Big Bite Baits Acquired by GSM Outdoors

[volzfan59]

24 minutes ago, Spankey said:

Where is Mann’s Baits these days? They are down to nothing. How can such a big name settle for that. 

If I'm not mistaken, Mann's also owned a company called Southern Plastics. They made house brand soft plastics for BPS and other retailers.

[txchaser]

I think GSM has done a great job with Yamamoto so far. It kind of needed a kick in the pants, so much power in the brand, and they had the opportunity to make core shapes and sizes where they were missing stuff. 

 

1) bulk senko packs for the die-hards

2) yamatanuki (seriously though if a bait is hot in japan, bring it here, it'll catch fish)

3) slinko (floating ring/fry worm, great on a t-rig or a c-rig) 

4) craw (the yamamoto craw is really good. it's posture on the bottom is nice too, just a little float up but below 45 degrees) 

 

2-4 are good baits, they catch fish, and they were nearly guaranteed to sell well because of the brand. 

 

Not all the aquirers in the industry are good acquirers, but so far GSM is doing ok. My only complaint is the D2C (their web site) operations needs to be taken more seriously. 

[txchaser]

Bonus item, Yamamoto 10″ Ichi Worm launching at icast. Big ringed worm with a ribbon tail. I don't know if it'll be any good, but I bet it gets a shot from a lot of anglers. 

And so there's no confusion, I don't have any relationship with GSM or Yamamoto. I do however like to watch when companies start changing things to see what they are up to, and so far it looks like the playbook is "we have a really good thing going with this brand, we can probably launch other core baits and grow the company" instead of "we could save 25 cents per bait by using crappy hooks" like some of the other acquirers do. 

[Bluebasser86]

Not taking any chances, got some bulk packs of my favorite BBB on the way to the house now. 

[Mike L]

@volzfan59

If I’m not mistaken Southern Plastics still makes products for BPS and Strike King also, at least they did.
 

They’re house plastics are good quality and my go to for bulk purchases. 
Haven’t had to dip a tail in years. 
 

 

 

 

Mike

[Tennessee Boy]

14 hours ago, volzfan59 said:

If I'm not mistaken, Mann's also owned a company called Southern Plastics. They made house brand soft plastics for BPS and other retailers.

Southern Plastics claims they produce 70 to 80 percent of the plastic made in the US.  They were started by Tom Mann and are now owned by Rather Outdoors which is another company trying to buy up our bass fishing heritage.  We spend a lot of time here debating whether company A makes a better product than company B when in fact neither company makes anything and are both selling the same product made in the same factory under different brand names.  These days it’s more about marketing and less about product innovation.

[casts_by_fly]

Another consideration is if one of your favorite plastics from another company is toll manufactured by D&J.  Typically when a purchase like this happens (not just talking bass fishing), the toll manufacturing side of the business becomes a decision point based on the planned strategy.  If you acquired a business to build up your own manufacturing capabilities and to expand what they sell, then the contract/toll manufacturing side might be more of a pain than its worth.  Any contracts in place have to be fulfilled, but probably not renewed.  In this case, if D&J makes plastics for another smaller brand and GSM doesn't want to continue that, the smaller brand is going to struggle to maintain their product line.  If there is a real specialty item that you like from a smaller guy not pouring his own, you might want to pick those up now.

[TOXIC]

So far I’m somewhat pleased at GSM’s performance regarding Yamamoto.  There have been some back room things that are very different from the way Yamamoto was run by the original HQ staff and it’s taken some getting used to.  I’m still not convinced that my original opinion, that was reinforced by the new ownership, that Yamamoto is a premium product line and to keep that mystique they should not dilute the brand with a bunch of new offerings, isn’t still valid.  Normally, higher level products aren’t made in mass quantities, that make them cheaper.  So far most of the new additions have been good but IMHO they have to be very careful to avoid trying to put a bait in every plastics category.  If you do then you’re just another mass producer and will lose the premium title.  

[Tennessee Boy]

32 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

In this case, if D&J makes plastics for another smaller brand and GSM doesn't want to continue that, the smaller brand is going to struggle to maintain their product line. 

Or they could just call Southern Plastics or China.   

[volzfan59]

2 hours ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Southern Plastics claims they produce 70 to 80 percent of the plastic made in the US.  They were started by Tom Mann and are now owned by Rather Outdoors which is another company trying to buy up our bass fishing heritage.  We spend a lot of time here debating whether company A makes a better product than company B when in fact neither company makes anything and are both selling the same product made in the same factory under different brand names.  These days it’s more about marketing and less about product innovation.

And everyone say.........Amen! I couldn't agree more.

[casts_by_fly]

1 hour ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Or they could just call Southern Plastics or China.   

 

Yes, that's true if SP has capacity.  Either option though will take time and will introduce change to the product.  I would expect disruption during the changeover and your favorite bait might not be the same again.

[keagbassr]

9 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Not taking any chances, got some bulk packs of my favorite BBB on the way to the house now. 

Just a little psa for anyone wanting to follow @Bluebasser86 's lead, be sure to check the prices on regular packs. For example some 4"yo mama's are priced at $2 per8pk. Which comes out to $24 for 12 pks./96baits as opposed to $46for a 100pk.

[Glenn]

The real prize is D&J.

[Tennessee Boy]

Check out the catalog at D & J’s website.   The minimum order is 1000 units for a given bait and color.   If you’re stuck on one bait in one color you could just bypass the middle man.  I ordered 1000 baits from Zoom about 20 years ago.  I still have about 700. ?

 

https://www.plasticlures.com

[casts_by_fly]

I saw that and was really surprised.  That's what led me to my comments above about small batch sizes for a broad array of colors and shapes/sizes on the market.  And, that really correlates to glenn's comment above about D&J being the real prize.  That tells me that D&J have the machinery in smaller sizes and larger sizes to make small batches worth it.  if you strictly think of production efficiency, the senko production line/molds at Yamamoto will necessarily have some downtime swapping between sizes and colors at each change.  The tail end of the production volumes (the lowest 10% of sellers) still have the same changeover time each despite being tiny volumes.  Now take those off of the bigger line and put them on a line that can do a 1k minimum, which is 100 10-packs.  You might not run that small of a production, but it sure makes it easier to keep all of the sizes and colors in stock (or to produce to demand/order).

[TOXIC]

At one time Yamamoto would do custom colors as well.  If I remember correctly, the minimum order was 700 bags. 

[casts_by_fly]

@TOXIC- if that's correct, then that implies that D&J's equipment can do much smaller runs more profitably than Yamamoto's equipment can do small runs.  That's not entirely surprising.  D&J started as a small custom baits business and I'm sure they kept their smaller equipment up and running to support that.  I don't know the Yamamoto back story, so can't really comment there (I'm sure you know much better than most).  I work in a much larger industry making consumer products and we see similar things.  Different smaller packers/manufacturers will have different capabilities that you might not have kept in-house for efficiency reasons.  When big manufacturers look for efficiency/profitability, the tail end of products tends to get cut to focus on the larger volume items.  That makes an opportunity for smaller manufacturer's to jump into that specialties/niche market.

[Tennessee Boy]

I’ve recognized one bait that Slider Fishing sells on their website that is in the D&J catalog.  I’m sure there are others.  D&J probably make the classic Slider worms also but they have the Slider name on the lure so they obviously require custom molds.