By Pete Robbins
Special to BassFan


Indiana’s Phil Hunt is the latest in a long line of garage tinkerers to develop crankbaits in response to the difficulties of fishing the stingy Ohio River. Before he came along, there was the Wee Bait, the D-Bait, the Lazer Lure, the Thunder Shad and others, and now with PH Custom Lures he looks to carry on that regional lineage while also bearing the larger burden of keeping the precision balsa tradition alive.

The 51-year-old Hunt spent 16 years as a full-time paramedic, but 8 years ago he started painting baits and, by his own description, “piddling around” in his shop, but he never thought it would turn into a full-time gig.

Eventually painting gave way to the more ambitious process of building his own lures, egged on by close friend and Elite Series pro Bill Lowen.

“He was a carpenter,” Lowen recalled. “I told him he needed to start building crankbaits. It was perfect because I could sit in that shop and throw out ideas.”

Lowen designed the plastic square-bill for Ima as his go-to crankbait, but noted that there are times when only “the natural, subtle hunting action of balsa will trigger strikes. I was raised on those balsa baits and so much of success in fishing depends on what you have confidence in.”

Not Just Square-Bills

Befitting his Ohio River roots, Hunt said that his square-bill crankbaits, such as the Lil Hunter and the Huntin’ P, remain his top sellers, but over time he branched out. Notably, he built the Squeaky P, a bluegill-shaped twin prop bait. He’d noticed that other lures in the genre tended to crumble at the tail end after landing a few fish, so he built the lure with an aluminum tube through the bait, preventing such damage.

Then he and Lowen accidentally happened upon the Crazy Ace, a similar topwater with a single tail prop and a concave face that created its own popping and chugging category. When word of it hit Bassmaster magazine, orders went through the roof, and Hunt, who admittedly was getting a bit burned out by his paramedic work, had the momentum he needed to go into the tackle business full-time.

“I worked every third day as a medic, so I was able to build it up for a while until I had a steady income,” he said. “And my wife, who’s an RN, took extra shifts to make it happen. I couldn’t do it without her.”



Phil Hunt
Photo: Phil Hunt

Sales of the Crazy Ace, a concave-faced topwater, gave Hunt the momentum he needed to enter the tackle business on a full-time basis.

While Hunt took the plunge fully aware of the challenges he’d face, they were still substantial. First, there was the cost of labor.

“Most things are built in China, where it’s practically slave labor,” he said. “I can’t compete with their pricing. All of my products are made in the U.S. by people who have to support their families. I hand-tune every lure in a pool to make sure that it’s right.”

He has also had to deal with the realities of the fishing industry, where sponsor dollars talk and he doesn’t have many to give.

“There have been some big wins on my products,” he said, mentioning one recent six-figure paycheck in particular, “but no one is going to know about it. I can’t afford to pay guys. I’m fortunate that I have several pros like Wesley Strader who believe in my product and help me along the way. Also, there are enough guys who don’t want to see balsa die and are also willing to help.”

A Big Helping Hand

One of those “helpers” is legendary lure designer and former Elite Series pro Lee Sisson, who got his start with Bagley’s and then influenced or advised dozens of other companies over the course of his career. Sisson built some of Hunt’s labor-saving duplicating machinery, allowing him to scale the business in a way that would have been impossible if he’d continued to hand-carve each individual bait. Perhaps more importantly, he kept the lines of communication open.

“I could not have done this without Lee,” Hunt said. “He took me under his wing and allowed me to call him whenever I had a problem simply because he doesn’t want to see balsa die.”

Over the course of four-plus decades in the tackle industry, Sisson has mentored countless designers and engineers, but he never found a surefire bet to carry on his professional family tree until he encountered Hunt.

“He’s just a good guy,” Sisson said. “Out of everybody I’ve worked with, he is the guy to carry on the balsa tradition. He’s conscientious, he wants to do stuff right and I could tell that he really enjoyed it. I’ve made all of the mistakes you can make and now it’s time to give him the benefit of my experience. I’m concerned about balsa dying. It has a special place in my heart. They have improved plastic, but there are still things you can only do with balsa.”

Even as his reputation grows nationally, Hunt stressed that his goal is to maintain a personal touch.

“I want to stress that building balsa baits is an art form,” he said. “I always liked them, even before I built them. I want people to call up the shop to talk fishing. If you call, you’ll talk to me directly, not some girl behind a computer who’s never even been on the water or held a rod.

Notable

> To visit Hunt’s website, click here.

> Both PH Custom Lures and Old School Baits are made in Hunt’s Indiana shop, but the former group, which are slightly more expensive, come in more color patterns and with more expensive components. He also builds lure bodies for several other manufacturers.

> While balsa remains his true love and the cornerstone of his business, he has started to expand into resin as well, most significantly through the “W” Glide, a slow-sinking 7-inch glide bait that he developed with Strader.

> Hunt said that he’d eventually like to expand his lineup to include an entrant in every major category. “I’d like it to be like where if someone is sponsored by Strike King, they never have to fish with a competitor’s bait. I want to pursue the multispecies market, too, like walleye, muskies and saltwater.”