May 13, 2024 • 28 mins
Uncover the intriguing world of musky fishing in our latest episode of Musky Gear Monday on the Team Rhino Outdoors Musky Fishing Podcast. Our host delves into an enlightening conversation with Adam LeMay from Adam's Custom Lures. They dish about his groundbreaking musky lures, focusing on the Havoc—a neutrally buoyant crankbait—and the never-before-seen 'Carnage bait'. Listen to the inspiring evolution of Adam's Custom Lures, from its humble beginnings to a highly diverse multi-species bait company.
This insightful discussion also gives a comprehensive overview of the trends and adaptability in the bait industry. As the musky season approaches, Adam lets listeners in on his equipment advice, highlighting teamrhinooutdoors.com as a one-stop-shop for all your musky gear needs.
Explore the nitty-gritty of running a bait business with our host, and gear up with valuable tips as the musky season draws near. Learn from Adam as he shares exciting tales of the meticulous process put into designing the perfect crankbaits—the Havoc and Roadkill—and how they're setting a new standard in the fishing gear industry.
So, whether you're an angler, a fishing enthusiast, or a lover of small businesses and bait building, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for an inspiring blend of motivation, fishing tips, and an outstanding tale of craftsmanship that led to the creation of distinguished baits.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Musky Gear Monday on the Team Rhino Outdoors Musky Fishing Podcast.
This week I'm going to talk to Adam LeMay with Adam's Custom Lures and if you
haven't checked out the Havoc that's the one that I we've actually had a chance to play with so far.
I played with the Roadkill a couple years back but the Havoc is one of his newest
(00:27):
baits and if you haven't checked it out yet you owe it to yourself.
It's a very cool neutrally buoyant crankbait perfect
for twitching ripping pausing hangs right
in the face of a muskie it's actually very awesome bait
soft plastic tail on it so very cool and then
we're going to also dive into the new carnage bait
(00:47):
which looks like the like a crankbait swallowed a golf ball or a soft or a ping
pong ball so it's very wide small bodied bait and that one i haven't actually
played with We literally just got them in the other day and I'm working to get
them on the website before you hear this podcast.
So that's kind of what's on tap. We're going to go down the history about all
(01:11):
of everything to do with Adams Custom Lures.
And, you know, they're more than just a couple of baits or, you know,
a handful of baits. They're a multi-species bait company.
So they have some stuff if you're into bass fishing, you know,
you can get some bass baits from them as well.
But then they're also working in the muskie industry in general.
Just, you know, they're, they do a bunch of manufacturing for some other companies
(01:33):
as well. So that's kind of what's, what's going on this week.
It's a fun episode. I like talking to, you know, a lot of these manufacturers
about, you know, just how their businesses have exploded or,
you know, changes that they've made or things like that over the course of the
history of their bait company.
So I am going to have that conversation. but
(01:54):
if you're looking for gear for your next muskie fishing adventures make
sure you check out teamrhinooutdoors.com that is
your source for all things muskie gear related and now we're you know just about
smack dab in muskie season we're not quite there yet most you know southern
wisconsin just opened up recently the northern zone opens up pretty soon won't
(02:14):
be long in minnesota and canada will be after it so if you're looking to you
know get some stuff before the
season we can certainly get that to you and as I've
mentioned before on the podcast it does appear as though we're still
shipping every single day you know typically
if you get your order in for sure by noon it'll go
that day typically there are a few exceptions but
not very many I mean sometimes it's even as we've shipped
(02:37):
orders that come in at 3 30 we've shipped those yet that same day but
it seems as though I would say USPS is
a little bit slower behind and a couple packages it
is on ups so don't don't
delay as we move into musky season i suggest that
you try to give us a little extra time just
so you can get your stuff in time or i
(02:59):
the other option i suggest is upgrading to ups shipping because they seem to
be fairly reliable i don't want to say 100 because i haven't seen a single shipping
company be 100 reliable but i will say they seem to be a little bit quicker
We don't have issues with lost packages with any of them.
But some of them get delayed a little bit longer than others.
(03:21):
And I know USPS made a few changes recently where things don't move quite as quickly.
So just give them just a heads up. You know, we're still shipping our normal,
everything ships the same as it normally has.
And in some cases, even quicker than it had previously.
But other, you just, like I said, allow yourself a little extra time as we head into muskie season.
So that's my little, my little rant, I guess I would say, just,
(03:43):
you know, try to give us a little extra time to make sure you get the gear you
need to catch muskies and you can can find that gear at teamrhinooutdoors.com
and I'm going to dial up my conversation I had with Adam LeMay.
All right my guest this week is Adam LeMay with Adam's Custom Lures.
Adam I know that springtime can be a busy time for lure
(04:06):
manufacturers so I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to
come out and talk about everything that you got going on there with Adam's Custom
Lures because you know a lot of the manufacturers I
talk to they're doing a lot of just muskie related stuff and
you know you're already doing the multi-species deal with
Adams custom lowers I don't think everybody knows about that yeah absolutely
we we hit this timing here pretty hard obviously musky we've got the spring
(04:29):
different what am I trying to say here the different seasons kicking off for
musky but we also have trout season which we make baits for and also small smallmouth
season has taken off as well.
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the company itself. Like when did you start?
And then we'll go down the road of, I mean, why did you start basically?
(04:51):
Yeah. A lot of people ask that question, which is a really good question.
We have started since 2012 and we started as just a small paint shop.
We started just painting lures in our basement.
My wife and I actually, we were dating at the time going to college.
So we started painting lures, just having
some fun with it and pretty soon we had a lot of interest
(05:14):
and a lot of guys thought that you know what we
were painting looked awesome and and our finishes were
nice so we started to actually paint on our porch of our first apartment back
in 2013 and then from there it actually grew into something i saw a niche for
started talking to a bunch of different companies in the industry musky industry industry.
(05:39):
And what I found was a lot of them started out the same way I was,
except they would grow to the point where they couldn't grow anymore.
They couldn't leave their full-time job. They couldn't take a step away to pursue
just manufacturing and painting.
And they needed to grow to that next level. So I started speaking with a bunch
(05:59):
of the different owners of these companies.
And I said, hey, what about us coming on and painting full-time for you guys?
So you can market you can build baits you
can push baits but we can take the majority of the
work of the manufacturing side of it and see
where that goes so we partnered with a few companies that had the ability to
(06:21):
grow and they just didn't have the time to paint and that took off it became
something pretty much overnight I would say my wife and I ran the paint shop
ourselves for about two,
three years to the point where it became, you know, pretty demanding that we
could actually step away from the business that she created and that we were
(06:43):
running part-time as well.
And from there, it just stepped into a full-time gig for us.
So we were probably three, four years into it, became full-time with painting.
And we started just building from that model.
I connected with a guide on the North Branch that has become one of my best
(07:03):
friends in the business.
It's Lance Dunham. He was a guide at the time for almost 40 years.
And it was late, you know, about 38 years when I met him. And now he's been guiding for 44 years.
And he really helped us establish us in the bass market and in the muskie market as well.
And we started creating baits. Our bass line was the first one we started working
(07:27):
on specific for river fishing and focusing in on the actual river fish and what
they want to see, the sizes and things like that.
And that became something even from that to get into muskie fishing.
Muskie was pretty popular in his area, but he needed baits that were specific
for different branches of the river that he was fishing.
(07:50):
So smaller profiles, certain actions, slow ride baits, the suspending baits, things like that.
So that's where it all kind of came to a head.
We paint for, I think, 17 different companies is what's on our actual list right now.
And then again, we went full time with that. We've hired employees.
We offer a ton of different finishing options for these guys and their companies,
(08:14):
and it's just been successful.
It's been phenomenal to watch it grow.
Yeah, that's a very awesome story. It's always cool to see, you know, small businesses.
I mean, we did the same thing over here and just watch them kind of take off
and, you know, essentially achieve the dreams that we all hope to set out for.
You know, Adam, let's talk a little bit about the bass stuff.
(08:34):
First off, if people are looking to get your lineup of bass baits,
because we don't carry any more musky specific here, where can they go about
finding everything that you offer in the bass market?
Yeah, so we have obviously the first point of sale that they could get on and
look at our product would be our website, which is www.adamscustomlures.com.
(08:56):
But I do like to push them to our dealers. I like working with our dealers mainly
because it gets them, you know, hands on the product, especially in their areas.
So locally in central Pennsylvania, we've got a bunch of different dealers that carry our stuff.
Southside Date and Tackle. You've got a bunch of people like even Lance that is guiding.
(09:17):
So the guides will carry them. They have them on their website,
which is ldguideservice.com.
And then ProLores online, which is also Lore Parts online.
They carry our stuff as well. And then as we grow from there.
Walmart had them for a good minute, but that ended up just phasing out only
due to the demand that they wanted as far as wholesale costs, things like that.
(09:40):
So we stepped away from that. and then they can just get
online though and just search our name search
our product and it should pull up all of our dealers that actually
have the product so sure very cool all
right so how before we jump into just musky stuff how many different models
of bass baits do you have that people can check out so we currently have i think
(10:02):
it's five total but we have attack series which which covers deep, mid, and shallow.
They're the 1.25 series. We have the Encounter series, which is our bass jerkbait.
It's a fully suspending jerkbait, more of that minnow profile.
We have that in two sizes.
And then we also have the new topwater that's just getting ready to release called the Chop R.
(10:27):
Guys will see it on the website. They'll be able to see some of the information about it.
This should release at the end of this month, and we're going to be hitting
that pretty hard as well.
Topwater season's upon us already, but at the same time, we've been working
on this for two years and we wanted to get it perfect, so...
Yeah awesome all right shifting gears let's talk about muskies
(10:48):
because that's what people are they tune into this podcast they want
to know about musky fishing first off first bait we're going to talk about
is the havoc and the havoc is probably one
of our best-selling lures of 2024 so far i would say it's kind of surprising
but not surprising once we actually threw it in the pool like i looked at it
and i was like all right you know it's a straight straight build crankbait You
(11:12):
know, it looks, appears to be like, I don't know,
I wouldn't say shallow running necessarily in like in that upper two feet,
but definitely in that, you know, five to three, three to five foot range,
I would say somewhere in there.
Uh, it's got a, you know, plastic tail on it. So obviously that's a very popular
thing, but the, the, I guess the thing I, when we threw it in the pool,
the thing that made it stand out the most was it's almost near neutral buoyancy.
(11:35):
Buoyancy and was that something that
you had set out to achieve
or did that was or did it just kind of like happen by
accident because in the muskie market i've been looking for a smaller near neutral
buoyancy bait for a long time and they're just not available many of those smaller
cranks rise at a fairly fast rate and you know i mean you know how it is adam
(12:00):
there's times you literally want that bait to sit in the face of a fish.
And so it definitely fills that niche. And like I said, was that an accident?
So no, that actually was an on-purpose thing that was excruciating to try and
figure out and actually accomplish.
With our fishing that we do on the North Branch, mainly at the Susquehanna,
we're hitting these, you know, these pockets of water, these slack waters right
(12:23):
off the current that we wanted a bait to be able to fully suspend so that we
could hang it in their face, work it across cross slowly,
jerk pause, jerk pause kind of thing, almost like a jerk bait.
And we knew we could achieve it on our bass products.
And we did it with the Encounter and it's very possible to achieve.
But the issue we ran into was we also wanted it to be a hybrid lure.
(12:46):
So half hard plastic, half soft plastic.
And with that came a lot of challenges to get the right combination,
the right tail, the right length, a bunch of different things.
So I actually design a lot a lot of these baits in Fusion 360.
I work with a buddy of mine as well, and we go back and forth with just design
concepts and things like that.
(13:08):
But the program allows us to get the buoyancy close for ABS plastic through the program.
And then obviously that sounds amazing until you have to also get it to run
the way you want it to run, you know, with bill size, the lip,
you know, presentation, and then also where your line tie is and all that.
The next hurdle was after we got that finished and everything was squared away,
(13:33):
we had to debate what hooks we put on. Obviously, I like bigger hooks.
I like hooks with some weight to them as well.
So we had to find that perfect balance with split ring weight and hook weight
that allowed the bait to do what it needed to do.
So we prototyped many, many models of it and worked with a bunch of different
tails and different hooks and different, you know, mixes of all of them to achieve that.
(13:58):
And then finally, when we did achieve that, we set out to make sure we could,
you know, produce it consistently the same way.
And yeah, it came out to be a pretty amazing lure, especially for the suspendability
and that neutral buoyancy.
And we were stoked when we started to fish them and they would just hang.
So yeah it's incredible like the one bait that
(14:19):
i know of that does that you fairly like that's
in that same ballpark would be like the triple d from drifter but
the triple d is you know a much larger profile bait you know whereas you know
us in the midwest outside of like minnesota i mean this fits the the bill perfectly
i would say if you're out fishing right now during you know this early season
(14:39):
period the southern wisconsin market just opened up northern wisconsin will start I mean,
I literally think the Havoc is an awesome bait, an awesome tool,
something that's just different in that size mark, you know,
that size. There's tons of crankbaits out there.
Sure. There's very few crankbaits that do what this bait does.
That's awesome. That's what we tried to achieve. And I'm just thankful for all
(15:00):
the help that we had to, you know, make it happen and get it to where it needed to be. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's, that's how we got there. You know, and then it's,
if people want to, you want to check out the action of this bait,
we, during the Milwaukee show, I believe it was, we shot a video in the pool.
And so I have some, you know, some video of it working.
(15:20):
We have some underwater footage of it. You can watch it literally just hang.
I was the one under the water shooting it. So you could literally just get right
behind the bait and, and just hold the camera there because the bait was not moving at all, really.
So if you want check out our youtube channel and we have a video of
the havoc if you also go to our website we have a full line
of havocs right now and you can find the video there as well as click it right
(15:41):
on our website so but you know adam i want to back up you you talked about uh
you know the hooks the split rings and all that stuff and that's one thing i
don't think a lot of people quite always understand recently i had a customer
that got a bait and you know it's i wouldn't say
it's a ridiculous expensive bait but it's a fairly expensive
bait and he he was you know upset over
(16:03):
the thin wire hooks on it but like sometimes that's what you have to do to get
the action that you're looking for out of the bait and if you put too heavy
of a hook on it or too big of a hook on it it will absolutely change the action
and i don't think everybody understands you know those really small details
how important those really are.
Yeah. And it's so important. And I tell guys all the time, we've got a lot of
(16:28):
customers that are actually having us help design products for them now.
And when I start out, I usually have them pick out their hardware that they
want to use before they actually design the bait.
And the reason I do that is because hardware is extremely important,
especially when you're making a high quality product.
And some of the prices, obviously, of the musky market baits are pretty high.
(16:51):
So when you're making a quality product that demands that price point,
it's always good to have the hardware to back it up.
But in order to get it to run the way you need it to run, in order to get it
to function how you want it to function or rise how you want it to rise,
it all starts and is hinged around a lot of times the hook weight.
And once you have that established, you can then build for that almost in reverse
(17:16):
to make the product do what you want it to do.
A lot of times, bait manufacturers will start out by making the body,
the body looks cool, you know, it even runs maybe, you know, how they want it to run.
But as soon as they start putting weight to the hooks, they realize that they
actually overweighted the product and now it sinks or, you know,
doesn't perform the way they need it to perform. and they almost have to backtrack,
(17:39):
try and figure out now how to redesign.
So you almost eliminate that step if you focus on the product's hardware and then build from that up.
So we do that with a lot of our products just because we do try to put higher-end,
higher-quality products and accessories on them.
So in order for me to maintain that, we also have to make sure they run right with it.
(18:01):
So we do use 9626 hooks from VMC. That's what this bait was staged around.
And then I tell guys all the time, if you want to maintain that buoyancy and
you want to maintain its action, make sure you put the same product back on
the bait when you have to cut hooks or anything like that. Yes. Very interesting.
Let's, we'll, we'll jump into the newest bait, the one I just got.
(18:22):
We'll jump into the last, but before we go there, let's talk about the roadkill.
That's one of those, it's kind of an under, definitely an underutilized tool.
It the you know hasn't taken off like the havoc partially
because i think you know that rubber tail on the back of the havoc i think
you know anglers just they love rubber tails these
days right so i mean that's an attractant right there but let's talk about the
roadkill what'd you design that one for yeah so roadkill was designed mainly
(18:46):
around a bluegill how a bluegill will actually you know act when you you have
a bluegill on your line or something stupid happens i was was fishing for bass
and we were talking about,
you know, we wanted a musky crankbait that could hit hard, had a pretty wild action,
but also was flat sided and similar profile to a bluegill because a lot of times
(19:08):
I'll catch a bluegill on a crankbait fishing for bass.
And as I'm bringing it in, just, you know, getting ready to release it.
And that's the whole point. Up comes the musky and chases it.
And we had that happen quite a few times. And I started talking to the guy that I was fishing with.
And I said, man, I bet you we could make a flat sided bait, but that is not
truly a flat side that is completely rounded still at that thin.
(19:32):
And he said, it's going to be difficult because you lose a lot of obviously
the chamber areas and things that you need to make a bait run.
So we actually took the the attack crankbait that we were originally fishing
with for bass and we took its profile and we started to smash it down in fusion.
Fusion and we got it to a point where it was
(19:54):
it was super thin it was still rounded and I
could still chamber it like I needed to to make it
run how I think it needed to run and then we pulled the trigger on some prototypes
for it and the action just matched what a bluegill looks like real wild real
erratic but then it also trolled so well and the more we played with it the
(20:16):
more We kind of fell in love with the profile and the design.
And my guide was fishing with me and he said, this is an amazing bait.
And it almost looks like somebody ran it over and flattened your other bait and made it flat.
And I said, that's a great idea. Why don't we call it Roadkill?
So that's where the name came from. That's kind of how the bait was established.
(20:36):
And I will just put this out there. We have pulled the trigger on it for the
ABS model, which runs exactly how the resin model ran. So we're excited to be
releasing that shortly.
We've already released the roadkill and resin. So it's not like it's a new product.
It's just going to be at a more affordable price and, and also be able to manufacture
(20:56):
consistently over, you know, a long period of time. So.
All right. Now the opposite of the roadkill would be this new carnage.
Cause so I, I assumed when I ordered it, it was going to be pretty wide bodied
because otherwise it would look just like the roadkill.
Yeah. yeah but it is definitely i mean it's almost wider than i thought the
(21:17):
thing is darn near round right let's talk let's talk about what this one can
do because this is like i literally just unboxed these the other day so i haven't
had a chance to even take pictures of them yet that's on my list of things to
do today to make sure that we have them for release of this podcast.
But i you know i typically like to play with every toy that we get right and
so i want to know what it can and can't do and i haven't had a chance to play
(21:40):
with this one yet so what can you expect out of the carnage what did you design
this one for because with that rounded lip on the front there i'm assuming maybe
you you wanted to troll this one as well as cast them,
Yeah. So the carnage came from, you know, we needed a bait that we could heavily abuse.
We try to make our baits as durable as we possibly can.
(22:01):
But obviously, with more durability, more bulk, especially in the lip,
you lose action. You know, you add buoyancy.
So a lot of, you know, what you're playing with is just these minor tweaks.
But we wanted a bait that, man, we could pound off rocks. We could get it to
just, you know, chase all over the bottom of the river. and not have to sit
(22:21):
there and say, man, we can't really beat this thing.
So we started to design the Carnage for that purpose.
And as we started playing with the body, obviously, again, it's the attack body, just bigger.
And when we started to play with that body size, we were like,
man, we want this bait to run very different than roadkill.
We wanted to have a really wide throwing body, a really wide action.
(22:46):
Action and we started playing with lips and the rounder, bigger lip just made
this bait get thrown all over the place without, you know, burning out or having
any issues like that. It tracks really well.
So we started just, you know, playing with that to get the lip how we wanted
it. And then we messed around with buoyancy.
So we wanted a bait that would rise slowly, but we didn't want it to just, you know, pop right up.
(23:09):
And when you're dealing with this much plastic, it's hard to You get both of
those things, you know, with weight or otherwise it's going to weigh, you know, an epic ton.
So we started playing with tails, started playing with hooks,
did all that like we normally would.
And then built that bait off of
those things. And we got it to have the buoyancy we wanted for the river.
And then also troll ability. We put this thing in the water and I mean,
(23:32):
man, it just thumps like crazy.
And just trolls so, so well and how we wanted it to troll.
I mean, we're hitting areas that are more shallow and then we'll hit drop offs. So we can hit bottom.
On the shallower areas and not have to worry about it
but then we can also hit those deeper channels that come
off a lot of our faster moving water and we control them as well and you're
(23:55):
going to hit depths casting around eight feet with the carnage and then we've
gone you know 16 feet on average in the river where we need to you know troll
with carnage i have a few guides out west In your area of Wisconsin,
they actually started trolling them and doing well on them.
And so did a Canadian guide service.
(24:17):
And they run rod tips down. We don't do that in the river because there's points
where we would lose rod tips.
So we run, you know, we troll wide, but they run tip down.
And they're saying that they're getting even 18 plus out of them.
So they were excited about that. I always tell guys, I get 16 because that's
(24:37):
the conditions I'm fishing in.
And then if you obviously want to try and get deeper, you absolutely can do
that. That's what they're reporting. And they'll troll.
I've had them six, six and a half, no problem. But I very rarely ever troll
about four, four and a half.
So for us, you know, it fit the bill. Fix them.
Yeah, this is what I'm, I'm looking forward to playing around with a little bit.
(24:58):
Cause like I said, first a smaller crankbait, I mean, what is this thing?
Four, four and a half inches. Four and a half. Yeah. Okay.
You know, it's gotta be the widest body four and a half inch crankbait I've, I've seen.
I mean, you can, I would say like the mag diesel would maybe be,
you know, comparable, but the mag diesel's a bigger bait than this one.
Right. So, I mean, it's, it literally is like, I don't know,
(25:20):
probably like a ping pong ball around it.
At least all of that. it's a big it's a big wide profile
that way so i'm yeah i'm positive that if you're trolling
this thing that rod tip is just going to be pounding yep yeah
and uh we we also this one allows
us to the carnage allows us to also give more
of the appearance of shad a lot of guys were you know buying them with shad
(25:43):
patterns on them i know that's what the canadian guys do a lot they buy a lot
of my shad and even some of my perch patterns that's kind of their go-to so
a A lot of guys like throwing this with a shad pattern and then run it as well
for shad and in that area,
like where there's going to be that, that, uh, food source.
So they, they tend to just keep to that with this profile where as roadkill,
(26:05):
they seem to tend to want to go towards bluegill and, and, and bait fish like
that. So crappie, stuff like that.
Excellent. Well, Adam, I want to thank you for coming out and taking time out
of your schedule. I know you guys are busy at this time of year and,
you know, kind of go through the history of everything you had going on.
It's, it's really a very, you know, like I said, it's an awesome story.
I love hearing these kinds of stories out of bait, you know,
(26:27):
bait builders, especially that's the, uh, that's the part I'm passionate about.
I like small business in general, but I definitely like hearing about it in the fishing industry.
So I really appreciate it. You know, if people are looking to get in touch with,
find your products, why don't you let them know again where they can find it?
Cause obviously you could find your musky gear at teamrhinooutdoors.com.
But if you're looking for the bass side of stuff, you know, Adam,
(26:48):
why don't you give them an idea where they can find that stuff again?
Absolutely. Yeah, obviously, Team Rhino. And we just thank the world of you
guys and Jeff, you personally.
I just want to say thank you for bringing us on the show, but also just selling
our product and being so willing to work with us and just help us grow and achieve these goals.
But i highly recommend obviously to the
(27:08):
guys out there buying direct from you you have cooler
patterns than anyone else has that we offer
too but then with the best stuff again you
can get a get on our website at www.adamscustomlures.com you can always order
through us but also then support dealers like ld guide service south side bait
(27:29):
and tackle we've got a whole bunch of dealers on our website that you can also
click on and see. And then we're adding new dealers as well.
And then we also will have a lot of our bass stuff on Amazon too.
So we just finished that process as well. So they'll have access to buying a
lot of our bass and even our trout stuff, but mainly for the musky stuff.
(27:49):
Yeah, I would recommend you guys. So that's where I would send them.
All right, Adam. Well, I appreciate it. And thank you for the kind words.
We definitely appreciate working with you guys.
It's been great, especially during show season.
Season i would put in large orders of the havoc and make you turn around
really fast and that worked out great because like
i said we sold a pile of those things this spring it was phenomenal bait
(28:10):
and i mean i think obviously the video helped out
because you know people saw that like i said even when
i saw it i would i liked the bait before i spool once i saw it in the pool i
liked it even more so very cool bait and i want to thank you for uh for your
time today also i also like to to thank our listeners for dialing up another
episode of Team Rhino Outdoors podcast and I will have another new episode again next week Monday.
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Musky Gear Monday on the Team Rhino Outdoors Musky Fishing Podcast.
This week I'm going to talk to Adam LeMay with Adam's Custom Lures and if you
haven't checked out the Havoc that's the one that I we've actually had a chance to play with so far.
I played with the Roadkill a couple years back but the Havoc is one of his newest
(00:27):
baits and if you haven't checked it out yet you owe it to yourself.
It's a very cool neutrally buoyant crankbait perfect
for twitching ripping pausing hangs right
in the face of a muskie it's actually very awesome bait
soft plastic tail on it so very cool and then
we're going to also dive into the new carnage bait
(00:47):
which looks like the like a crankbait swallowed a golf ball or a soft or a ping
pong ball so it's very wide small bodied bait and that one i haven't actually
played with We literally just got them in the other day and I'm working to get
them on the website before you hear this podcast.
So that's kind of what's on tap. We're going to go down the history about all
(01:11):
of everything to do with Adams Custom Lures.
And, you know, they're more than just a couple of baits or, you know,
a handful of baits. They're a multi-species bait company.
So they have some stuff if you're into bass fishing, you know,
you can get some bass baits from them as well.
But then they're also working in the muskie industry in general.
Just, you know, they're, they do a bunch of manufacturing for some other companies
(01:33):
as well. So that's kind of what's, what's going on this week.
It's a fun episode. I like talking to, you know, a lot of these manufacturers
about, you know, just how their businesses have exploded or,
you know, changes that they've made or things like that over the course of the
history of their bait company.
So I am going to have that conversation. but
(01:54):
if you're looking for gear for your next muskie fishing adventures make
sure you check out teamrhinooutdoors.com that is
your source for all things muskie gear related and now we're you know just about
smack dab in muskie season we're not quite there yet most you know southern
wisconsin just opened up recently the northern zone opens up pretty soon won't
(02:14):
be long in minnesota and canada will be after it so if you're looking to you
know get some stuff before the
season we can certainly get that to you and as I've
mentioned before on the podcast it does appear as though we're still
shipping every single day you know typically
if you get your order in for sure by noon it'll go
that day typically there are a few exceptions but
not very many I mean sometimes it's even as we've shipped
(02:37):
orders that come in at 3 30 we've shipped those yet that same day but
it seems as though I would say USPS is
a little bit slower behind and a couple packages it
is on ups so don't don't
delay as we move into musky season i suggest that
you try to give us a little extra time just
so you can get your stuff in time or i
(02:59):
the other option i suggest is upgrading to ups shipping because they seem to
be fairly reliable i don't want to say 100 because i haven't seen a single shipping
company be 100 reliable but i will say they seem to be a little bit quicker
We don't have issues with lost packages with any of them.
But some of them get delayed a little bit longer than others.
(03:21):
And I know USPS made a few changes recently where things don't move quite as quickly.
So just give them just a heads up. You know, we're still shipping our normal,
everything ships the same as it normally has.
And in some cases, even quicker than it had previously.
But other, you just, like I said, allow yourself a little extra time as we head into muskie season.
So that's my little, my little rant, I guess I would say, just,
(03:43):
you know, try to give us a little extra time to make sure you get the gear you
need to catch muskies and you can can find that gear at teamrhinooutdoors.com
and I'm going to dial up my conversation I had with Adam LeMay.
All right my guest this week is Adam LeMay with Adam's Custom Lures.
Adam I know that springtime can be a busy time for lure
(04:06):
manufacturers so I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to
come out and talk about everything that you got going on there with Adam's Custom
Lures because you know a lot of the manufacturers I
talk to they're doing a lot of just muskie related stuff and
you know you're already doing the multi-species deal with
Adams custom lowers I don't think everybody knows about that yeah absolutely
we we hit this timing here pretty hard obviously musky we've got the spring
(04:29):
different what am I trying to say here the different seasons kicking off for
musky but we also have trout season which we make baits for and also small smallmouth
season has taken off as well.
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the company itself. Like when did you start?
And then we'll go down the road of, I mean, why did you start basically?
(04:51):
Yeah. A lot of people ask that question, which is a really good question.
We have started since 2012 and we started as just a small paint shop.
We started just painting lures in our basement.
My wife and I actually, we were dating at the time going to college.
So we started painting lures, just having
some fun with it and pretty soon we had a lot of interest
(05:14):
and a lot of guys thought that you know what we
were painting looked awesome and and our finishes were
nice so we started to actually paint on our porch of our first apartment back
in 2013 and then from there it actually grew into something i saw a niche for
started talking to a bunch of different companies in the industry musky industry industry.
(05:39):
And what I found was a lot of them started out the same way I was,
except they would grow to the point where they couldn't grow anymore.
They couldn't leave their full-time job. They couldn't take a step away to pursue
just manufacturing and painting.
And they needed to grow to that next level. So I started speaking with a bunch
(05:59):
of the different owners of these companies.
And I said, hey, what about us coming on and painting full-time for you guys?
So you can market you can build baits you
can push baits but we can take the majority of the
work of the manufacturing side of it and see
where that goes so we partnered with a few companies that had the ability to
(06:21):
grow and they just didn't have the time to paint and that took off it became
something pretty much overnight I would say my wife and I ran the paint shop
ourselves for about two,
three years to the point where it became, you know, pretty demanding that we
could actually step away from the business that she created and that we were
(06:43):
running part-time as well.
And from there, it just stepped into a full-time gig for us.
So we were probably three, four years into it, became full-time with painting.
And we started just building from that model.
I connected with a guide on the North Branch that has become one of my best
(07:03):
friends in the business.
It's Lance Dunham. He was a guide at the time for almost 40 years.
And it was late, you know, about 38 years when I met him. And now he's been guiding for 44 years.
And he really helped us establish us in the bass market and in the muskie market as well.
And we started creating baits. Our bass line was the first one we started working
(07:27):
on specific for river fishing and focusing in on the actual river fish and what
they want to see, the sizes and things like that.
And that became something even from that to get into muskie fishing.
Muskie was pretty popular in his area, but he needed baits that were specific
for different branches of the river that he was fishing.
(07:50):
So smaller profiles, certain actions, slow ride baits, the suspending baits, things like that.
So that's where it all kind of came to a head.
We paint for, I think, 17 different companies is what's on our actual list right now.
And then again, we went full time with that. We've hired employees.
We offer a ton of different finishing options for these guys and their companies,
(08:14):
and it's just been successful.
It's been phenomenal to watch it grow.
Yeah, that's a very awesome story. It's always cool to see, you know, small businesses.
I mean, we did the same thing over here and just watch them kind of take off
and, you know, essentially achieve the dreams that we all hope to set out for.
You know, Adam, let's talk a little bit about the bass stuff.
(08:34):
First off, if people are looking to get your lineup of bass baits,
because we don't carry any more musky specific here, where can they go about
finding everything that you offer in the bass market?
Yeah, so we have obviously the first point of sale that they could get on and
look at our product would be our website, which is www.adamscustomlures.com.
(08:56):
But I do like to push them to our dealers. I like working with our dealers mainly
because it gets them, you know, hands on the product, especially in their areas.
So locally in central Pennsylvania, we've got a bunch of different dealers that carry our stuff.
Southside Date and Tackle. You've got a bunch of people like even Lance that is guiding.
(09:17):
So the guides will carry them. They have them on their website,
which is ldguideservice.com.
And then ProLores online, which is also Lore Parts online.
They carry our stuff as well. And then as we grow from there.
Walmart had them for a good minute, but that ended up just phasing out only
due to the demand that they wanted as far as wholesale costs, things like that.
(09:40):
So we stepped away from that. and then they can just get
online though and just search our name search
our product and it should pull up all of our dealers that actually
have the product so sure very cool all
right so how before we jump into just musky stuff how many different models
of bass baits do you have that people can check out so we currently have i think
(10:02):
it's five total but we have attack series which which covers deep, mid, and shallow.
They're the 1.25 series. We have the Encounter series, which is our bass jerkbait.
It's a fully suspending jerkbait, more of that minnow profile.
We have that in two sizes.
And then we also have the new topwater that's just getting ready to release called the Chop R.
(10:27):
Guys will see it on the website. They'll be able to see some of the information about it.
This should release at the end of this month, and we're going to be hitting
that pretty hard as well.
Topwater season's upon us already, but at the same time, we've been working
on this for two years and we wanted to get it perfect, so...
Yeah awesome all right shifting gears let's talk about muskies
(10:48):
because that's what people are they tune into this podcast they want
to know about musky fishing first off first bait we're going to talk about
is the havoc and the havoc is probably one
of our best-selling lures of 2024 so far i would say it's kind of surprising
but not surprising once we actually threw it in the pool like i looked at it
and i was like all right you know it's a straight straight build crankbait You
(11:12):
know, it looks, appears to be like, I don't know,
I wouldn't say shallow running necessarily in like in that upper two feet,
but definitely in that, you know, five to three, three to five foot range,
I would say somewhere in there.
Uh, it's got a, you know, plastic tail on it. So obviously that's a very popular
thing, but the, the, I guess the thing I, when we threw it in the pool,
the thing that made it stand out the most was it's almost near neutral buoyancy.
(11:35):
Buoyancy and was that something that
you had set out to achieve
or did that was or did it just kind of like happen by
accident because in the muskie market i've been looking for a smaller near neutral
buoyancy bait for a long time and they're just not available many of those smaller
cranks rise at a fairly fast rate and you know i mean you know how it is adam
(12:00):
there's times you literally want that bait to sit in the face of a fish.
And so it definitely fills that niche. And like I said, was that an accident?
So no, that actually was an on-purpose thing that was excruciating to try and
figure out and actually accomplish.
With our fishing that we do on the North Branch, mainly at the Susquehanna,
we're hitting these, you know, these pockets of water, these slack waters right
(12:23):
off the current that we wanted a bait to be able to fully suspend so that we
could hang it in their face, work it across cross slowly,
jerk pause, jerk pause kind of thing, almost like a jerk bait.
And we knew we could achieve it on our bass products.
And we did it with the Encounter and it's very possible to achieve.
But the issue we ran into was we also wanted it to be a hybrid lure.
(12:46):
So half hard plastic, half soft plastic.
And with that came a lot of challenges to get the right combination,
the right tail, the right length, a bunch of different things.
So I actually design a lot a lot of these baits in Fusion 360.
I work with a buddy of mine as well, and we go back and forth with just design
concepts and things like that.
(13:08):
But the program allows us to get the buoyancy close for ABS plastic through the program.
And then obviously that sounds amazing until you have to also get it to run
the way you want it to run, you know, with bill size, the lip,
you know, presentation, and then also where your line tie is and all that.
The next hurdle was after we got that finished and everything was squared away,
(13:33):
we had to debate what hooks we put on. Obviously, I like bigger hooks.
I like hooks with some weight to them as well.
So we had to find that perfect balance with split ring weight and hook weight
that allowed the bait to do what it needed to do.
So we prototyped many, many models of it and worked with a bunch of different
tails and different hooks and different, you know, mixes of all of them to achieve that.
(13:58):
And then finally, when we did achieve that, we set out to make sure we could,
you know, produce it consistently the same way.
And yeah, it came out to be a pretty amazing lure, especially for the suspendability
and that neutral buoyancy.
And we were stoked when we started to fish them and they would just hang.
So yeah it's incredible like the one bait that
(14:19):
i know of that does that you fairly like that's
in that same ballpark would be like the triple d from drifter but
the triple d is you know a much larger profile bait you know whereas you know
us in the midwest outside of like minnesota i mean this fits the the bill perfectly
i would say if you're out fishing right now during you know this early season
(14:39):
period the southern wisconsin market just opened up northern wisconsin will start I mean,
I literally think the Havoc is an awesome bait, an awesome tool,
something that's just different in that size mark, you know,
that size. There's tons of crankbaits out there.
Sure. There's very few crankbaits that do what this bait does.
That's awesome. That's what we tried to achieve. And I'm just thankful for all
(15:00):
the help that we had to, you know, make it happen and get it to where it needed to be. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's, that's how we got there. You know, and then it's,
if people want to, you want to check out the action of this bait,
we, during the Milwaukee show, I believe it was, we shot a video in the pool.
And so I have some, you know, some video of it working.
(15:20):
We have some underwater footage of it. You can watch it literally just hang.
I was the one under the water shooting it. So you could literally just get right
behind the bait and, and just hold the camera there because the bait was not moving at all, really.
So if you want check out our youtube channel and we have a video of
the havoc if you also go to our website we have a full line
of havocs right now and you can find the video there as well as click it right
(15:41):
on our website so but you know adam i want to back up you you talked about uh
you know the hooks the split rings and all that stuff and that's one thing i
don't think a lot of people quite always understand recently i had a customer
that got a bait and you know it's i wouldn't say
it's a ridiculous expensive bait but it's a fairly expensive
bait and he he was you know upset over
(16:03):
the thin wire hooks on it but like sometimes that's what you have to do to get
the action that you're looking for out of the bait and if you put too heavy
of a hook on it or too big of a hook on it it will absolutely change the action
and i don't think everybody understands you know those really small details
how important those really are.
Yeah. And it's so important. And I tell guys all the time, we've got a lot of
(16:28):
customers that are actually having us help design products for them now.
And when I start out, I usually have them pick out their hardware that they
want to use before they actually design the bait.
And the reason I do that is because hardware is extremely important,
especially when you're making a high quality product.
And some of the prices, obviously, of the musky market baits are pretty high.
(16:51):
So when you're making a quality product that demands that price point,
it's always good to have the hardware to back it up.
But in order to get it to run the way you need it to run, in order to get it
to function how you want it to function or rise how you want it to rise,
it all starts and is hinged around a lot of times the hook weight.
And once you have that established, you can then build for that almost in reverse
(17:16):
to make the product do what you want it to do.
A lot of times, bait manufacturers will start out by making the body,
the body looks cool, you know, it even runs maybe, you know, how they want it to run.
But as soon as they start putting weight to the hooks, they realize that they
actually overweighted the product and now it sinks or, you know,
doesn't perform the way they need it to perform. and they almost have to backtrack,
(17:39):
try and figure out now how to redesign.
So you almost eliminate that step if you focus on the product's hardware and then build from that up.
So we do that with a lot of our products just because we do try to put higher-end,
higher-quality products and accessories on them.
So in order for me to maintain that, we also have to make sure they run right with it.
(18:01):
So we do use 9626 hooks from VMC. That's what this bait was staged around.
And then I tell guys all the time, if you want to maintain that buoyancy and
you want to maintain its action, make sure you put the same product back on
the bait when you have to cut hooks or anything like that. Yes. Very interesting.
Let's, we'll, we'll jump into the newest bait, the one I just got.
(18:22):
We'll jump into the last, but before we go there, let's talk about the roadkill.
That's one of those, it's kind of an under, definitely an underutilized tool.
It the you know hasn't taken off like the havoc partially
because i think you know that rubber tail on the back of the havoc i think
you know anglers just they love rubber tails these
days right so i mean that's an attractant right there but let's talk about the
roadkill what'd you design that one for yeah so roadkill was designed mainly
(18:46):
around a bluegill how a bluegill will actually you know act when you you have
a bluegill on your line or something stupid happens i was was fishing for bass
and we were talking about,
you know, we wanted a musky crankbait that could hit hard, had a pretty wild action,
but also was flat sided and similar profile to a bluegill because a lot of times
(19:08):
I'll catch a bluegill on a crankbait fishing for bass.
And as I'm bringing it in, just, you know, getting ready to release it.
And that's the whole point. Up comes the musky and chases it.
And we had that happen quite a few times. And I started talking to the guy that I was fishing with.
And I said, man, I bet you we could make a flat sided bait, but that is not
truly a flat side that is completely rounded still at that thin.
(19:32):
And he said, it's going to be difficult because you lose a lot of obviously
the chamber areas and things that you need to make a bait run.
So we actually took the the attack crankbait that we were originally fishing
with for bass and we took its profile and we started to smash it down in fusion.
Fusion and we got it to a point where it was
(19:54):
it was super thin it was still rounded and I
could still chamber it like I needed to to make it
run how I think it needed to run and then we pulled the trigger on some prototypes
for it and the action just matched what a bluegill looks like real wild real
erratic but then it also trolled so well and the more we played with it the
(20:16):
more We kind of fell in love with the profile and the design.
And my guide was fishing with me and he said, this is an amazing bait.
And it almost looks like somebody ran it over and flattened your other bait and made it flat.
And I said, that's a great idea. Why don't we call it Roadkill?
So that's where the name came from. That's kind of how the bait was established.
(20:36):
And I will just put this out there. We have pulled the trigger on it for the
ABS model, which runs exactly how the resin model ran. So we're excited to be
releasing that shortly.
We've already released the roadkill and resin. So it's not like it's a new product.
It's just going to be at a more affordable price and, and also be able to manufacture
(20:56):
consistently over, you know, a long period of time. So.
All right. Now the opposite of the roadkill would be this new carnage.
Cause so I, I assumed when I ordered it, it was going to be pretty wide bodied
because otherwise it would look just like the roadkill.
Yeah. yeah but it is definitely i mean it's almost wider than i thought the
(21:17):
thing is darn near round right let's talk let's talk about what this one can
do because this is like i literally just unboxed these the other day so i haven't
had a chance to even take pictures of them yet that's on my list of things to
do today to make sure that we have them for release of this podcast.
But i you know i typically like to play with every toy that we get right and
so i want to know what it can and can't do and i haven't had a chance to play
(21:40):
with this one yet so what can you expect out of the carnage what did you design
this one for because with that rounded lip on the front there i'm assuming maybe
you you wanted to troll this one as well as cast them,
Yeah. So the carnage came from, you know, we needed a bait that we could heavily abuse.
We try to make our baits as durable as we possibly can.
(22:01):
But obviously, with more durability, more bulk, especially in the lip,
you lose action. You know, you add buoyancy.
So a lot of, you know, what you're playing with is just these minor tweaks.
But we wanted a bait that, man, we could pound off rocks. We could get it to
just, you know, chase all over the bottom of the river. and not have to sit
(22:21):
there and say, man, we can't really beat this thing.
So we started to design the Carnage for that purpose.
And as we started playing with the body, obviously, again, it's the attack body, just bigger.
And when we started to play with that body size, we were like,
man, we want this bait to run very different than roadkill.
We wanted to have a really wide throwing body, a really wide action.
(22:46):
Action and we started playing with lips and the rounder, bigger lip just made
this bait get thrown all over the place without, you know, burning out or having
any issues like that. It tracks really well.
So we started just, you know, playing with that to get the lip how we wanted
it. And then we messed around with buoyancy.
So we wanted a bait that would rise slowly, but we didn't want it to just, you know, pop right up.
(23:09):
And when you're dealing with this much plastic, it's hard to You get both of
those things, you know, with weight or otherwise it's going to weigh, you know, an epic ton.
So we started playing with tails, started playing with hooks,
did all that like we normally would.
And then built that bait off of
those things. And we got it to have the buoyancy we wanted for the river.
And then also troll ability. We put this thing in the water and I mean,
(23:32):
man, it just thumps like crazy.
And just trolls so, so well and how we wanted it to troll.
I mean, we're hitting areas that are more shallow and then we'll hit drop offs. So we can hit bottom.
On the shallower areas and not have to worry about it
but then we can also hit those deeper channels that come
off a lot of our faster moving water and we control them as well and you're
(23:55):
going to hit depths casting around eight feet with the carnage and then we've
gone you know 16 feet on average in the river where we need to you know troll
with carnage i have a few guides out west In your area of Wisconsin,
they actually started trolling them and doing well on them.
And so did a Canadian guide service.
(24:17):
And they run rod tips down. We don't do that in the river because there's points
where we would lose rod tips.
So we run, you know, we troll wide, but they run tip down.
And they're saying that they're getting even 18 plus out of them.
So they were excited about that. I always tell guys, I get 16 because that's
(24:37):
the conditions I'm fishing in.
And then if you obviously want to try and get deeper, you absolutely can do
that. That's what they're reporting. And they'll troll.
I've had them six, six and a half, no problem. But I very rarely ever troll
about four, four and a half.
So for us, you know, it fit the bill. Fix them.
Yeah, this is what I'm, I'm looking forward to playing around with a little bit.
(24:58):
Cause like I said, first a smaller crankbait, I mean, what is this thing?
Four, four and a half inches. Four and a half. Yeah. Okay.
You know, it's gotta be the widest body four and a half inch crankbait I've, I've seen.
I mean, you can, I would say like the mag diesel would maybe be,
you know, comparable, but the mag diesel's a bigger bait than this one.
Right. So, I mean, it's, it literally is like, I don't know,
(25:20):
probably like a ping pong ball around it.
At least all of that. it's a big it's a big wide profile
that way so i'm yeah i'm positive that if you're trolling
this thing that rod tip is just going to be pounding yep yeah
and uh we we also this one allows
us to the carnage allows us to also give more
of the appearance of shad a lot of guys were you know buying them with shad
(25:43):
patterns on them i know that's what the canadian guys do a lot they buy a lot
of my shad and even some of my perch patterns that's kind of their go-to so
a A lot of guys like throwing this with a shad pattern and then run it as well
for shad and in that area,
like where there's going to be that, that, uh, food source.
So they, they tend to just keep to that with this profile where as roadkill,
(26:05):
they seem to tend to want to go towards bluegill and, and, and bait fish like
that. So crappie, stuff like that.
Excellent. Well, Adam, I want to thank you for coming out and taking time out
of your schedule. I know you guys are busy at this time of year and,
you know, kind of go through the history of everything you had going on.
It's, it's really a very, you know, like I said, it's an awesome story.
I love hearing these kinds of stories out of bait, you know,
(26:27):
bait builders, especially that's the, uh, that's the part I'm passionate about.
I like small business in general, but I definitely like hearing about it in the fishing industry.
So I really appreciate it. You know, if people are looking to get in touch with,
find your products, why don't you let them know again where they can find it?
Cause obviously you could find your musky gear at teamrhinooutdoors.com.
But if you're looking for the bass side of stuff, you know, Adam,
(26:48):
why don't you give them an idea where they can find that stuff again?
Absolutely. Yeah, obviously, Team Rhino. And we just thank the world of you
guys and Jeff, you personally.
I just want to say thank you for bringing us on the show, but also just selling
our product and being so willing to work with us and just help us grow and achieve these goals.
But i highly recommend obviously to the
(27:08):
guys out there buying direct from you you have cooler
patterns than anyone else has that we offer
too but then with the best stuff again you
can get a get on our website at www.adamscustomlures.com you can always order
through us but also then support dealers like ld guide service south side bait
(27:29):
and tackle we've got a whole bunch of dealers on our website that you can also
click on and see. And then we're adding new dealers as well.
And then we also will have a lot of our bass stuff on Amazon too.
So we just finished that process as well. So they'll have access to buying a
lot of our bass and even our trout stuff, but mainly for the musky stuff.
(27:49):
Yeah, I would recommend you guys. So that's where I would send them.
All right, Adam. Well, I appreciate it. And thank you for the kind words.
We definitely appreciate working with you guys.
It's been great, especially during show season.
Season i would put in large orders of the havoc and make you turn around
really fast and that worked out great because like
i said we sold a pile of those things this spring it was phenomenal bait
(28:10):
and i mean i think obviously the video helped out
because you know people saw that like i said even when
i saw it i would i liked the bait before i spool once i saw it in the pool i
liked it even more so very cool bait and i want to thank you for uh for your
time today also i also like to to thank our listeners for dialing up another
episode of Team Rhino Outdoors podcast and I will have another new episode again next week Monday.
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