May 6, 2024 • 40 mins
In this episode of Team Rhino Outdoors Muskie Fishing Podcast, join our conversation with Marc Arena, the founder of Red October Baits. We take you behind the scenes to reveal how Mack and his team have revolutionized musky fishing with their resilient and effective tubes. Learn about the different ways to rig and use these tubes, and discover how many fishing enthusiasts have become 'tube freaks' because of their effectiveness.
As we step into the Musky season, Marc shares interesting stories from his early muskie fishing days along with profound insights about tube development. Learn how these tubes have drastically changed muskie fishing. Moreover, get a glimpse of Team Rhino's expanding collection of musky fishing gear, including new additions like Simms coats, vests, and hats.
Listen to Marc recount his exciting and rewarding entrepreneurial journey while building Red October. Discover how the company managed growth, faced challenges, and sustained resilience, all while Marc was managing another job and parenting responsibilities. The episode delves into the potential expansion of Red October into multi-species markets and strategies for future success. Marc also offers valuable advice for beginners keen to enter the tube fishing game.
Finally, we dive into the endearing culture of 'tube freaks', a community of passionate tube fishers known for their deep connection to their craft. Get an insider's perspective on the endless customization possibilities in tube fishing and decode the mystery of why these rigs disappear. Whether you're a seasoned tube freak or a beginner in these exciting waters, this enlightening episode with Marc Arena is sure to reel you in.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Muskie Gear Monday on the Team Rhino Outdoors
Muskie Fishing Podcast.
This week, we're going to talk to Mark Arena from Red October Tubes.
Many, many people have jumped on the tube train, or Mark calls them tube freaks.
They've transformed into tube freaks over the past five seasons.
Tubes are definitely nothing new, but for sure gaining in popularity.
(00:30):
If you do not have a tube in your arsenal, then you can definitely be missing
out on availability to catch some muskies.
So we're going to kind of go down the history of Red October.
We're going to talk a little bit about how to rig them, how to use them,
things like that, what the difference is in the rigs, and just kind of give
you a, you know, 411 on the musky tubes brought to you by Red October Tubes.
(00:53):
So if you're looking for tubes for your next musky fishing adventure,
check out TeamRhinoOutdoors.com.
We literally just got tubes in like an
hour ago before we recorded this one so we are
freshly stocked up on tons of red october tubes for this
season we talk about this episode of rigs we
in the if you're looking for a 10 inch shallow rig we're a little light on those because
(01:14):
people eat them up like crazy which is very good
because we're in the business to sell things but odd because i
don't know where they all go and so if you're
looking for tubes we have them lots of them unrigged rigged
whatever you want tube wise we have it
and we have the largest color selection in all
of musky fishing when it comes to red october tubes so go
(01:36):
check it out at team rhino outdoors.com recently what
have we added we added the some coats by sims the.
Catafront not catafront it's the fall run hoodie
and hopefully by the time you hear this we have the
what do we what else did we get we got some vests
we have a few of those not many they didn't have many available elbow
so we took a little bit that they had and we
(01:58):
put our logo on those so if you're looking for a little bit of tro
gear you got that we will have some hats coming in
we know people have asked us about the legacy
hats we have some hats that'll be in gosh i don't
think they're going to quite be in by this episode but real soon so keep
checking back on the website and uh you know muskie
season fired up just this past weekend in southern
(02:18):
wisconsin so now we'll start talking to some anglers about
what they have going on what gear they've been using to catch fish
how they've been working it that's kind of what we're going to do all summer long and
we'll mix in some manufacturers here and
there so i don't have anything else to add make sure you check out team rhino
outdoors.com for all your muskie fishing needs and we're going to go talk to
(02:39):
mark arena from red october tube all right my guest this week is mark arena
with red october tubes, Mark,
everybody, most people in the muskie industry would, you know,
know you as Red October, but realistically, this is still a part-time gig.
I'll use like part-time in air quotes because I know your part-time is,
(03:00):
it's kind of like my part-time gigs, right? It's yeah.
Yeah. You know the deal. Yeah. Burning it at both ends all the time.
Yeah, no doubt about it. It's been a wild ride the last five years or so.
Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Appreciate it, Jeff. I appreciate you.
Yeah, yeah. I know it took us a little while to hook up and get together.
We're both pretty busy, so we made it work. So thanks.
(03:22):
But yeah, it's been in the last five years particularly. So we've been doing
this, I say we because I had two partners originally, and they actually started the business,
and eventually I took over in 2011, but we started together back and i think
it was 2004 we're going on 20 years you know and finally i think the muskie world has,
(03:44):
opened their eyes to the reality of
what tubes can do uh there's no doubt and in the funny part about it is to a
lot of anglers this seems like a new a new deal a new concept you know but it's
not new at all i mean i i fish with steve jensen quite a bit and he's telling
me how you know I don't know how long ago it was.
(04:04):
I mean, he won a tournament on tubes probably 15 years ago.
I think him and I fished some PMTT events, and I remember fishing down in Madison,
and, you know, during pre-fishing, he's just crushing them on tubes,
and just, you know, like, and this was, gosh, I don't know, eight years ago for that.
So it's not like these are new baits to the market. It's just people finally
opened their eyes. What took them so long? Like, I don't quite understand it.
(04:27):
So I think it's really a matter of,
with most musky things, it's a matter of confidence right
so you know there was a
couple guys early on you know some of the
earliest guys who really jumped on this tube thing
and i think they have a particular thing in common you know guys like greg thomas
matt raley phil swick pete mayna they were some of the very earliest guys from
(04:54):
out in the midwest like over here back in new york you know we were we're doing
our thing for a couple of years.
But those guys were some of the earliest guys who reached out to us or maybe
when we were at the Chicago show, you know, there used to be at the at the Harper
College, there used to be like a outdoor hallway where you didn't have to pay to have a booth.
So when we first started i think our first show was 2005 maybe we were out in that hallway and,
(05:22):
you know just pitching the idea to anybody who would listen about what you know
what you can do with the tube essentially be as versatile as you can can be
you know like you can create these rigging systems that allow you to fish in
so many different manners and maybe that's part of to To answer your original question,
maybe that's part of what the issue is in terms of it catching on.
(05:45):
It's not like a bucktail or most baits that just do a thing.
They do everything, right? They can fish 30 feet down in current,
or you can pitch it up in a skinny little backwater creek in three, four feet of water.
You can do open water fishing, bottom bouncing, pitch them up into the weeds, weed edges.
(06:07):
You know, I think the versatility of the tube, maybe that's part of the reason
why people took so long time to really commit themselves.
But that common thread that I saw between some of those early guys is that,
you know, some people just have that knack for creating a scenario where,
(06:31):
you know, the fish is going to react.
And you need to have the right tool to do that.
And a jig of any sort, you know, bass fishermen know this well,
any sort of jig, the fisherman is really the key to that whole thing, right?
You're controlling its cadence, its speed, its depth.
And you can kind of visualize where you think the fish are locating or how they're
(06:56):
oriented to structure and cater your rigging system and your approach to,
you know, attack that, you know, from angles that otherwise you can't,
you can't do with other baits.
So I think maybe that is, you know, going back quite a ways.
That's, that's really how we got our started. We had a couple of guys who just
(07:17):
said, you know, these are cool.
They're cool. Very simple, rudimentary tool. that you can do anything you want with.
Let's start at the early going of this. What made you guys even decide to start
making tubes on your own?
So the genesis of this whole thing was a captain on the Niagara River.
(07:38):
His name was Captain Tom Slomka.
He actually wrote for Muskie Hunter Magazine many, many years ago.
But he was jigging in the Niagara River with tubes. tubes, and pretty productive,
and they were the Tiger tubes from Lindy Tech.
I don't even know if you remember those or if your listeners would remember
(07:59):
those, but they were around in the very early 2000s.
And he would take the harness system that came with those Tiger tubes was for
shallow water application.
So he would take those out and then he'd put a big old jig head inside of there and just
bouncing on the bottom of the river so that style of fishing was kind of introduced
(08:24):
to myself and my partners Hans Mann and Josh Ketchery and we kind of said all right.
And Lindy started, took them off the market once we started getting into this jigging.
So Hans and Josh decided they were going to make some.
(08:46):
My maneuver was to call every tackle shop in the United States and see who had
any, and I got them shipped to my house.
But Hans and Josh took it upon themselves to learn how to make tubes.
And all they did was really watch, you know, how somebody made bass fishing
tubes and then scaled it.
And they started that in Hans's garage. And then ultimately when I jumped forward,
(09:12):
we moved to Josh's garage.
And so the three of us spent countless nights in their hand dipping tubes that
in a night, if we made 20 tubes, we were like super stoked.
Because you got to understand, like we hand cut all the tails.
Everything was just so rudimentary. It was absurd. You know,
(09:35):
our efficiency was so stupid. It was, it was non-existent.
So, but yeah, that, that early jigging bite on the Niagara river really kind of was the impetus.
We never had, we never had eyes on building a company, I guess, as it would stand today.
I don't think that was the vision right then for any of us, but,
(09:55):
you know, as we proceeded to, you know, gain popularity locally. Yeah.
We also, at that same time, decided to start developing different harness systems
and different, you know, rigging apparatus that allowed people to use them in different ways.
And that's just a natural progression because if you're a bass fisherman,
you know, people sling tubes in a variety of different ways with different rigs.
(10:17):
So we kind of just started thinking that through and developed some different
systems that could translate to sales elsewhere other than here, you know.
So that's really, that was the genesis of it is a deep jig in the current in the Niagara River.
It's still one of the most underutilized techniques in muskie
fishing it's such a different way to
(10:38):
fish muskies and you know to get confidence and to become a really good jigger
is is tough but we those of us who do it well and know where to go do it the
fruits are amazing and a lot of time you're catching fish that are they're just
not harassed by anyone else you know they're 18 25 25 feet down,
heavy current, and they're not seeing baits.
(11:00):
You know, once in a while you might get a fish trolling at night.
Most fish will come up and bite because they'll come up in the evenings or overnight.
But, you know, the majority of the fish that we're catching in the middle of
the day are just big, heavy, you know, slobs.
Particularly back in the early days when we got to the St. Lawrence back in, you know, 2005 or so.
(11:20):
We did some damage and it was fun. so obviously initially i mean how long did
it go on before you guys were,
instead instead of just using them for your own personal benefit how
long before you were like yeah i think maybe we should we have something here
maybe we should sell these like was that a year two years
how far down the road it was probably yeah that was probably about a year i'd
say i think it was the following season that we went to the chicago show so
(11:44):
we had a little fun had some success it was funny because we would go to our
local club the niagara muskie association and And they were forever leg core line trollers.
These guys are all hardcore trollers. There was a few guys who did some casting and some jigging.
Joe Liszewski, you might know Joe Joe. He's online a lot. Mm-hmm.
(12:05):
You know, some of these guys did a little bit of jigging. Jojo did with blade
baits and he threw some plastic around.
The postman, he's one of our longtime members. He was also doing some jigging.
But primarily the club was, it was a, you know, it was a trolling deal for everybody.
So when we, when we showed up and we were turning our logs in,
(12:26):
cause you turn your log in at the monthly meeting, all of a sudden we're showing up,
you know, and we got logs of you know 16 20
fish in the last month it was
like a lot of snickers and laughs and bullshit
you know they don't believe it but you know eventually they all came around
and they they use them now too and it's it's uh you know it's obviously the
(12:48):
number one lure in our club so it's it's it's proven itself time and time again
but to to get this thing outside of the western new New York area,
yeah, we took that trip to, I think that was Josh who had the idea,
let's go do this, so we went out, we drove, we packed up a little six-foot box trailer,
(13:10):
tiny little, I still have it, actually, I think it's rotting on the side of
my building, but we packed that sucker up, and off we went, and...
We set up a little, we brought some pictures with us.
You know, you feel like, you know, when you're up and coming,
you're first, everybody who starts a business here, you feel like you got to
bring all those pictures and have wall of pictures and all this stuff.
So we did that deal. We had the, you know, the wall of pictures behind us,
(13:33):
but we took the time to try to engage with anybody who would walk by at that show.
Primarily by snagging their kids and saying, hey, out of those three pictures,
which one is 47 inches long?
You know we'd play this game with them and even if
they got it wrong of course we'd give them another chance and as
(13:53):
soon as they get it right they get a free tube right so we hand
the tube over and then of course dad is now
looking at this thing like well what the hell am i supposed to do with this
and that kind of opened the door for us to have a
conversation about the rigging systems how we fish them but
how these rigging systems that we develop might work for them and
once you start having that conversation and let's say you play
(14:14):
that game with two or three kids and now you got two or three dads and all
of a sudden you got six seven dads and we would have like uh
you know it would happen every 30 40 minutes we'd have a new rotation of of
people just sitting there listening to this spiel and so that was probably that
was definitely that was the way we we kind of set sail out of buffalo here and
(14:36):
and started uh gaining traction elsewhere and
it was some of those guys like matt raley who happened to be in a booth right
next door to us so So he listened to us give this pitch, you know,
over the three-day show.
You know, I think that might have been at the Milwaukee show that first year we did that.
But Greg Thomas, same thing. He was at the booth next to us.
We didn't know any of these guys. You know, we didn't know who they were. They didn't know us.
(14:59):
But they listened to us give this spiel.
Greg, that was in Ohio. He sat next to us for three days and listened to us.
Pete actually approached us in Chicago. He was just curious in general.
You know, and, you know, we gave, of course, we give all these guys,
you know, yeah, here, take them, you know, do what you're going to do with them.
And it's just, I think the shows were the thing that did it for us.
(15:22):
Like we made the commitment and we still do, you know, the shows are hard.
People don't realize show season sucks in a lot of ways.
You know this, right? Yeah, definitely.
So, but if you're going to really make headway, you know, you see so many companies
come and go like, you know, 99% of the companies that show up disappear, right? Right.
(15:44):
So you got to really make a commitment to build your customer base if you believe in what you have.
And we certainly believed what we had and, you know, we just kept working at
it through the show circuit.
And once you pick up a couple of stars and then you pick up Rallying Highlands
and then the things start rolling, you know.
Yeah, I mean, it's a big snowball type of a deal. It's pretty crazy how,
(16:07):
you know, how it all works out. Right.
I mean, in nobody, what the part of the people don't see is sometimes they like,
I'm sure a lot of people assume that you guys were like overnight success,
but I've talked to you before.
And there was a point in time where you decided like, yeah, I don't know that
this is really going to work out. I think we actually need to maybe think about
doing something different.
Yeah, that was probably about 2012.
(16:30):
So, you know, Hans became a charter captain. Josh owns a jujitsu studio.
And, you know, so it left either me to keep running with the thing or just, you know, kill it.
So I took it on my shoulders by myself.
And after about a year and a half of that, I was like literally on the verge
(16:53):
of just like, eh, I don't think this is really worth it anymore, you know.
But true to my nature, I'm not the smartest guy.
I always just put my head down and just keep grinding.
And, you know, sometimes that pays off too, is just working hard.
So I just kept working at it and eventually it did, it, it, it turned for the better.
(17:16):
I, I think one of the other things besides those shows you had mentioned,
like Steve Jensen, and I know he used the tubes early on, you know,
a lot of the guys who weren't necessarily shouting from the rooftops,
but I was hearing, getting good feedback from, even though I wouldn't,
I wouldn't have a ton of sales.
I knew that there were guys winning tournaments on these
(17:36):
things and that became another source of kind of motivation is all right you
know that's just another data point that tells me you know just stick with it
you know if these are these are the these are the top-notch fishermen and they're
depending on this tool to win their tournaments right.
Mark Lajewski is another guy. I could go on and on. There's a lot of guys out there.
(18:02):
Nate, Asfar. These guys are just phenomenal fishermen, and I was getting really
good feedback from them. They were having a lot of success.
So that also, I think the fact that the tournament scene became aware of tubes
maybe about eight years ago, maybe 10.
And then they became a staple, and then they were just winning tournaments left and right.
(18:25):
That was that was big for us too yeah so
you know we've talked about the last five years and i
and i've said it to a lot of people like i you know the the growth of
tubes in the last five years has been unbelievable because
like i remember when we first started with you first off
we didn't carry any of your stock stuff we just carried we did the
custom painted thing like a couple times a year you know that
(18:46):
was it and then finally i mean you
know how that is it was difficult to to get those consistently so
i'm like well we got to have these things a little more consistently so we started to
take on your your standard stuff and we
did a few custom colors with just you know just standard
pours no no paint no nothing and our orders were
yeah we'd maybe put in like two reasonable orders
(19:07):
a year and now it's like we put in five
almost as big orders as we think you can handle at
a time it's just incredible there's there's some guy
there's some guy at team rhino that thinks he can get any
custom color he wants made you know anytime he wants it
so no it's been that's been great no i
mean you guys obviously have helped us as well so what
(19:28):
do you carry like 30 something colors like it's nuts something like that and
i will and i want to do more but i'm starting to run out of ideas but i do want
it i do want to do more so yeah well i got something i got something i got something
for you i texted you the other day uh we're gonna follow up on that yeah that'll
be cool and i'm excited about that too but But,
you know, let's talk about beyond muskies.
(19:48):
You know, we've kind of hinted at a little bit, you know, is there life in Red
October beyond muskies?
Or do you think this is as far as you're going to go?
Yeah, no, I, I, in terms of like building the business out, you know,
my, my goal is to certainly, you know, musky is our, it's our main thing right now.
(20:09):
And it will always be, you know, kind of what our foundation is,
is built upon, but there's a lot of opportunities in, you know, multi-species world.
So, you know, that includes a lot of saltwater. I mean, I've had a lot of interest
over the years, varying amounts at different times
from the saltwater world world and you know and then obviously you know translates
(20:30):
well for lake trout and i've sold to quite a few largemouth bass guys you know
it's the pike fishing whatever you want to do you know we're we're definitely
looking to expand into into other markets and.
You know we've got some new designs in mind it's funny because we i have so
many ideas that have come and gone out of my brain that I know some of them
(20:52):
were probably home runs.
It's just so hard to get ahead far enough.
Seems like the harder I work and the more we make, the less time I have.
It's been that kind of ride. And I know eventually that that doesn't last forever. I'm no fool.
You have to continue to grow and find different avenues to help your business.
(21:17):
So, you know, we'll continue to look for those opportunities in the coming years
and, you know, expand outside of the muskie world.
And hopefully this will be something that's around for my kids.
To fart around with if they feel like it, or if they don't feel like it, that's fine too.
You know, I'm sure I'll find somebody who'd be willing to take the reins.
(21:40):
That's funny. Cause that's the same way I feel about this business from,
for me as of right now, I don't know that I'm going to find somebody to take
the reins, but we'll see.
I still have two young boys. I know my older daughter, she's going to be going
off to college in the fall.
I always say off to college, she's going to college, but she'll be staying here. How old are your kids?
Let's see. I have an 18 year old, a 16 year old, a almost
(22:01):
13 year old and my youngest son is 10 so oh
you got four man god bless you yeah you
gotta be pretty close aren't you what do you have three we got three yeah we
got three younger though so we got 12 and my son will be 11 here shortly and
then my youngest is eight okay so i got a little ways to go but i started late
(22:22):
as well yeah well it's i mean it's fun it's obviously fun to have kids,
but the amount of time you, you spend,
you know, involved in all of their, their commitments is mind blowing.
Like I'm just, you know, tonight we're going to get done and I'll probably go,
you know, fart around with some baseball stuff with the kids.
Cause they're both into baseball this time of year.
(22:42):
And just, it's one thing after another basketball in the summer or the,
in the winter and then baseball summer long and basketball.
So running, running the business. And I mean, we didn't mention it,
but I mean, we mentioned you had another job, but you mean you're a teacher.
So obviously that takes a good deal of time there too.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm almost done there though. I've only got a few years left, thank God.
(23:04):
So yeah, once that's done, you know, then I can really focus on this.
But I'm blessed with some awesome employees.
I've got my sister-in-law and then I've got four other guys who are really great
and looking, always looking for more help because it's hard to,
you know, hard to find good help. It really is. It's no joke.
(23:25):
And to keep them, obviously, it costs you money.
And in New York State here, it's not the best situation for building a business.
But it is where I'm at, and we're making it work.
So, yeah, but I do want to give a shout out to my, to my employees. They rule.
Well, pretty soon you need to get the kids out there, right?
That's where I'm at with mine. I didn't, I didn't hire employees. I just grew employees.
(23:48):
You know what? That's not a bad idea. Your shop's right on your property.
I got about, about a mile and a half to my shop. I wish it was right on my property.
Yep. There's times I text them. I'm like, all right, time to come to work. Let's go.
And they, some, some of them pretend like they didn't hear it, even though I know that
they heard it but they they all have a time clock in the shop and they all punch
in yeah that's awesome how big is your shop it's about 2 000 square feet yeah
(24:13):
that's nice yeah we got ours
is 2 500 square foot and i'm looking to put another building up hopefully this
year is my goal i don't know if it'll happen but that would be nice to get a
second building up and have a little more space get some more equipment and
then hire some more people yeah good good problems to have
building businesses is good problems to have so mark one
(24:36):
thing we didn't talk about and i'm sure there's some people that are are interested
in it we didn't talk about you know if somebody's
gonna get into the tube game they haven't ventured into it yet and there are
many that haven't because i talk to people at shows and i talk to i get emails
from people and messages from people like hey i'm looking at getting into some
tubes what i need to do what if what's your advice to somebody i'm just getting
(24:58):
into tubes what should they what should they have what should they get started with.
So if it were me, you know, I'd get my ear to the ground and,
and get on some social media and find those guys.
Like Steve Herbeck would be one, John Pencil, Colin Vieters, you know, Hans man.
(25:20):
Like we've got so many guys out there who, you know, if you,
if you're every once in a while, I'll see someone put a post up and these guys
are more than willing to, to chime in.
Go search some of those threads in some of the Muskie groups,
and you can find a lot that way.
I would say there's a number of videos out there now where folks are explaining the rigging systems.
(25:48):
And it's interesting because I watch them and I learn stuff as well,
because that is really the coolest thing about the tube is they're so versatile
that anybody can kind of create their own rig for their own application and make it work.
I'll tell you, one of the coolest things that I saw in the last 12 months was
Glenn McDonald, you know, 54 or bust? Absolutely.
(26:11):
So Glenn did the underwater footage of the tube and had the audio.
I don't know if you caught that, but, you know, everyone assumes that the tube
is just this slippery, sleek little thing just kind of slip sliding through
the water, pretty innocuous, you know, and non-threatening.
(26:31):
But the the audio of that
tube underwater was the exact opposite the water
thrusting you know every time you you you you
jerk that tube the body's collapsing right so you
know you're giving it a pull and because it's hollow the body
collapses on itself from the water pressure as you
pull it and it forces water out the
(26:53):
ass end of the tube and it creates this
gurgling swooshing sound every time
you do it and that to me was really eye-opening because
i guess i didn't really consider the possibility that tubes
were noisy and you know i i'm guilty of telling probably thousands of people
(27:13):
the exact opposite is that you know it shows i would say you know it's it's
kind of a you know a bait that doesn't do a whole lot doesn't make a whole lot
of noise and that That might be one of the benefits that,
you know, you have is that, you know, it can trigger neutral fish or even negative fish into eating.
But I don't know that that's true anymore after listening to that audio.
(27:36):
So that was interesting.
But, you know, so these guys, you know, they're experimenting with the tubes there.
You know, obviously we use a lot of blade attachments that has become extremely popular.
Yeah, both in front and in the rear, you know, the tail blades are probably
the more popular, but we saw quite a bit of the blades up in front as well.
(27:59):
You know, it's left open to interpretation.
Like, if you're a good fisherman, you'll come up with something, you know, like...
I got a guy, what's his name? Matty Sintak is his name. He is a fisherman on
the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
This guy puts the tube on the bottom, pounds it on the bottom for,
(28:22):
you know, whatever, 10, 20 seconds. And then he just lets it sit there.
And he watches these fish come over. And he said, sometimes it'll take up to
40 seconds, a minute maybe.
And they'll wolf it off the bottom as it's sitting there, just still.
After, you know, he pounded it a few times on the bottom.
So it's just crazy to me, like, what people do with these things.
(28:45):
You know, there's guys who stuff them with cotton balls and put wooden towels
inside of them and, like, scents.
And it's just, you know, the opportunity is really there.
And that, I guess, is super neat. You know, it makes people feel.
Once you get into the tube game, you know, we call them tube freaks.
Once you become a tube freak, you start to think of all the possibilities and
(29:08):
you get more connected to your catch that way. You feel more responsible.
You're not just throwing a bucktail
and it's not just the fact that these giant blades are making them.
I'm not knocking bucktails.
I don't want anyone to think that they're amazing. They're the best bait that's ever been made.
But you know the the tubes you
(29:28):
have you have that personal connection a lot
of times because you've taken the time to manipulate
the rig or develop a rig that that works for you or even modify the rig that
it comes with you know you just get a little more of a personal connection to
your catch so a lot of people once they get into into the tube game like i've
had customers i got i've got customers that you know we're going we're talking
(29:49):
you know 15 years 18 years some of these guys,
ordering hundreds of dollars worth of tubes every single year.
So there's a lot of information out there. Just play with them.
You can't really fish them wrong. You know, you just can't. There's nothing
you can do wrong with a tube, really.
Because it doesn't have any, any inherent action that it's supposed to look
(30:13):
like, you know, like these other baits, you know, what a double tens are supposed
to do or what a crankbait is supposed to do, what jerkbaits are supposed to
do, you know, like, you know what they're supposed to do. This thing does whatever you make it do.
So back to what we said earlier, I think that's probably one of the things that
maybe causes some hesitation or some pause for anglers.
(30:34):
But for other anglers, that is like the thing that attracts them.
Them yeah that definitely makes sense let's before i let you out of here i we
got about everything pretty much covered that i wanted to cover let's talk about
your hybrid you know your hybrid mid shallow rig that's one of those that i
get questions about what was it designed for and
is it's going to give that more action or what would you recommend for people
(30:56):
on that one so that was really that that came to be because you know you got
two well three styles i guess You know, the pull point on the tube is a big deal.
Like, so on our shallow nose rigs, you know, they're called the nose rig because
that pull point comes straight out the tip of the tube, right?
We designed it so that you have some weight that exists not only in the head,
(31:19):
but as you move towards the back of the bait, there's some lead,
you know, midway through the bait.
So it doesn't fall nose down very quickly.
And because it's at the pull points in the front, the tip of the tube,
you know, you're getting a lot more lateral horizontal type movement and it
stays relatively shallow.
That shallow harness system is, you know, we're talking top four feet wide.
(31:43):
But we wanted that same action, that horizontal action, but we wanted it at a greater depth.
So that's where that hybrid came from. We took the same wire frame and we tripled the amount of lead.
That hybrid rig actually weighs almost twice as much as the mid-depth rig.
So I know that's the one where I show people are just like they can't grasp
(32:06):
the idea, but it fishes much shallower. You know, the hybrid rig fishes in that
four to eight foot range, and that's primarily from two reasons.
The pull point's in the front of the bait, so every time you jerk it,
you're pulling it horizontally, and the weight is dispersed,
like I said earlier, to the back of the bait so it doesn't fall quickly.
(32:27):
It kind of falls, not totally horizontal, but it falls more horizontally than it does vertically.
When you put all the weight up front on that mid-depth rig, now when it hits
the water, the first thing that tube wants to do is dive.
It wants to go down, but the pull point's no longer in the front.
It's on the top of the head or close to the top of the head.
So when you jerk, you're actually pulling that tube upwards.
(32:48):
So you get a lot more hopping motion out of that mid-depth rig.
And that's definitely our number one selling rig, although the hybrid in the
last, I'd say, two seasons has made a serious charge.
Like people with that hybrid rig with the tail blade, that seems to be like
people have fallen in love with that idea.
And it works, you know, it works really well because now you got that horizontal
(33:10):
presentation where you can fish it down eight foot down or four foot down.
Again, it's on your your speed and your cadence are going to dictate that.
But that that system, I think, really meets the demand for a lot of people who
are fishing reed edges, even rock shoals. Like if you're fishing that top 10 feet.
That hybrid rig really gives you a lot more linger, a lot more hang time than that mid-depth rig.
(33:35):
Now, the mid-depth rig, you can fish it in that same depth of water,
that 8 to 10-foot zone, but you're on it.
You're pumping, pumping, pumping. You're really keeping up on it.
It's fantastic bait for finding fish.
That mid-depth bait, it doesn't wear you out.
It doesn't have a lip or blades or anything like that that's going to give you a lot of resistance.
(33:59):
You know, you can just use your body and just kind of swing your hips and just
keep jerking that tube, you know, for however long you need to.
And it doesn't really wear you out.
So, you know, those hybrid rigs, though, they just kind of filled a niche that didn't exist.
You know, we had that shallow rig was like the top four feet.
(34:19):
And then we went right to the mid-depth, which is really designed for like eight to 20 feet.
So we needed something that was kind of going to cover that four to eight foot
range. And that's what that does.
Yeah, that's awesome. I'm glad you explained it. I think that'll help anybody
that listens to this. It'll help clear up a few things.
Cause I think, you know, much like you, you already talked about the,
I guess the, let's say like the customization part of it sometimes gets people
(34:43):
so that they're afraid how to customize it. Right. They're afraid how to rig it.
They're afraid that they can't, they're going to do something wrong and this
thing isn't going to work right. And, and things like that.
So hopefully we, uh, you can call them a few fears on, on that. Yeah, no doubt.
You know what I think it is, Jeff? I think that, you know, people get so used
to the idea of these, like, and get these walk the dog style baits and they're,
they're awesome. Right. They're amazing.
(35:05):
And like for years I would have people be like, well, it doesn't walk right
for me. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Tubes don't walk. That's not what they do. You know, like that was,
I think scared a lot of people off as well because they were looking at it like,
oh, this is just kind of like a jerk bait.
And it is, you know, but it's its own style, you know, it's its own style of
jerkbait where, you know, you're going to get that pull pause,
(35:27):
but you're not going to get consistent action out of, particularly out of the
nose rigs. You have no idea what that thing's going to do.
So, you know, the mid-depth rigs or the heavier, the heavier stuff,
you know, is a little more consistent in reaction,
but the hybrid and the shallow stuff, you just kind of, it's like a goddamn
wet sock, you know, it doesn't do a whole lot, but man, they eat the shit out
(35:47):
of it. That's the funny part that you say that.
Cause that's literally like when Steve's throwing them, I'm like,
oh, you're gonna throw some wet socks today.
Cause that's exactly, that's exactly the way they sound.
Like they even sound like you threw a wet sock out when they hit the water.
Yeah, they do. And you'd think the tentacles and stuff would be flailing all
over, but they aren't always, you know. No, no, no.
It's, but like you said, I mean, those fish just eat them up. So it's very cool.
(36:11):
Well, I do have one last question. What the heck do all these people do with all these rigs?
I put in order after order after order and i
increase my numbers on rigs all the time and
yet they're always like low what are
people doing with all these rigs yeah it's an amazing question i don't know
i get i do get lots of pictures of piles of shredded up tubes i get that a lot
(36:35):
but what happens with the rigs i do not know they're out there they're out there like this This is,
I know you order like hundreds and hundreds of rigs, but I got an order today
or yesterday from Thorne.
Literally, there's like 250 rigs on the order.
I mean, it's like, I don't know. I think what happens, maybe this maybe explains
(36:59):
part of it is, you know, you get that spare tube or you buy your three packs or whatever.
And the idea originally was, you know, you can just take the rig out and then
put it in a new tube. And I think people are like, F that.
I want everything ready to go. I want to be able to pick it up, snap it on, and toss it.
So I think a lot of people are just pre-rigging all the different styles of
(37:23):
whatever color they want with whatever depth rig they want.
And they want to be able to just grab it and go. They don't want to take the
time to take the rig out, put it in a different tube.
So that probably explains some of that volume of rigs going out there.
I mean, that would explain some of it. But you'd think like,
okay, once I get that tube shredded, I still have the rig, right?
(37:44):
So I just buy some replacement tubes and I put them in my existing rigs and
away I go. Like, so it, it blows me away.
I'm not complaining. They can keep buying. I don't know. You're not complaining
either. I have no idea what they're, what they're doing with them though.
Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I'm like, I'm not complaining.
They can do whatever they want. They could buy as many rigs and as many tubes
as you want to buy. That's awesome.
I love it. Cause that's what we do. We sell stuff, but I just want to,
(38:07):
I'm just curious where they all go. Yeah, I don't know.
I really don't. I've never really, I've never, I've never thought about,
I always thought about the rubber kind of things, but I have never,
I guess, considered the fact that we do so well.
Thousands and thousands of rigs and how do
they go i don't know i mean i i had an order yesterday it was
just six mid-depth rigs that's all they bought six rigs i
(38:29):
was like yeah huh that's interesting no tubes just rigs yeah yeah okay but like
i said i don't care we'll sell them well part of that i think i don't know like
like when i i don't take a whole lot of direct orders anymore just too busy
but you know i fit them in when i can if someone harasses me enough through
emails or calls me enough times, I'll do it.
(38:50):
So, you know, I'm still sending out, you know, like these guys will order,
you know, 20, 30 bodies at a time.
And a lot of times they don't order rigs from me. So that could be it too.
You know, they're getting a lot of bodies from me and then picking up their
rigs elsewhere. Yeah. Interesting.
Oh, well, all right, Mark, I understand that you got things to do.
(39:10):
I got things to do. I appreciate your time very much.
If people want, they can go check out 54 or bus, check out
some tube videos there i'm gonna have to go now i've seen glenn's
stuff and i think he does a great job but now i gotta go check out
this tube video you were talking about and you know
if people are looking to pick up some red october tubes make sure you head over
to team rhino outdoors.com and like mark said i mean we probably have the largest
(39:32):
color selection around absolutely you do you have the largest selection of colors
that exist drive me nuts well i apologize that's That's why we try to pay you as fast as we can,
because we do appreciate your promptness to our orders and how good you guys do. It's amazing.
(39:52):
I just got five more boxes today. So once we're done with this,
I'll go follow through. Let's keep this train rolling. You know how it goes.
Let's do it. Absolutely.
Well, I want to thank you for your time, Mark. And I want to thank our listeners
for listening and tuning in for another episode.
And we'll have another one again next week, Monday. Okay. Sounds good.
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Muskie Gear Monday on the Team Rhino Outdoors
Muskie Fishing Podcast.
This week, we're going to talk to Mark Arena from Red October Tubes.
Many, many people have jumped on the tube train, or Mark calls them tube freaks.
They've transformed into tube freaks over the past five seasons.
Tubes are definitely nothing new, but for sure gaining in popularity.
(00:30):
If you do not have a tube in your arsenal, then you can definitely be missing
out on availability to catch some muskies.
So we're going to kind of go down the history of Red October.
We're going to talk a little bit about how to rig them, how to use them,
things like that, what the difference is in the rigs, and just kind of give
you a, you know, 411 on the musky tubes brought to you by Red October Tubes.
(00:53):
So if you're looking for tubes for your next musky fishing adventure,
check out TeamRhinoOutdoors.com.
We literally just got tubes in like an
hour ago before we recorded this one so we are
freshly stocked up on tons of red october tubes for this
season we talk about this episode of rigs we
in the if you're looking for a 10 inch shallow rig we're a little light on those because
(01:14):
people eat them up like crazy which is very good
because we're in the business to sell things but odd because i
don't know where they all go and so if you're
looking for tubes we have them lots of them unrigged rigged
whatever you want tube wise we have it
and we have the largest color selection in all
of musky fishing when it comes to red october tubes so go
(01:36):
check it out at team rhino outdoors.com recently what
have we added we added the some coats by sims the.
Catafront not catafront it's the fall run hoodie
and hopefully by the time you hear this we have the
what do we what else did we get we got some vests
we have a few of those not many they didn't have many available elbow
so we took a little bit that they had and we
(01:58):
put our logo on those so if you're looking for a little bit of tro
gear you got that we will have some hats coming in
we know people have asked us about the legacy
hats we have some hats that'll be in gosh i don't
think they're going to quite be in by this episode but real soon so keep
checking back on the website and uh you know muskie
season fired up just this past weekend in southern
(02:18):
wisconsin so now we'll start talking to some anglers about
what they have going on what gear they've been using to catch fish
how they've been working it that's kind of what we're going to do all summer long and
we'll mix in some manufacturers here and
there so i don't have anything else to add make sure you check out team rhino
outdoors.com for all your muskie fishing needs and we're going to go talk to
(02:39):
mark arena from red october tube all right my guest this week is mark arena
with red october tubes, Mark,
everybody, most people in the muskie industry would, you know,
know you as Red October, but realistically, this is still a part-time gig.
I'll use like part-time in air quotes because I know your part-time is,
(03:00):
it's kind of like my part-time gigs, right? It's yeah.
Yeah. You know the deal. Yeah. Burning it at both ends all the time.
Yeah, no doubt about it. It's been a wild ride the last five years or so.
Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Appreciate it, Jeff. I appreciate you.
Yeah, yeah. I know it took us a little while to hook up and get together.
We're both pretty busy, so we made it work. So thanks.
(03:22):
But yeah, it's been in the last five years particularly. So we've been doing
this, I say we because I had two partners originally, and they actually started the business,
and eventually I took over in 2011, but we started together back and i think
it was 2004 we're going on 20 years you know and finally i think the muskie world has,
(03:44):
opened their eyes to the reality of
what tubes can do uh there's no doubt and in the funny part about it is to a
lot of anglers this seems like a new a new deal a new concept you know but it's
not new at all i mean i i fish with steve jensen quite a bit and he's telling
me how you know I don't know how long ago it was.
(04:04):
I mean, he won a tournament on tubes probably 15 years ago.
I think him and I fished some PMTT events, and I remember fishing down in Madison,
and, you know, during pre-fishing, he's just crushing them on tubes,
and just, you know, like, and this was, gosh, I don't know, eight years ago for that.
So it's not like these are new baits to the market. It's just people finally
opened their eyes. What took them so long? Like, I don't quite understand it.
(04:27):
So I think it's really a matter of,
with most musky things, it's a matter of confidence right
so you know there was a
couple guys early on you know some of the
earliest guys who really jumped on this tube thing
and i think they have a particular thing in common you know guys like greg thomas
matt raley phil swick pete mayna they were some of the very earliest guys from
(04:54):
out in the midwest like over here back in new york you know we were we're doing
our thing for a couple of years.
But those guys were some of the earliest guys who reached out to us or maybe
when we were at the Chicago show, you know, there used to be at the at the Harper
College, there used to be like a outdoor hallway where you didn't have to pay to have a booth.
So when we first started i think our first show was 2005 maybe we were out in that hallway and,
(05:22):
you know just pitching the idea to anybody who would listen about what you know
what you can do with the tube essentially be as versatile as you can can be
you know like you can create these rigging systems that allow you to fish in
so many different manners and maybe that's part of to To answer your original question,
maybe that's part of what the issue is in terms of it catching on.
(05:45):
It's not like a bucktail or most baits that just do a thing.
They do everything, right? They can fish 30 feet down in current,
or you can pitch it up in a skinny little backwater creek in three, four feet of water.
You can do open water fishing, bottom bouncing, pitch them up into the weeds, weed edges.
(06:07):
You know, I think the versatility of the tube, maybe that's part of the reason
why people took so long time to really commit themselves.
But that common thread that I saw between some of those early guys is that,
you know, some people just have that knack for creating a scenario where,
(06:31):
you know, the fish is going to react.
And you need to have the right tool to do that.
And a jig of any sort, you know, bass fishermen know this well,
any sort of jig, the fisherman is really the key to that whole thing, right?
You're controlling its cadence, its speed, its depth.
And you can kind of visualize where you think the fish are locating or how they're
(06:56):
oriented to structure and cater your rigging system and your approach to,
you know, attack that, you know, from angles that otherwise you can't,
you can't do with other baits.
So I think maybe that is, you know, going back quite a ways.
That's, that's really how we got our started. We had a couple of guys who just
(07:17):
said, you know, these are cool.
They're cool. Very simple, rudimentary tool. that you can do anything you want with.
Let's start at the early going of this. What made you guys even decide to start
making tubes on your own?
So the genesis of this whole thing was a captain on the Niagara River.
(07:38):
His name was Captain Tom Slomka.
He actually wrote for Muskie Hunter Magazine many, many years ago.
But he was jigging in the Niagara River with tubes. tubes, and pretty productive,
and they were the Tiger tubes from Lindy Tech.
I don't even know if you remember those or if your listeners would remember
(07:59):
those, but they were around in the very early 2000s.
And he would take the harness system that came with those Tiger tubes was for
shallow water application.
So he would take those out and then he'd put a big old jig head inside of there and just
bouncing on the bottom of the river so that style of fishing was kind of introduced
(08:24):
to myself and my partners Hans Mann and Josh Ketchery and we kind of said all right.
And Lindy started, took them off the market once we started getting into this jigging.
So Hans and Josh decided they were going to make some.
(08:46):
My maneuver was to call every tackle shop in the United States and see who had
any, and I got them shipped to my house.
But Hans and Josh took it upon themselves to learn how to make tubes.
And all they did was really watch, you know, how somebody made bass fishing
tubes and then scaled it.
And they started that in Hans's garage. And then ultimately when I jumped forward,
(09:12):
we moved to Josh's garage.
And so the three of us spent countless nights in their hand dipping tubes that
in a night, if we made 20 tubes, we were like super stoked.
Because you got to understand, like we hand cut all the tails.
Everything was just so rudimentary. It was absurd. You know,
(09:35):
our efficiency was so stupid. It was, it was non-existent.
So, but yeah, that, that early jigging bite on the Niagara river really kind of was the impetus.
We never had, we never had eyes on building a company, I guess, as it would stand today.
I don't think that was the vision right then for any of us, but,
(09:55):
you know, as we proceeded to, you know, gain popularity locally. Yeah.
We also, at that same time, decided to start developing different harness systems
and different, you know, rigging apparatus that allowed people to use them in different ways.
And that's just a natural progression because if you're a bass fisherman,
you know, people sling tubes in a variety of different ways with different rigs.
(10:17):
So we kind of just started thinking that through and developed some different
systems that could translate to sales elsewhere other than here, you know.
So that's really, that was the genesis of it is a deep jig in the current in the Niagara River.
It's still one of the most underutilized techniques in muskie
fishing it's such a different way to
(10:38):
fish muskies and you know to get confidence and to become a really good jigger
is is tough but we those of us who do it well and know where to go do it the
fruits are amazing and a lot of time you're catching fish that are they're just
not harassed by anyone else you know they're 18 25 25 feet down,
heavy current, and they're not seeing baits.
(11:00):
You know, once in a while you might get a fish trolling at night.
Most fish will come up and bite because they'll come up in the evenings or overnight.
But, you know, the majority of the fish that we're catching in the middle of
the day are just big, heavy, you know, slobs.
Particularly back in the early days when we got to the St. Lawrence back in, you know, 2005 or so.
(11:20):
We did some damage and it was fun. so obviously initially i mean how long did
it go on before you guys were,
instead instead of just using them for your own personal benefit how
long before you were like yeah i think maybe we should we have something here
maybe we should sell these like was that a year two years
how far down the road it was probably yeah that was probably about a year i'd
say i think it was the following season that we went to the chicago show so
(11:44):
we had a little fun had some success it was funny because we would go to our
local club the niagara muskie association and And they were forever leg core line trollers.
These guys are all hardcore trollers. There was a few guys who did some casting and some jigging.
Joe Liszewski, you might know Joe Joe. He's online a lot. Mm-hmm.
(12:05):
You know, some of these guys did a little bit of jigging. Jojo did with blade
baits and he threw some plastic around.
The postman, he's one of our longtime members. He was also doing some jigging.
But primarily the club was, it was a, you know, it was a trolling deal for everybody.
So when we, when we showed up and we were turning our logs in,
(12:26):
cause you turn your log in at the monthly meeting, all of a sudden we're showing up,
you know, and we got logs of you know 16 20
fish in the last month it was
like a lot of snickers and laughs and bullshit
you know they don't believe it but you know eventually they all came around
and they they use them now too and it's it's uh you know it's obviously the
(12:48):
number one lure in our club so it's it's it's proven itself time and time again
but to to get this thing outside of the western new New York area,
yeah, we took that trip to, I think that was Josh who had the idea,
let's go do this, so we went out, we drove, we packed up a little six-foot box trailer,
(13:10):
tiny little, I still have it, actually, I think it's rotting on the side of
my building, but we packed that sucker up, and off we went, and...
We set up a little, we brought some pictures with us.
You know, you feel like, you know, when you're up and coming,
you're first, everybody who starts a business here, you feel like you got to
bring all those pictures and have wall of pictures and all this stuff.
So we did that deal. We had the, you know, the wall of pictures behind us,
(13:33):
but we took the time to try to engage with anybody who would walk by at that show.
Primarily by snagging their kids and saying, hey, out of those three pictures,
which one is 47 inches long?
You know we'd play this game with them and even if
they got it wrong of course we'd give them another chance and as
(13:53):
soon as they get it right they get a free tube right so we hand
the tube over and then of course dad is now
looking at this thing like well what the hell am i supposed to do with this
and that kind of opened the door for us to have a
conversation about the rigging systems how we fish them but
how these rigging systems that we develop might work for them and
once you start having that conversation and let's say you play
(14:14):
that game with two or three kids and now you got two or three dads and all
of a sudden you got six seven dads and we would have like uh
you know it would happen every 30 40 minutes we'd have a new rotation of of
people just sitting there listening to this spiel and so that was probably that
was definitely that was the way we we kind of set sail out of buffalo here and
(14:36):
and started uh gaining traction elsewhere and
it was some of those guys like matt raley who happened to be in a booth right
next door to us so So he listened to us give this pitch, you know,
over the three-day show.
You know, I think that might have been at the Milwaukee show that first year we did that.
But Greg Thomas, same thing. He was at the booth next to us.
We didn't know any of these guys. You know, we didn't know who they were. They didn't know us.
(14:59):
But they listened to us give this spiel.
Greg, that was in Ohio. He sat next to us for three days and listened to us.
Pete actually approached us in Chicago. He was just curious in general.
You know, and, you know, we gave, of course, we give all these guys,
you know, yeah, here, take them, you know, do what you're going to do with them.
And it's just, I think the shows were the thing that did it for us.
(15:22):
Like we made the commitment and we still do, you know, the shows are hard.
People don't realize show season sucks in a lot of ways.
You know this, right? Yeah, definitely.
So, but if you're going to really make headway, you know, you see so many companies
come and go like, you know, 99% of the companies that show up disappear, right? Right.
(15:44):
So you got to really make a commitment to build your customer base if you believe in what you have.
And we certainly believed what we had and, you know, we just kept working at
it through the show circuit.
And once you pick up a couple of stars and then you pick up Rallying Highlands
and then the things start rolling, you know.
Yeah, I mean, it's a big snowball type of a deal. It's pretty crazy how,
(16:07):
you know, how it all works out. Right.
I mean, in nobody, what the part of the people don't see is sometimes they like,
I'm sure a lot of people assume that you guys were like overnight success,
but I've talked to you before.
And there was a point in time where you decided like, yeah, I don't know that
this is really going to work out. I think we actually need to maybe think about
doing something different.
Yeah, that was probably about 2012.
(16:30):
So, you know, Hans became a charter captain. Josh owns a jujitsu studio.
And, you know, so it left either me to keep running with the thing or just, you know, kill it.
So I took it on my shoulders by myself.
And after about a year and a half of that, I was like literally on the verge
(16:53):
of just like, eh, I don't think this is really worth it anymore, you know.
But true to my nature, I'm not the smartest guy.
I always just put my head down and just keep grinding.
And, you know, sometimes that pays off too, is just working hard.
So I just kept working at it and eventually it did, it, it, it turned for the better.
(17:16):
I, I think one of the other things besides those shows you had mentioned,
like Steve Jensen, and I know he used the tubes early on, you know,
a lot of the guys who weren't necessarily shouting from the rooftops,
but I was hearing, getting good feedback from, even though I wouldn't,
I wouldn't have a ton of sales.
I knew that there were guys winning tournaments on these
(17:36):
things and that became another source of kind of motivation is all right you
know that's just another data point that tells me you know just stick with it
you know if these are these are the these are the top-notch fishermen and they're
depending on this tool to win their tournaments right.
Mark Lajewski is another guy. I could go on and on. There's a lot of guys out there.
(18:02):
Nate, Asfar. These guys are just phenomenal fishermen, and I was getting really
good feedback from them. They were having a lot of success.
So that also, I think the fact that the tournament scene became aware of tubes
maybe about eight years ago, maybe 10.
And then they became a staple, and then they were just winning tournaments left and right.
(18:25):
That was that was big for us too yeah so
you know we've talked about the last five years and i
and i've said it to a lot of people like i you know the the growth of
tubes in the last five years has been unbelievable because
like i remember when we first started with you first off
we didn't carry any of your stock stuff we just carried we did the
custom painted thing like a couple times a year you know that
(18:46):
was it and then finally i mean you
know how that is it was difficult to to get those consistently so
i'm like well we got to have these things a little more consistently so we started to
take on your your standard stuff and we
did a few custom colors with just you know just standard
pours no no paint no nothing and our orders were
yeah we'd maybe put in like two reasonable orders
(19:07):
a year and now it's like we put in five
almost as big orders as we think you can handle at
a time it's just incredible there's there's some guy
there's some guy at team rhino that thinks he can get any
custom color he wants made you know anytime he wants it
so no it's been that's been great no i
mean you guys obviously have helped us as well so what
(19:28):
do you carry like 30 something colors like it's nuts something like that and
i will and i want to do more but i'm starting to run out of ideas but i do want
it i do want to do more so yeah well i got something i got something i got something
for you i texted you the other day uh we're gonna follow up on that yeah that'll
be cool and i'm excited about that too but But,
you know, let's talk about beyond muskies.
(19:48):
You know, we've kind of hinted at a little bit, you know, is there life in Red
October beyond muskies?
Or do you think this is as far as you're going to go?
Yeah, no, I, I, in terms of like building the business out, you know,
my, my goal is to certainly, you know, musky is our, it's our main thing right now.
(20:09):
And it will always be, you know, kind of what our foundation is,
is built upon, but there's a lot of opportunities in, you know, multi-species world.
So, you know, that includes a lot of saltwater. I mean, I've had a lot of interest
over the years, varying amounts at different times
from the saltwater world world and you know and then obviously you know translates
(20:30):
well for lake trout and i've sold to quite a few largemouth bass guys you know
it's the pike fishing whatever you want to do you know we're we're definitely
looking to expand into into other markets and.
You know we've got some new designs in mind it's funny because we i have so
many ideas that have come and gone out of my brain that I know some of them
(20:52):
were probably home runs.
It's just so hard to get ahead far enough.
Seems like the harder I work and the more we make, the less time I have.
It's been that kind of ride. And I know eventually that that doesn't last forever. I'm no fool.
You have to continue to grow and find different avenues to help your business.
(21:17):
So, you know, we'll continue to look for those opportunities in the coming years
and, you know, expand outside of the muskie world.
And hopefully this will be something that's around for my kids.
To fart around with if they feel like it, or if they don't feel like it, that's fine too.
You know, I'm sure I'll find somebody who'd be willing to take the reins.
(21:40):
That's funny. Cause that's the same way I feel about this business from,
for me as of right now, I don't know that I'm going to find somebody to take
the reins, but we'll see.
I still have two young boys. I know my older daughter, she's going to be going
off to college in the fall.
I always say off to college, she's going to college, but she'll be staying here. How old are your kids?
Let's see. I have an 18 year old, a 16 year old, a almost
(22:01):
13 year old and my youngest son is 10 so oh
you got four man god bless you yeah you
gotta be pretty close aren't you what do you have three we got three yeah we
got three younger though so we got 12 and my son will be 11 here shortly and
then my youngest is eight okay so i got a little ways to go but i started late
(22:22):
as well yeah well it's i mean it's fun it's obviously fun to have kids,
but the amount of time you, you spend,
you know, involved in all of their, their commitments is mind blowing.
Like I'm just, you know, tonight we're going to get done and I'll probably go,
you know, fart around with some baseball stuff with the kids.
Cause they're both into baseball this time of year.
(22:42):
And just, it's one thing after another basketball in the summer or the,
in the winter and then baseball summer long and basketball.
So running, running the business. And I mean, we didn't mention it,
but I mean, we mentioned you had another job, but you mean you're a teacher.
So obviously that takes a good deal of time there too.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm almost done there though. I've only got a few years left, thank God.
(23:04):
So yeah, once that's done, you know, then I can really focus on this.
But I'm blessed with some awesome employees.
I've got my sister-in-law and then I've got four other guys who are really great
and looking, always looking for more help because it's hard to,
you know, hard to find good help. It really is. It's no joke.
(23:25):
And to keep them, obviously, it costs you money.
And in New York State here, it's not the best situation for building a business.
But it is where I'm at, and we're making it work.
So, yeah, but I do want to give a shout out to my, to my employees. They rule.
Well, pretty soon you need to get the kids out there, right?
That's where I'm at with mine. I didn't, I didn't hire employees. I just grew employees.
(23:48):
You know what? That's not a bad idea. Your shop's right on your property.
I got about, about a mile and a half to my shop. I wish it was right on my property.
Yep. There's times I text them. I'm like, all right, time to come to work. Let's go.
And they, some, some of them pretend like they didn't hear it, even though I know that
they heard it but they they all have a time clock in the shop and they all punch
in yeah that's awesome how big is your shop it's about 2 000 square feet yeah
(24:13):
that's nice yeah we got ours
is 2 500 square foot and i'm looking to put another building up hopefully this
year is my goal i don't know if it'll happen but that would be nice to get a
second building up and have a little more space get some more equipment and
then hire some more people yeah good good problems to have
building businesses is good problems to have so mark one
(24:36):
thing we didn't talk about and i'm sure there's some people that are are interested
in it we didn't talk about you know if somebody's
gonna get into the tube game they haven't ventured into it yet and there are
many that haven't because i talk to people at shows and i talk to i get emails
from people and messages from people like hey i'm looking at getting into some
tubes what i need to do what if what's your advice to somebody i'm just getting
(24:58):
into tubes what should they what should they have what should they get started with.
So if it were me, you know, I'd get my ear to the ground and,
and get on some social media and find those guys.
Like Steve Herbeck would be one, John Pencil, Colin Vieters, you know, Hans man.
(25:20):
Like we've got so many guys out there who, you know, if you,
if you're every once in a while, I'll see someone put a post up and these guys
are more than willing to, to chime in.
Go search some of those threads in some of the Muskie groups,
and you can find a lot that way.
I would say there's a number of videos out there now where folks are explaining the rigging systems.
(25:48):
And it's interesting because I watch them and I learn stuff as well,
because that is really the coolest thing about the tube is they're so versatile
that anybody can kind of create their own rig for their own application and make it work.
I'll tell you, one of the coolest things that I saw in the last 12 months was
Glenn McDonald, you know, 54 or bust? Absolutely.
(26:11):
So Glenn did the underwater footage of the tube and had the audio.
I don't know if you caught that, but, you know, everyone assumes that the tube
is just this slippery, sleek little thing just kind of slip sliding through
the water, pretty innocuous, you know, and non-threatening.
(26:31):
But the the audio of that
tube underwater was the exact opposite the water
thrusting you know every time you you you you
jerk that tube the body's collapsing right so you
know you're giving it a pull and because it's hollow the body
collapses on itself from the water pressure as you
pull it and it forces water out the
(26:53):
ass end of the tube and it creates this
gurgling swooshing sound every time
you do it and that to me was really eye-opening because
i guess i didn't really consider the possibility that tubes
were noisy and you know i i'm guilty of telling probably thousands of people
(27:13):
the exact opposite is that you know it shows i would say you know it's it's
kind of a you know a bait that doesn't do a whole lot doesn't make a whole lot
of noise and that That might be one of the benefits that,
you know, you have is that, you know, it can trigger neutral fish or even negative fish into eating.
But I don't know that that's true anymore after listening to that audio.
(27:36):
So that was interesting.
But, you know, so these guys, you know, they're experimenting with the tubes there.
You know, obviously we use a lot of blade attachments that has become extremely popular.
Yeah, both in front and in the rear, you know, the tail blades are probably
the more popular, but we saw quite a bit of the blades up in front as well.
(27:59):
You know, it's left open to interpretation.
Like, if you're a good fisherman, you'll come up with something, you know, like...
I got a guy, what's his name? Matty Sintak is his name. He is a fisherman on
the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
This guy puts the tube on the bottom, pounds it on the bottom for,
(28:22):
you know, whatever, 10, 20 seconds. And then he just lets it sit there.
And he watches these fish come over. And he said, sometimes it'll take up to
40 seconds, a minute maybe.
And they'll wolf it off the bottom as it's sitting there, just still.
After, you know, he pounded it a few times on the bottom.
So it's just crazy to me, like, what people do with these things.
(28:45):
You know, there's guys who stuff them with cotton balls and put wooden towels
inside of them and, like, scents.
And it's just, you know, the opportunity is really there.
And that, I guess, is super neat. You know, it makes people feel.
Once you get into the tube game, you know, we call them tube freaks.
Once you become a tube freak, you start to think of all the possibilities and
(29:08):
you get more connected to your catch that way. You feel more responsible.
You're not just throwing a bucktail
and it's not just the fact that these giant blades are making them.
I'm not knocking bucktails.
I don't want anyone to think that they're amazing. They're the best bait that's ever been made.
But you know the the tubes you
(29:28):
have you have that personal connection a lot
of times because you've taken the time to manipulate
the rig or develop a rig that that works for you or even modify the rig that
it comes with you know you just get a little more of a personal connection to
your catch so a lot of people once they get into into the tube game like i've
had customers i got i've got customers that you know we're going we're talking
(29:49):
you know 15 years 18 years some of these guys,
ordering hundreds of dollars worth of tubes every single year.
So there's a lot of information out there. Just play with them.
You can't really fish them wrong. You know, you just can't. There's nothing
you can do wrong with a tube, really.
Because it doesn't have any, any inherent action that it's supposed to look
(30:13):
like, you know, like these other baits, you know, what a double tens are supposed
to do or what a crankbait is supposed to do, what jerkbaits are supposed to
do, you know, like, you know what they're supposed to do. This thing does whatever you make it do.
So back to what we said earlier, I think that's probably one of the things that
maybe causes some hesitation or some pause for anglers.
(30:34):
But for other anglers, that is like the thing that attracts them.
Them yeah that definitely makes sense let's before i let you out of here i we
got about everything pretty much covered that i wanted to cover let's talk about
your hybrid you know your hybrid mid shallow rig that's one of those that i
get questions about what was it designed for and
is it's going to give that more action or what would you recommend for people
(30:56):
on that one so that was really that that came to be because you know you got
two well three styles i guess You know, the pull point on the tube is a big deal.
Like, so on our shallow nose rigs, you know, they're called the nose rig because
that pull point comes straight out the tip of the tube, right?
We designed it so that you have some weight that exists not only in the head,
(31:19):
but as you move towards the back of the bait, there's some lead,
you know, midway through the bait.
So it doesn't fall nose down very quickly.
And because it's at the pull points in the front, the tip of the tube,
you know, you're getting a lot more lateral horizontal type movement and it
stays relatively shallow.
That shallow harness system is, you know, we're talking top four feet wide.
(31:43):
But we wanted that same action, that horizontal action, but we wanted it at a greater depth.
So that's where that hybrid came from. We took the same wire frame and we tripled the amount of lead.
That hybrid rig actually weighs almost twice as much as the mid-depth rig.
So I know that's the one where I show people are just like they can't grasp
(32:06):
the idea, but it fishes much shallower. You know, the hybrid rig fishes in that
four to eight foot range, and that's primarily from two reasons.
The pull point's in the front of the bait, so every time you jerk it,
you're pulling it horizontally, and the weight is dispersed,
like I said earlier, to the back of the bait so it doesn't fall quickly.
(32:27):
It kind of falls, not totally horizontal, but it falls more horizontally than it does vertically.
When you put all the weight up front on that mid-depth rig, now when it hits
the water, the first thing that tube wants to do is dive.
It wants to go down, but the pull point's no longer in the front.
It's on the top of the head or close to the top of the head.
So when you jerk, you're actually pulling that tube upwards.
(32:48):
So you get a lot more hopping motion out of that mid-depth rig.
And that's definitely our number one selling rig, although the hybrid in the
last, I'd say, two seasons has made a serious charge.
Like people with that hybrid rig with the tail blade, that seems to be like
people have fallen in love with that idea.
And it works, you know, it works really well because now you got that horizontal
(33:10):
presentation where you can fish it down eight foot down or four foot down.
Again, it's on your your speed and your cadence are going to dictate that.
But that that system, I think, really meets the demand for a lot of people who
are fishing reed edges, even rock shoals. Like if you're fishing that top 10 feet.
That hybrid rig really gives you a lot more linger, a lot more hang time than that mid-depth rig.
(33:35):
Now, the mid-depth rig, you can fish it in that same depth of water,
that 8 to 10-foot zone, but you're on it.
You're pumping, pumping, pumping. You're really keeping up on it.
It's fantastic bait for finding fish.
That mid-depth bait, it doesn't wear you out.
It doesn't have a lip or blades or anything like that that's going to give you a lot of resistance.
(33:59):
You know, you can just use your body and just kind of swing your hips and just
keep jerking that tube, you know, for however long you need to.
And it doesn't really wear you out.
So, you know, those hybrid rigs, though, they just kind of filled a niche that didn't exist.
You know, we had that shallow rig was like the top four feet.
(34:19):
And then we went right to the mid-depth, which is really designed for like eight to 20 feet.
So we needed something that was kind of going to cover that four to eight foot
range. And that's what that does.
Yeah, that's awesome. I'm glad you explained it. I think that'll help anybody
that listens to this. It'll help clear up a few things.
Cause I think, you know, much like you, you already talked about the,
I guess the, let's say like the customization part of it sometimes gets people
(34:43):
so that they're afraid how to customize it. Right. They're afraid how to rig it.
They're afraid that they can't, they're going to do something wrong and this
thing isn't going to work right. And, and things like that.
So hopefully we, uh, you can call them a few fears on, on that. Yeah, no doubt.
You know what I think it is, Jeff? I think that, you know, people get so used
to the idea of these, like, and get these walk the dog style baits and they're,
they're awesome. Right. They're amazing.
(35:05):
And like for years I would have people be like, well, it doesn't walk right
for me. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Tubes don't walk. That's not what they do. You know, like that was,
I think scared a lot of people off as well because they were looking at it like,
oh, this is just kind of like a jerk bait.
And it is, you know, but it's its own style, you know, it's its own style of
jerkbait where, you know, you're going to get that pull pause,
(35:27):
but you're not going to get consistent action out of, particularly out of the
nose rigs. You have no idea what that thing's going to do.
So, you know, the mid-depth rigs or the heavier, the heavier stuff,
you know, is a little more consistent in reaction,
but the hybrid and the shallow stuff, you just kind of, it's like a goddamn
wet sock, you know, it doesn't do a whole lot, but man, they eat the shit out
(35:47):
of it. That's the funny part that you say that.
Cause that's literally like when Steve's throwing them, I'm like,
oh, you're gonna throw some wet socks today.
Cause that's exactly, that's exactly the way they sound.
Like they even sound like you threw a wet sock out when they hit the water.
Yeah, they do. And you'd think the tentacles and stuff would be flailing all
over, but they aren't always, you know. No, no, no.
It's, but like you said, I mean, those fish just eat them up. So it's very cool.
(36:11):
Well, I do have one last question. What the heck do all these people do with all these rigs?
I put in order after order after order and i
increase my numbers on rigs all the time and
yet they're always like low what are
people doing with all these rigs yeah it's an amazing question i don't know
i get i do get lots of pictures of piles of shredded up tubes i get that a lot
(36:35):
but what happens with the rigs i do not know they're out there they're out there like this This is,
I know you order like hundreds and hundreds of rigs, but I got an order today
or yesterday from Thorne.
Literally, there's like 250 rigs on the order.
I mean, it's like, I don't know. I think what happens, maybe this maybe explains
(36:59):
part of it is, you know, you get that spare tube or you buy your three packs or whatever.
And the idea originally was, you know, you can just take the rig out and then
put it in a new tube. And I think people are like, F that.
I want everything ready to go. I want to be able to pick it up, snap it on, and toss it.
So I think a lot of people are just pre-rigging all the different styles of
(37:23):
whatever color they want with whatever depth rig they want.
And they want to be able to just grab it and go. They don't want to take the
time to take the rig out, put it in a different tube.
So that probably explains some of that volume of rigs going out there.
I mean, that would explain some of it. But you'd think like,
okay, once I get that tube shredded, I still have the rig, right?
(37:44):
So I just buy some replacement tubes and I put them in my existing rigs and
away I go. Like, so it, it blows me away.
I'm not complaining. They can keep buying. I don't know. You're not complaining
either. I have no idea what they're, what they're doing with them though.
Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I'm like, I'm not complaining.
They can do whatever they want. They could buy as many rigs and as many tubes
as you want to buy. That's awesome.
I love it. Cause that's what we do. We sell stuff, but I just want to,
(38:07):
I'm just curious where they all go. Yeah, I don't know.
I really don't. I've never really, I've never, I've never thought about,
I always thought about the rubber kind of things, but I have never,
I guess, considered the fact that we do so well.
Thousands and thousands of rigs and how do
they go i don't know i mean i i had an order yesterday it was
just six mid-depth rigs that's all they bought six rigs i
(38:29):
was like yeah huh that's interesting no tubes just rigs yeah yeah okay but like
i said i don't care we'll sell them well part of that i think i don't know like
like when i i don't take a whole lot of direct orders anymore just too busy
but you know i fit them in when i can if someone harasses me enough through
emails or calls me enough times, I'll do it.
(38:50):
So, you know, I'm still sending out, you know, like these guys will order,
you know, 20, 30 bodies at a time.
And a lot of times they don't order rigs from me. So that could be it too.
You know, they're getting a lot of bodies from me and then picking up their
rigs elsewhere. Yeah. Interesting.
Oh, well, all right, Mark, I understand that you got things to do.
(39:10):
I got things to do. I appreciate your time very much.
If people want, they can go check out 54 or bus, check out
some tube videos there i'm gonna have to go now i've seen glenn's
stuff and i think he does a great job but now i gotta go check out
this tube video you were talking about and you know
if people are looking to pick up some red october tubes make sure you head over
to team rhino outdoors.com and like mark said i mean we probably have the largest
(39:32):
color selection around absolutely you do you have the largest selection of colors
that exist drive me nuts well i apologize that's That's why we try to pay you as fast as we can,
because we do appreciate your promptness to our orders and how good you guys do. It's amazing.
(39:52):
I just got five more boxes today. So once we're done with this,
I'll go follow through. Let's keep this train rolling. You know how it goes.
Let's do it. Absolutely.
Well, I want to thank you for your time, Mark. And I want to thank our listeners
for listening and tuning in for another episode.
And we'll have another one again next week, Monday. Okay. Sounds good.
Music.
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