Creating Crankbait Confidence via Custom Colors
By Chuck Bailey
Right or wrong, the reality for many anglers is that their crankbait confidence is indubitably connected to color. It may be argued that profile, size, action, depth, presentation, and a host of other factors should hold a higher priority when selecting crankbaits. But ask the majority of anglers to reflect upon a favorite crankbait they used to throw years ago, (perhaps discontinued today), and they will fondly and firstly describe its color.
“I used to throw a brand-x crank in a greenish-yellow with a brown back that just tore them up on my home lake. It broke my heart when they discontinued that bait”. As the sigh begins to fade, their fishing partner may join soulfully in the wishing, “Ah, I used to fish that bait too, but I could never understand why it didn’t come in the chrome with a black back – now that would have been a killer lure!”
Most anglers seemed satisfied to vent their color frustrations, while those “in the know” are finding themselves empowered to do something about it. An increasing number of anglers are discovering and utilizing the services of custom bait refinishers that turn the wishful color desires of today’s anglers into reality.
Dutch Forks Custom Lures – Meeting a Need
Keith Eshbaugh of Dutch Forks Custom Lures makes his living selling confidence to anglers through his artistic skills with an airbrush. After more than 16 years on the professional walleye tournament trail, Keith has recently retired from competitive fishing and found a way to utilize his two art degrees to fulfill the needs of anglers across the country.
“I’ve always painted my own stuff and did a few things for my friends,” say Keith looking back, “though I never charged them anything back then.” But as Keith contemplated a career change, his friends and family encouraged him to utilize his obvious skills by turning his lure refinishing hobby into a full time business.
To the uniformed, it may appear that those entrepreneurs engaged in custom refinishing would struggle to make a living considering the hundreds of crankbait companies that produce millions of lures in what appears to be every conceivable color combination.
But Keith’s shop is full of customer’s lures in various stages of being refurnished, and for good reason. Dutch Forks Custom Lures caters to a need that mass production companies cannot realistically fill.
The “Need” Explained
Why do anglers send their crankbaits to custom shops when there are so many new crankbaits on the shelves to choose from? “Well the main reason is discontinued colors from years gone by”, Keith explains. “I’ve had countless anglers come up to me and share, ‘Hey I used to have this old Bomber Long A in this green and orange color.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, I remember that one.’ And they’ll ask, ‘Can you reproduce that?’ and I say ‘Absolutely.’ It’s a delight to do that for them.”
The second reason explaining the existence of custom refinishers comes from the fact that it is financially prohibitive for a single manufacturing company to produce a lure in every possible color combination. Keith provides an example, “Say Brand X comes out with a color that is orange and chartreuse and somebody likes that color but they don’t use Brand X, they want it on Brand Z. No problem. We’ll put those preferred colors on their favorite crankbait.”
What About Worn Out Lures?
One could speculate that anglers might want to send worn out or beat up crankbaits to be renewed, but Keith explains that is rarely the case. “Believe it or not, rarely do I get beat up lures.”
The one exception seems to be found among Muskie fishermen where the cost of larger and more specialized crankbaits is higher. A large predator with a mouth full of sharp teeth can be brutal on a bait. “Muskie fishermen take advantage of the fact that it only costs them 8-10 bucks to get their favorite crankbait refinished with a better finish than what they had originally.”
For the most part, the majority of Dutch Fork’s customers send in lures to be painted in discontinued colors, or to place one manufacturer’s color pattern on another manufacturer’s crankbait.
Customers
Located in Claysville, Pennsylvania, Keith’s customers come from around the country and consist primarily of what he calls “serious anglers.” Professional anglers top the list, with bass and walleye fishermen (most of whom compete in their local or regional tournaments), coming in second. The serious muskie fishermen makes up the remainder of his customer base.
At the time, bass, walleye, and muskie customers are evenly represented, but at different times of the year. “It goes in spurts,” says Keith. In the spring the surge comes primarily from the bass fishermen who are excited to get certain baits refinished for their tournament season. A few weeks later the muskie season starts, and the work load shifts to refinishing their 10 to 14 inch baits. And so it goes throughout the year; the customer base shifts as seasons open and close throughout the country.
International Clientele
A few customers are finding Keith’s services from across the seas via the internet. “I’m getting hits on my website from all over the world – and from some places I didn’t even know they had water.”
One of his international customers from the United Kingdom was looking desperately for a glow finish that would hold up under the brutal treatment of an exotic fish in Egypt (Nile Perch). “I told him about our topcoats and how durable they are, but I warned him ‘You’re fishing for fish that grow up to 200 lbs, and there’s not too many lures that are going to hold up to a 200 lb fish’. He thoroughly understood that. Later, when the Englishman sent me pictures, he reported the lures held up really well, and he caught quite a few fish on them.”
Challenging the Norms of Color Selection
Keith Eshbaugh is a unique blend of professional fisherman and wildlife artist. The first supplies a rich variety of angling experience on the water, while the second furnishes a creative artistic view that constantly challenges the accepted norms in terms of color selection.
As a result, his portfolio encompasses a nice variety of traditional patterns and colors that is highly impressive from a visual perspective and exceptionally successful on the water. But Keith pushes way past the accepted norms of the status quo and fearlessly opens new option that, well… despite their success tend to raise an eyebrow or two.
Wonder Bread
Take for instance his “Wonder Bread” pattern. “Basically it is all white with colored dots on it,” says Keith. “I’ve been all over the country fishing it, and there hasn’t been one body of water that I have visited where I haven’t caught fish on that pattern.”
Can its non-traditional and yet highly effect pattern be explained? After all, not a single forage fish looks like a Wonder Bread wrapper. Keith is still trying to figure out this pattern’s unconventional appeal to game fish.
“We did a little research with an Aqua Vu underwater camera, and we looked at that lure while it was swimming. We noticed that as it swims along, the lure ‘blurs’ and all you see are dots. So our theory, (and it is just a theory), is that the dots going back and forth look like baitfish eyes. And we suspect that’s why the fish like it so much.”
Chrome Rainbow – Something Different
Eshbaugh strongly shares the theory of many professional fishermen who are convinced that today’s heavily pressured lakes tend to make fish conditioned to traditional profiles and colors. Therefore the obvious conclusion drawn from this logic is to offer gamefish “something different” – something that they have never seen before.
An example? “I do a chrome rainbow pattern that we have been testing on Reef-runners here on Lake Erie. We have absolutely been pounding the fish on this flash and color combination.”
Recently an angler fished with another one of his buddies who had one of Keith’s chrome rainbows and they caught 43 walleyes before 11 o’clock in the morning. The majority of them came on the chrome rainbow. “I strongly believe in today’s heavily fished lakes it is important to throw something different.”
Eyebrow Raising “Wow” Patterns
But stretching the limits of traditional color combinations does not stop with Wonder Bread or Chrome Rainbow. Some of Keith’s most successful lures seem to support the patterns one would expect a bunch of little girls to produce after getting into their daddy’s paints.
Because of Keith influence, lures supporting color combinations consisting of bright oranges, pinks and lime greens have found their way into some professional walleye fishermen’s tackle boxes.
“If I could convince some of these pro bass guys to throw these Wonder Bread patterns or some of these other ‘Wow’ walleye patterns, they would do really, really well. But many are so brain washed about what they need, they won’t try it.”
Keith’s experimentation with non-traditional patterns has led him to conclude that gamefish don’t read the same books or follow the same rules that fishermen hold dear.
Is It The Color - or the Confidence in the Color?
Never-the-less, it is fishermen, not the fish, who buy crankbaits and choose the color schemes. It begs the question: When it comes to triggering fish strikes - is it the color of the lure that is key, or the fisherman’s confidence in the lure regardless of the color that leads to increased catches?
“It is definitely both,” explains Keith. “Why? Because first of all, an angler has to have confidence in what they are throwing. And secondly, if a fisherman has confidence in a color combination or pattern, they will fish it longer and harder.”
“Having said that, color by itself does also affect fishing success. We proved last year bass fishing on Lake Erie. I only had three of my custom painted Bandit 300’s, and the guy that was using my root-beer pattern was catching three times as many fish as any one else in the boat. So just for the heck of it, I took the root-beer one and I started catching all the fish.”
“Then I took it off, and I threw every standard color that Bandit puts out. I only caught an occasional fish; one here and one there. I put the root-beer colored crankbait back on and caught three fish in a row. I believe it proved that that root-beer was the color they wanted that day.”
Root-beer is simply a chartreuse crankbait with a brown-back. Did any of the other standard colored Bandits have chartreuse in them? “Sure they did,” says Keith. “For example; we put on chartreuse with a blue-back, and it didn’t work well at all. No, on that day it had to be the specific combination of those root-beer colors.”
The Pattern Counts!
Eshbaugh has discovered that occasionally the successfulness of a bait isn’t as dependent upon the colors used, as the pattern those colors make up. “This year I have three or four charter boat captains trolling my lures. Among them is a pattern I paint upon a Reef Runner that I call ‘Funky-Gold Medina’. It’s got a pink belly, purple sides, with chartreuse back and chartreuse shapes down the sides – I mean it’s really odd looking. And yet, it caught a lot of fish.”
“So I started experimenting by putting different colors together but with that same pattern, and they continued to catch a lot of fish. That tells me that in this case it wasn’t physically the colors that triggered strikes - it was the pattern.”
Is it possible that pattern is always more important than color when painting a crankbait? Keith didn’t even want to speculate on a definitive answer for that question. His focus is pushing the boundaries to find colors and patterns that work. “My goal is to invent some really good fishing catching colors for anglers.” Why they work - is sometimes a mystery.
Resistance to Change
Indeed, some of Eshbaugh’s creations go so far beyond the accepted norm, they are met with open skepticism and resistance. “Yeah, a lot of people look at some of them and say, ‘What the heck are you doing with that?’ So I tell them, ‘It’s a fish catcher!’” Keith will often challenge dubious anglers to try some of the unusual patterns he fishes, (like Muted Nuclear Glow) by offering a guarantee, “I’ll buy the lure back off the person if they can’t catch fish on them. That’s how confident I am in my patterns.”
Keith is well aware of the typical resistance anglers have to accept something that goes against what they have been taught. It is a very difficult thing to get fishermen to change, even when the proof is theirs for the taking. So his portfolio carries a wide variety of tradition to non-traditional options, because after all, he’s selling confidence as determined by his customers.
How Important Are Details?
When it comes to adding minute details to a bait, Keith is very adept to doing it. But he has a personal belief that tiny little details are not necessary for a bait to be effective. He reflects back to the decade when the hot pattern was a white body and a red head, and refuses to believe the fish are more sophisticated today. He believes most of the intricate details coming in on imported crankbaits are added to catch fishermen, but have little impact on the fish.
“I think that patterns of ‘light and dark’ is what the fish can really pick up on,” says Keith. His crawfish patterns are very eloquent but simple patterns. But he wisely recognizes that he is there to cater to the felt needs of his customers. If fine details are what they want, fine details are what they get.
Color Highlights
The same holds true for color highlights. “Take for instance all those different crawfish patterns I offer, (some with chartreuse, red, blue, gold, orange, yellow highlights), that’s mainly for the fisherman. One angler likes chartreuse highlights, another likes blue, the next red. That’s why I tell anglers, “I can do anything on any lure”.
But interesting enough, Keith has discovered that most anglers struggle to visualize the possibilities in their heads, and more often than not they need to see it before they buy it. “That’s why I have so many patterns as examples, (and that’s why I’m trying to add 15 to 20 patterns a month on my website).”
Reverse Patterns
As Keith continues to challenge the color assumptions of the status quo, he is exploring the realm of ‘Reverse Patterns.” Biologists theorize that the reason forage fish are usually dark on top and light on bottom is for survival. When a predator is looking up towards the surface for food, the lighter belly of the baitfish blends in better with the light sky. When a predator is looking down, the darker top blends in with the darker bottom or depth. Naturally, lure designers have painted their crankbaits to imitate nature.
But Keith is probing the perceived necessity of this ‘dark over light’ assumption. “I have been talking about this with a number of charter boat captains, and this year we are going to experiment a lot with reverse patterns. We’re going to put all the darks on the bottom and all the lights on top, and we’re going to test it and see what happens. We’re challenging that rule. I’m convinced that if you get the right colors in the right pattern on the right size crankbait, the fish are going to eat it.”
The theory Keith Eshbaugh proposes is that as long as the preferred colors are present, it doesn’t really matter where they are on the bait. He speculates that as with any “rule” there will be times when the ‘dark over light’ pattern does matter, but that there will be many times when it makes no difference at all. It will be interesting to check in with him next year to hear what he has discovered.
Chrome Expertise!
Every custom refinisher has a few unique strengths that set them a part from the others. One of Keith’s has to do with chrome.
Fishermen have gravitated to chrome baits for decades because of the flash it creates on bright sunny days when the crankbait wobbles through the water. But the Achilles heel in chrome is it has had trouble staying on, especially on baits that get chomped on by powerful “toothy critters” such as pike and muskie. Once the skin is broken, the rest of the chrome begins to peel quickly.
“Believe it or not there are no chrome muskie lures on the market right now. Numerous muskie crankbait manufacturers have experimented with chrome colors – but they were typically vacuum chromed. Once you got a scratch in the top coat, the whole chrome peeled off. Another manufacturer came out with it last year again, but from what I am hearing from anglers, the chrome is coming off again.”
“Triple Krome”
“I’m using a patented chroming process in which the chrome doesn’t come off the lure,” explains Keith. “We call it a ‘Triple Krome’ because it’s like a show car bumper – it’s really shiny. It’s not electro plating and it’s not vacuum chroming, and so we’re keeping the secret to ourselves.” The process is a new technology that Keith applied to crankbaits after making some tailored improvements.
“‘Triple Krome’ is a lot tougher, and it has some flexibility to it. So it’s not totally solid, it will move a little bit. And it doesn’t come off the lure; it is stuck extremely tight to the lure because of the complicated process that we go through. It is a little bit more time consuming than just painting a lure, so it’s a little higher dollar, but in the end it’s going to be worth it for everybody.”
One of his recent projects has to do with the chroming process which is applied to other fishing components as well as crankbaits. “I work with a lot of Lake Erie trollers for walleye, and we’re putting their favorite crankbait colors on their harness blades for them. And one of the packages we’re going to have for the spring is a ‘chrome rainbow’ down-rigger ball, crankbaits, harness blades, and spoons. Because a lot of trollers like to keep everything similar.”
20 Hour Glow Paints
Another unique offering is a specialized type of glow paint often preferred by anglers in low or no light conditions. “We have a glow paint that can glow for 20 hours without a recharge. It does diminish over those hours. It’s not like its glowing 100% after five hours, but it’s still glowing pretty well.”
“We’re actually going to build a recharge box, battery operated, so you can just lay your baits in there if you are night fishing and recharge them. You can pull it out and it’ll be bright for an hour and then it will slowly start to lose its power. But even then, it will remain glowing to some degree.”
Ironically, Keith does not personally use everything his customers request, and he jokingly admits he’s more a fan of crankbaits strangely painted with dots than glow paint. Obviously none of the forage in U.S. waters glow in the dark, and why anglers desire glow baits is a bit of a mystery to Keith. “It’s just a fact that many anglers sees the term ‘glows in the dark’ on the package and concludes, ‘Wow, the fish ought to be able to see that lure’.” After catching fish on it, it becomes a confidence bait.
In fact, Keith is unable to even give advice as to when and where ‘glows’ work. But then, that’s not the main purpose behind his business. As long as there are fishermen who ask, “Do you have glow in the dark?” – Keith will specialize in providing it. “I’m trying to cater to everybody’s needs.”
Bridging the Color Gap between Soft Plastics and Cranks
One of the most intriguing offerings that sets Dutch Forks apart from the competition, received it’s inspiration from soft plastic baits. A growing number of bass fishermen are giving Keith a sample of their soft plastic craws and asking him to duplicate the colors on their crankbaits. “The last ones I got were ‘spring craws’ – a dark green back, orange belly soft craw, and I put those exact colors on crankbaits for those guys.”
It has always amazed this author that the color evolutions in the plastic and crankbait circles have taken such different paths, and the accepted norms in each circle are often a world apart. (Have you ever seen a “June Bug” colored crankbait?) Keith is once again, unafraid to cross the line and is now bridging the gap between soft plastics and cranks.
“We’re hopefully going to have some samples up on the website by late February or March of 2010. We’ll have a picture of the soft plastic and a picture of the finished crankbait.” No doubt many anglers reading this are already imagining the possibilities.
Favorite Brands, Patterns, and Color Combinations?
Are there certain crankbait brands that are more popular than others when it comes to refinishing? “Bandits and Rapala’s are the biggest ones,” says Keith. “With muskie lures, it’s the Jakes. I’ve got a bunch of 10 and 14 inch Jakes I just finished. But over all, I would say Rapala’s are the most common baits sent to my shop.”
Keith is often amazed at the variety of crankbaits that bass fishermen use, and that makes his job interesting. “You never know what you are going to get.”
Rapala is also responsible for the latest and most popular ‘discontinued’ color request from his customers. “Recently Rapala discontinued one of the more popular colors around – the clown color. That chrome silver foil rap with the chartreuse back and red head – that’s now a discontinued pattern. If a guy has any Rapalas in clown and puts them on eBays – you can get a lot of money for them right now. Or… I can and do reproduce that color.”
Are there favorite color combination requests? “There are, but it normally depends on the species. If the request is from bass anglers, they lean towards the gizzard shad, thread fin shad, or something natural. The muskie fishermen request perch, carp, and sucker patterns, sometimes chrome blue. It all varies. The walleye guys like chrome rainbow and the funky colors with dots on them. So each type of species provides a different set of color favorites.”
Will Refinishing Change The Action of a Bait?
Many anglers are hesitant to turn their favorite bait over to a custom refinisher until they get the answer to this question; “Will refinishing change the action of a bait?”
Occasionally an angler stumbles upon a bait that “hunts” as it is retrieved, providing an erratic action that triggers strikes. Or perhaps it puts out a unique ‘sonic signature’ due to minute differences in its shape, or weight, or a wooden bait’s density. Regardless of makes it unique, the angler is aware that it produces a vibration or sound in the water that sets it apart from others – making it a favorite “go to bait”. The fear of having that unique action, sound or vibration permanently altered by refinishing would crush the spirit even the hardiest angler.
Can refinishing alter the action of a favorite bait? “Nope,” says Keith. That is, if it is done correctly. “One of the things you don’t want to do when you refinish a lure is put too much paint or topcoat on it - because that will change the action, (and the sound if it has rattles). When the paint and topcoat are too thick it will eventually crack on you. So we put everything on in thin layers, and multiple layers. Even when we chrome a lure it ends up only a half to one gram heavier. And a gram isn’t that much.”
The Refinishing Process and Turn-a-round Time
If a newly informed angler sees the advantages of sending a crankbait or two to a custom refinisher, the process is relatively simple. “When sending new lures right out of the package – you just need to remove the hooks and split rings, and send them to me and they will be refinished with any pattern you want.”
“If the baits are old, and beat up, and they need a lot of work, that’s going to cost a little more because we’re going to have to sand it, fill holes, and so forth. If it’s an older lure not too beat up and we can just sand it and throw a heavy primer on it to cover up the small dents and pinholes – that will be just the regular price, no extra charge.”
How long does it take to get a bait refinished? “The turn around time is usually about a week. We work hard to get it done and out the door.”
It’s All in the Preparation
Most anglers assume the refinishing process is all about the painting, but Keith says “I spend more time preparing a lure than I do painting it. Why? Because proper preparation is the key to getting everything to staying on the lure. I can paint it up as pretty as can be, but if it is not prepared right the paint is going to slide right off in a couple of uses.”
Then Comes The Painting!
Airbrushing is most often associated with the automotive and motorcycle industry where custom body work, gas tanks, and helmets help owners express themselves in unique ways. “I’ve done some motorcycles, and some other vehicles,” says Keith, “but I don’t like doing them. Even though I could make more money doing that, I’d rather use the process to paint fishing lures.”
Eshbaugh admits that airbrushing is relatively easy to pick up if all a mass production company wants to do is have the employee paint a white belly, a chartreuse side, and put a stencil on it to paint some perch stripes on it. “We try not to do that here.” Keith’s artistic desire for excellence will not permit him to leave the painting to anyone else. “Right now, I’m the only one who paints here. I have people help me prepare lures, but they don’t paint. I’m the only painter so that if anything goes wrong, it’s all on me.”
Recession Proof?
At the time of this printing the country was still under the grip of a recession that has had a significant impact on the sales of new crankbaits. But Dutch Forks Custom Lures has not felt the blow. Keith laughs as he counts his blessings, “Well, I went into the ‘want’ business, not the ‘need’ business. When you go to the gas pump, you need the gas if you want to go somewhere. And you’re grumpy about having to buy it. But when you’re having a crankbait refinished, you’re happy to be doing it. Refinished lures make angler’s happy. Even in a recession, serious fishermen are eager to order them and then go fishing with them.”
Setting Prices
Compared to many custom refinishers, Keith’s prices are very reasonable. How does he determine his rates? “I sit down and decide how long it’s going to take me to do one bait, and come out with an hourly rate. So of the competition are charging 12 dollars to do any size bass bait, but I think ‘Holy cow – if the customer is providing the bait, (which they are), and have already spent 7-8 bucks or more on it, and now they are paying another 12 bucks; I think that’s a rip off. So I set my prices with that in mind.”
Keith is very content with his business model. “I know of course that I am not going to get rich at this, but I absolutely love what I’m doing. And that’s important. I walk out to my garage every morning with a smile on my face.
New Projects
As busy as it gets during certain times of the year, (often working from 4:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night), Keith couldn’t imagine doing anything else. That does not stop him however from getting involved in new projects.
Dutch Fork’s chroming process is so exceptional that he is getting a lot of interest from other companies that want him to chrome a lot of their lures. “I’ve done a few for some of the muskie companies already but I’m not sure if I want to take it that way or not – to do production work. I still like to cater to the individual, because you get more appreciation out of that.”
The “Lightening Shad” Reborn
One of the projects Keith is especially excited about is the rebirth of a popular lure that Storm discontinued before being sold to Rapala. Those who enjoyed fishing the “Lightening Shad” will be excited to know that a friend of Keith’s has recreated the mold that will reintroduce the popular lure under a new name - the “Slab-Shad”.
“We’ve made a few minor changes in it,” said Keith, “but I’m going to be the only nation wide distributor of them now. He’s producing them, and I’m distributing them. And I’ll have some models that I will be chroming, and those will be coming out of my shop. I had a Muskie guy come in here the other day and he saw those first and immediately reached into his pocket to see how much money he had, because he was ready to buy them.”
Motivating First-Timers
When it comes to introducing fishermen to the possibilities that a custom refinisher can offer them, Keith says, “The hardest thing to get across to people is that we can pretty much do anything color-wise to any crankbait out there.” In other words there are no boundaries; if an angler can imagine it – a good custom refinisher can provide it.
To inspire first-timers to consider the possibility of lure refinishing, Keith usually tries this approach, “I just ask them if they remember an old favorite bait that used to catch fish. They almost always say, “Oh yeah, I used to have this green and purple thing that was on a Bomber…” and they fondly remember the lure and its colors. I usually carry a box of colored pencils with me and paper sheets with lure shapes on them. I’ll shade in the lure and ask, ‘Is this what the lure looked like?’, and they’ll excitedly say ‘Yeah!’”
Presented that way, most anglers can relate to the drawing power of a reunion with a past favorite that they no longer have and thought was forever unattainable.
Other angler’s have who previously bemoaned the fact that a great color combination is not available on their favorite brand of crankbaits, are now given realistic hope that their dreams can be brought into reality.
And to those creative crankbait enthusiasts who have imagined going where no color combination has gone before… the possibilities are now just a phone call away.
Summary
Thanks to custom refinishers, color limitations no longer exist. If an angler can imagine it – it is now within their grasp. And Keith Eshbaugh at Dutch Forks Custom Lures is among those talented artists who strive to make every color combination a reality. As Keith so enthusiastically puts it, “My goal is to keep all the fisherman happy, and to keep them in the lures they need.”
Wherever modern manufactures strive but fail to provide every crankbait angler’s aesthetic needs - custom refinishers stand ready to fill the gap. After all, crankbait confidence is apparently in the eye of the beholder, and in all likelihood associated with color.
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Keith Eshbaugh was a very successful walleye professional and tournament competitor for 16 years before retiring and starting Dutch Forks Custom Lures, located in Claysville, PA. He has been painting all his life, has two degrees, and a diploma in art and wildlife art. He is now working full time at painting lures and loving it! If you would liek to explore what Keith can do to meet your color needs, take a look at his website at Dutch Forks Custom Baits.
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