made its right turn east to the ocean by downtown Jacksonville the river channel narrowed up there and all that surface foam concentrated and piled up and the winds would pick it up off the river and blow that foul stuff all over downtown. Today it is much better thanks to now decades of hard work in cleaning up the river. But it is a shame I had to turn my back from it as a kid and find some other places to fish. I think this is why many of the bass fishermen in Orange Park also refused to put their boats into the river back then and headed South and Southwest for clean fishing lakes. Today down here in central Florida about the only pollution I have to worry about around here is all the cattle along the river. There are few fences down this way and the cattle free range a lot and swim back and forth across the river and sometimes I have to stop in the middle of the river and wait for the cows to crossover. But most of the river polluters are now north of me and flows right to Jacksonville away from me down here and I like it this way a whole lot better than being on the receiving end up there! And besides, I think the bass fishing down here is a whole lot better too! But you know, the pro bass fishermen have their tournaments halfway up the river in Palatka area sometimes I suppose because the river is more navigable up there since it is dredged from the docks in Sanford all the way up the river to Jacksonville, it is dredged to commercial navigation traffic standards of the Coast Guard, but on the part of the river I use, I make sure it is all well South of the docks in Sanford at Lake Monroe. I fish on untouched natural river that is not dredged which means it can be super shallow and impassable in many places due to sandbars, etc. or just too shallow for fiberglass boats and bass tournaments to operate thank god. Most of what we see out here are airboats, aluminum boats, canoes, and kayaks mostly. Maybe this is why I never see any pro bass tournaments around these parts because their boats draft too deeply and so they hit the river further north? But that's OK with me! I like having the river all to myself here! So tell me Mike, what's your story with the river up there? I see you fish a small lake just mere minutes from the river- virtually a stone's throw away from it. What's the story??? Bass are easier to locate and catch in confined waters like that small San Jose lake, but finding a bass in the river up there in the Jacksonville area could take all day! If you ever fish the river down here you might do what I did- move!

Mike I moved out of there years ago, but I was wondering where San Jose lake is located? Can you give me some coordinates or street locations. I tried looking it up on google with no luck.

Glad to hear you caught the Berkley swim bait bug!

Going along with good stewardship, I'd bring up old Ray Scott founder of B.A.S.S. He is the one who really brought about the catch and release mindset a lot of us follow through with to this day. We are taking his cue, and making sure that we pass it on to others especially our children. http://www.rayscott.net/rayscott/ Bass fishing connects generations together. Grandfathers, fathers, sons, and grandsons and yes, even include the gals in this too, but we all know fishing is by percentage more of a guy thing. My grandmother was a seamstress and she passed that down to my mother and together they passed it down to my sister, so I suppose besides cooking that is one of the girl's things they do while fishing is a major connection some of us have to our fathers and grandfathers and our own sons. Another issue of good stewardship is how we handle bass. I can not tell you how many photos I see of fish laying on the ground or allowed to flop around in the dirt. We release a still living fish, but many of us may not be aware that how we handle the fish can determine whether it will survive or not. Disturbing the mucoprotein coating, or slime, can be deadly to the fish even though we think we released it live and in good health, we may have actually killed that fish but will never know. And another issue of good stewardship I don't hear a lot about is how much poison some of our fishing equipment is putting out and accumulating in our waters we fish. One prime example is power pro braid line coated with teflon as a lubricant. Teflon does not break down over time. It accumulates in our waters as it wears off the line from use. Teflon is a neuro-toxin. It is a poison. And yet many of us buy it as the greatest addition to our braid line many of use without a care in the world for the poison we pay for to dump into our lakes and rivers. We are suppose to leave a better cleaner world to our posterity, but that is not what some of us are really doing when we buy teflon coated braid line or use other poisons to fish with. To me it is a shame how commercialized bass fishing has now become. Money seems to drive the engine. Corporate sponsors are spending money to control professional bass fishing. Today we are bombarded with brand name overload- an optical nightmare! We watch professional fishermen try and tell us how to fish while they are locked into contracts demanding they use only certain products and then the professional fishermen are used to sell these things to us. Gone are the days of free fishermen who pick and choose whatever brand or product they so choose. Our culture has changed. It is no longer about pure fishing, but more about who has the most money to shove their products down our throats the most. Pro bass fishing needs a man in black! A rebel. A renegade who can afford to fish professionally without hawking the optical nightmare of brand name overload abusing us with it. I'd like to see such a man win the classic! The culture of bass fishing should be about bass fishing and handling the fish correctly, not flopping around the boat, and not polluting the world we live in and call it fishing so mindlessly, and passing on a fishing legacy of pure fun to our children, not a culture of big money running the show for us.

You would be amazed at how many fishermen either do not or, will not even consider this! I told one of my fishing buddies this year I thought he was losing fish because of it, but would he listen? Nope. I think it is slowly sinking in though, so maybe by next season he will come around to including this bit of wisdom into his soft rubber choices of any brand.

Agreed! Berkley catches fish! And for a great price too! I use up a ton of their soft rubber powerbait swim baits. Absolutely love fishing with them as much as the fish love inhaling them! But that last line of yours above I found interesting... I think a lot of us fishermen do it. I still use an old rubber worm that has been discontinued for more than 10 years! I have a google search and an ebay search and amazon search programmed to let me know whenever an unopened bag shows up for sale and I grab it up. I now have close to 20 bags on the shelf ready for next year and the years after that! Kind of nice to still be catching fish with them! If Berkley ever stopped making the swimbaits I use I swear I will have to start pouring my own. Maybe I should be saving all those weighted hooks even after a fish tears it up???

You may not have any interest in Berkley products, but the fish certainly do! From rods, to lines, to lures, to scents. For the price Berkley is hard to beat. Another member here posted a video taking a look inside the Berkley lab in Iowa... http://www.bassmaster.com/video/spirit-lake-iowa-inside-berkley-plant

Well if senko is the male name, then how about a gender confused name like senka ?

I have decided to replace my old 1980's flipping reel. It works fine for flipping, but for pitching it is not as fast off the reel as modern reels are. But what I wanted to ask you guys about is braking. My old reel only has a magnetic type of brake, but I am wondering how effective a centrifugal brake would be for pitching. I wonder if the spool spins fast enough for a centrifugal brake to engage and be as useful pitching as it is for casting. I have some old spare reels I could use for flipping and pitching with one of them being a Bass Pro Johnny Morris carbonlite series 7:1 speed which has a spring loaded centrifugal braking system and I wonder if when I pitch with it if I would even get the spool to spin fast enough for a spring loaded brake system to engage and be useful? The spool has to spin fast enough to cause the weight of the brake shoe to overcome the strength of the spring in holding it back from engaging. Or, should I use a reel with centrifugal brakes that slide outwards on a shaft with no springs to hold the brake shoe back from engaging? Here is an image of the Bass Pro Johnny Morris spool with spring loaded brake shoes: Here is a shimano spool with no springs holding back the brake shoes from engaging: It just seems to me the spring loaded brake shoes are not going to engage very well pitching because of the slower spool speed, but the non-spring centrifugal braking would engage, but is it enough to really be effective? I am looking for some answers based on experience as I have never used a reel with centrifugal braking for pitching. And I am thinking I would like to maybe use a reel with a combination of both magnetic and centrifugal braking, but can I get a reel with both and also without the spring loaded brake shoes? Presently in my old collection of reels I don't have one with this specific combination. If I go with Bass Pro, I get spring loaded brake shoes, and if I go with curado I get non-spring loaded centrifugal braking only- no magnetic braking. So I am presently sort of caught in the middle trying to figure out which way to go here and I am leaning towards magnetic braking along with non-spring loaded centrifugal braking if such a reel exists??? --------------ADDED- I just hit on an idea I might just try out. What if I remove all six springs from the Johnny Morris spool and try and experiment with free moving brake shoes on the Johnny Morris reel? I could also experiment with a combination too like leave 3 springs in and remove 3. My theory is for slower spool rotation speeds pitching, that the springs disengage the brake shoe sooner than non spring loaded brake shoes. This way I can use what I already have on the shelf rather than buy yet another reel... but if anyone knows of such a reel please post it!

Southern slang! Speaking of slang, when I read the back of the lure package I linked an image in here, it does not read like an American would say it in a couple of places... but mainly this line tells me we are probably dealing with chinese trying to adapt to English American style: "...that will give you the advantage you need to draw in the catch of the day" Who talks like that in America? To draw in the catch? Just my opinion, but if it were really Americans or an American family producing these lures that they would use language that more closely resembles and sounds American. I really think we are dealing with the Chinese directly here trying to adapt their products into the American market in a rather clumsy attempt using ebay and amazon as their main line connection. This might also explain why they are bulk dumping the lures onto the market here too. An American company would try and maximize profit by selling them individually or smaller package deals, These are being sold in some large bulk lots which also tends to indicate to me it is the chinese doing it.

What is kind of funny is that a lot of the "better" brand names someone suggested above to buy instead of these Nuthin Fancy Outdoor lures are also made in China too!

Found this on ebay... http://www.ebay.com/itm/TWO-NUTHIN-FANCY-LURES-TOPWATER-MINNOW-CRANKBAIT-/252224118017?hash=item3ab9ba9d01:g:hnwAAOSwHQ9WUWEW Some Chinese manufacturers are getting more savvy about entering their products into the American market. Some are taking the necessary steps towards branding and this might be one of those doing so. I notice on the backside of the lure box it says "distributed from Ponce Inlet, Fl." but clearly these lures are made in China attempting a more American type of branding. We may be dealing with a China manufacturer who has warehouse space in Ponce Inlet, Fl from which they distribute their lures inside of the USA. I've seen this same thing being done to some chinese reels too.

I am doing a little digging on this "company" but what is coming up is kind of interesting really. Some information I am finding is suggesting that there is actually a company based in Ponce Inlet, Florida going by the name of "Nuthin' Fancy Outdoors" but one quick check in the records of registered corporations with the Florida Dept. Of State shows me there is no such company going by this name. It does not exist and never has existed as a company with this name- at least in the state of Florida which makes registered corporations public information even if they are out of business you can still find them by name, but a company by this name is not in the records active or inactive. It is just not there. So what this tells me is that if it is a family owned business, then that business is going by a different name and the term "Nuthin' Fancy Outdoors" is merely a brand name they chose to use for their lures. But, what I am reading online about their lures is that what we might be dealing with here is a now failed attempt by some people here in Florida hoping to make money selling cheap lures imported from China with their brand on them. I have read on other forums going back a couple of years other fishermen saying that the lures sold under this name match other no brand name lures being imported from China. Many are the exact same size, exact same construction, same hooks, same everything except brand name and packaging. So I can not confirm this, only report back here what I am finding others saying about them: http://www.ohiogamefishing.com/threads/nuthin-fancy-outdoors-lures.224084/ " Please don't waste your money! Those look like cheap knockoffs from China. Cheap quality, poor hooks, doesn't swim straight. If you search for other lures you'll start to see lures that look like them and some with same colors from over seas.Take that $73 and spend it on reputable name. Strike King, Bandits, Rapala, and Bass Pro Shops name brand lures are all affordable and of great quality! " They even had a website at one time too but it appears now to no longer be functional: http://www.nuthinfancyoutdoors.com/small-lures.html

No, Skynyrd was and is still from Jacksonville Florida my home town. Born and raised there. They only wrote a song about Alabama. ----------------------- From wikipedia: Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band best known for popularizing the southern rock genre during the 1970s. Originally formed in 1964 as My Backyard in Jacksonville, Florida, the band used various names such as The Noble Five and One Percent, before coming up with Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1969. The band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its live performances and signature tunes "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird". At the peak of their success, three members died in an airplane crash in 1977, putting an abrupt end to the band's most popular incarnation.

Hmmmm... sounds like a direct Florida connection for sure! " Nuthin’ Fancy Outdoors is based in Ponce Inlet, Florida and is still family owned and operated. It’s success in the finish in industry first began with a simple and honest idea, to offer quality products at reasonable prices so everyone who has a love for the great outdoors can get our and enjoy nature without breaking the bank. Beginning small and selling online the company soon grew based on their quality products and commitment to excellence. They are now known as a leader in all things hunting and fishing. Nuthin’ Fancy Outdoors has expanded and continue to grow, yet they continue the tradition of excellence and they take great pride in the reputation they have established among hunters and fishers around the world!" And back in 1975 another Florida connection to Nuthin' Fancy!

Take some nice long needle nose pliers!