Ep.29 | Ben Patrick | Spanish Mackerel Tactics, Abrolhos Islands & the Story Behind Halco

In this episode we're joined by Ben Patrick — owner of Halco Tackle. 

Halco is the most iconic fishing lure brand to ever come out of Western Australia. If you've ever tied on a Laser Pro, a Twisty, or a Rooster Popper, you've got Ben, his family & Hal cooper to thank for it.

Ben is the second generation owner of Halco Tackle, a brand founded in 1950 by Hal Cooper in his garage in Mosman Park. Today, Halco sells to over 80 countries, designs everything in-house out of their Fremantl HQ and manufactures out of their own factory in Batam, Indonesia. Halco lures are distrubted & fished hard all over the world.

In this episode with Ben Patrick we discuss…

• The origin story of Halco — from Hal Cooper's garage in Mosman Park to a globally recognised lure brand
• How Ben's dad Neil purchased the company in 1980 and the lures that defined that era
• Ben buying the business with his family in 2002 and taking it global
• The challenges of cracking the US market and what makes American anglers different
• Ben's earliest fishing memories — the Abrolhos Islands, 30lb mackerel in Grade 5, and a 48-year-old boat called Safari Two
• The real story behind the Rooster Popper — how it came to be, why it took a year to get right, and why it's now the best-selling mass-produced popper in the world
• Lure design philosophy — what most anglers misunderstand about buoyancy, weight, and balance
• Why clean water is the single most important factor for chasing metro Spanish mackerel on lures
• Ben's Spanish mackerel trolling spread and the stick bait tip Craig White swears by
• The Abrolhos Islands — how the fishery has changed, why the baldies are better than ever, and the Batavia shipwreck story
• The Iconic Twisty — how it's still made the same way Hal Cooper invented it in 1950, and why Ben nearly dropped it from the range
• Live scoping and how sounder technology is changing lure design
• Noodling for catfish in Texas 
• Ben's most memorable fish — a 180lb tarpon in Panama on a Laser Pro 160
• Why the red and white Laser Pro catches more fish 
• A limited edition Halco Twisty idea that the boys pitched to ben on air
• Ben's wood duck moment — sniping a drone on national television with a Rooster Popper

Plus we give away an epic Daiwa Saltiga Topwater lure pack for the best listener question submitted through our Instagram @TallTailsPodcast thanks to Daiwa Australia

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Transcript

TALL TAILS FISHING PODCAST
Episode 29 | Ben Patrick | Spanish Mackerel Tactics, Abrolhos Islands & the Story Behind Halco
Speakers: Jake (Host), Mark (Host), Ben Patrick (Guest)

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JAKE: Oh, luckily we're back for another broadcast mate, Episode 29. And I'm very excited for this one today because we're pretty proud of where we live. We're proud of the fishing that we have here. We love where we live. And one thing that is really special about our isolated little city — Perth and Western Australia — is that we have a bunch of fantastic tackle brands that come out of here.

So just to name a few, we've got Ocean's Legacy, we've got the boys at Vex, but I think arguably the most influential in Western Australia, if not Australia and possibly the world, is Halco Tackle. And we have the owner, Mr. Ben Patrick, on today. Mate, it's a pleasure to have you in the studio with us today. Thanks so much for coming in, Ben.

We start every podcast mate with the last fish you caught. So hit us with the last fish that you caught yourself.

BEN: Oh, that's gonna be a tough one. It'll be South Coast Yellowfin Whiting, knee deep in an estuary. Seagulls flying around. I love it. Just fishing the shallows.

JAKE: The good stuff. The bread and butter.

MARK: Yeah, someone that has got access to the best fish and tackle lures around and you're still getting back to the roots and catching Whiting, mate. I absolutely love that. Was that on a lure or were you fishing on bait?

BEN: I spent the month before in Exmouth chasing Blues. But going and catching Yellowfin Whiting in the shallows is a nice day on the South Coast. That's meditative, isn't it?

JAKE: It's pretty hard to beat. Yeah. Nice man. I'm with you there. I absolutely love it. Shark Bay area. I love doing that.

BEN: Exactly.

JAKE: Yeah, my granddad trips every year and that's one of my earliest memories. Before we touch on your earliest memories, I want to get you to give us a bit of a history lesson around Halco, because a lot of people will know it. And like, for someone like myself, it's a lure that I've probably tied on more than any other lure.

BEN: Me too.

JAKE: Give us a bit of a history lesson behind the company and how it got to where it is today.

BEN: Yeah, okay. So it was actually established by Hal Cooper in 1950 in his garage in Mosman Park. So Hal wasn't a fisherman, and his brother was, and they needed lures. And Hal was an amazing engineering sort of bloke. And he just started making lures for his brother, basically. And his brother said, I think you can sell these. And Halco comes from Hal Cooper. And that's where it started with him. And he basically made a range of metal lures, ended up on the corner of Key and George Street in Saint Andrews, which is all just expensive housing now.

And in 1980, my dad — he was in shipping — and they sold out of that family company and Dad was looking for something to do and Halco came on the market and he thought, oh, that'll be fun. And he just didn't realise what he'd bitten off. So 1980, bought it, started changing a lot of the lures around. We were making a lot of Smith jigs, which were churning trolling lures, Barsprints, which you still make. And then the Laser Pros came — or the Lasers as they were at the time. And then the Giant Trembler, and started moving into plastic lures. Moved to Central Fremantle, I dunno, must have been late eighties.

And my background was — I always wanted to be a farmer, so I was studying agriculture at Muresk, did a Bachelor of Business, and then went around Australia for a year on a boat, just fishing with mates that we'd agreed to do from school. And I just thought, oh God, most of my family had a crack at it and weren't really interested. And I said, I'll have a go. So I started and ended up buying the company with my wife and my family in 2002, I think it was. And we've just continued from there. We now sell to 80 plus countries.

JAKE: Wow.

BEN: And in the early 2000s, I also set up another factory in Batam in Indonesia, which we've been there now 20 years, which I fully own. And I was there last week. I'm there every six weeks. And something I think that makes us particularly different as a brand is that we make everything ourselves. And if I go up and say I don't like that, it doesn't happen.

JAKE: Yeah. You have full influence over your entire product.

BEN: Yeah. I speak to them every day. But I'm also there every one week in six. And then we ship every two weeks to Australia. And then a couple of years ago I started a business and warehouse in the US. So we now have a full distribution setup in Texas and that handles all the southern and central American countries as well as the USA.

JAKE: Yeah. And that's just continuing to grow and grow. The US is a really big market.

BEN: It's bloody tough. It's very tough. Distribution is a lot harder than what you think.

JAKE: I've heard that it's quite different to the Australian distribution market. So a bit about my background, Ben — I worked in the surf industry for a while. My dad's been in the surf industry for 30 years and we were part of the team that established Salty Crew in Australia. And I remember talking to a few people, Jared Lane who built the Salty Crew brand over there. He said that the US market was a lot more challenging, a lot bigger than here. What are some of the challenges that you face just from a business perspective? It's got me curious.

BEN: The distance to market is always difficult, and it just means that you have to have stock there. They want it immediately.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Whether it's the consumer or the dealer, they want it immediately. It has to be very easy. They're quite insular in a way, so the thought of thinking outside their country is not a huge thing for them. And I think the other thing is you think, oh, they're population-wise — similar sort of demographic to ours. And they are so different to us. Yeah. They're just very different people.

JAKE: In what way? Is it their buying patterns or their opinions or —

BEN: Ask me another 20 years and I'll give you the real answer what I think. I love them though.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: They're the greatest people.

JAKE: Is that your biggest market outside Australia?

BEN: It moves around a bit. It used to be Russia, and then they had some regime changes there that devalued the currency, which has made it a lot more difficult for us now. But Russia used to be huge.

JAKE: What were — what sort of —

BEN: South Africa used to be huge. What would they buy — South Africa was a lot of Scorpion 120s and 150s. And that was a lot of trolling the Volga River for giant catfish.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And I've been fishing in Russia on Lake Ladoga. That was possibly the most boring day of my life.

JAKE: Oh, you didn't fish the Blue Marlin Classic?

BEN: I've done a few of those. But the last one I did, I thought — Blue Marlin Classic. I've just driven 200 miles for the weekend. I could've been to Geraldton and back by now.

MARK: Yeah. I think they did the maths and it was something like every boat had, as if they had gone to Geraldton and back for the day.

BEN: Yeah. So the combined distance that all those boats travelled was circumnavigating Australia twice.

JAKE: So it's —

BEN: But it's no fault of the comp organisers. It was an epic comp. But yeah, the fish just — yeah.

MARK: It's just current dependent.

JAKE: Yeah. You'll have to listen to our latest episode, mate. We unpacked it all and yeah, it was a bit of a series of unfortunate events.

BEN: Yeah. But anyway, back to Russia. So we went out on this charter boat. Our distributors organised going on a charter. So Dad said we'd grab some beers, so he'd grab half a dozen beers or a dozen beers, which we put in the esky that didn't have any ice. And we went out on this lake trolling with two guys that didn't speak English. We realised that the captain was gonna drink all our beers, so we didn't hook into him in about the first 15 minutes. So we shared them with him. He got about half and we got the other half, and then we fished till about one in the morning when the sun set. And I caught a very nice Arctic Char, which is like a foot and a half long, sort of trout that fights like a reasonable size piece of weed.

JAKE: God, I thought you were gonna say something else. Did you eat it?

BEN: I can't remember what bloody happened to it. I was — yeah, that was a while ago.

MARK: You kicked it off the boat.

JAKE: It's really interesting — that was quite a big market for Halco lures. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me though, because Whitey, when he came in here for the first time — Craig White from Evolution Charters — he explained that when he went to the World Championships in Costa Rica, there was actually game fishing teams from Russia. And I asked him, how do they gain entry into a bill fishing comp? And he goes, they don't — they literally go and fish the river for char and trout and that sort of thing. And that's how they gained entry into game fishing.

BEN: Yeah, exactly. Completely different sport. And really interesting — a lot of those areas. So when we went in, it was just when it opened up after the Gorbachev era, I think. And so a lot of areas that were closed off got opened. And these rivers and regions had been shut off for years, untouched. And they said they're unreal. And they said, come fishing. And they said those helicopters are right. And I said, no, those helicopters aren't right. The pilot — by the time he sits there all day — will be blind by the time he comes to fly.

JAKE: Yeah. That's a bit of an adventure. Russia is certainly not on my travel bucket list, but maybe it needs to be.

BEN: Beautiful place, beautiful people. Just not the right timing at the moment.

JAKE: My travel list is narrowing as we speak with everything that's happening in the world at the moment. I'm just sticking to WA. I think we've got a pretty good thing over here. Let's go back to your earliest fishing memories and where it started for you, because your dad was — or he is — a big angler and has got some pretty rich history when it comes to angling.

BEN: Yeah. So — IGFA Hall of Fame.

JAKE: Oh, IGFA Hall of Fame. Yeah. So I was right.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: That's big. So that's the International Game Fishing Association.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: That's huge. Is he the one that obviously introduced you into fishing?

BEN: Yeah. And I just sort — How did I start? I actually, I hate to say, but I took it for granted what we did. And I just started catching, like everyone else. I was fishing off the jetty, I was fishing off the boat, catching herring, just all the usual stuff. And then I think it was in Grade Five we did our — I wasn't allowed to go the first trip he did, because I couldn't swim. And then it was when I was in Grade Five, we did our first trip to the Abrolhos, and then we went every year since then in the May holidays. And I caught a 30-pound mackerel and it's still one of the best fish I ever caught, really, that one. And just how exciting it was. And he just — we were lucky to be brought up in a thing where he was just mad keen about taking the boat all over the place. We ended up all along the West Australian coast in the very early days of those areas being opened up.

JAKE: What boat were you fishing out of?

BEN: Safari Two — Dad's boat. So he built that and then I think it was 48 years old last year when he sold it.

JAKE: Wow. Wow. Yeah. That would've had some blood on the deck over the journey.

BEN: Yeah. Yeah. Had, I think, four Granders over in Cairns. A lot of Australian records. And three or four trips to Rowley Shoals, and I think I counted about 40 to the Abrolhos.

JAKE: Do you know who bought her?

BEN: Yeah. Ken Stevenson. So Jim's brother owns Winora.

MARK: Oh yeah. Winora took out the comp last week. Yeah.

BEN: Yep. Awesome.

JAKE: Wow. Are they redoing anything to her?

BEN: Pretty well, they're just using her a lot at the moment. And he's — I don't think he's a mad keen fisherman, but it's out there a lot being used.

JAKE: Wow.

BEN: Dad's happy. It was like selling a child.

JAKE: Would've been. Yeah. It would've been very sentimental. And probably his favourite chair.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: Yeah. You're lucky. So the Fishing the Wild West book — I don't know how familiar you are with that book?

BEN: Yeah, I thought so.

JAKE: But there's a photo of your old man in there holding a sailfish. Is that on Safari Two?

BEN: Yeah, that's Safari Two. Yeah.

JAKE: That is the boat. To put that picture up — yeah. Unreal photo. And Neil's in his aviator shirt, strides off, got his stubbies on and he's with three of his mates just manhandling this big — I think it might be a sailfish.

BEN: They're actually the old Japanese fishing glasses, which you can't get anymore, that were so cool. They were the best sunnies you could buy.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: They had the side blinders on them too, didn't they?

BEN: Yeah, a little bit. Yep.

JAKE: Yeah. And first trips to Rowley Shoals, it was no generator, no anchor winch, nothing. No water maker. Just 600 litres of water. And first trips, you'd get Craig's house to bring supplies out every week. Went out for six weeks at a time.

BEN: Went out for six weeks. Yeah. And then Craig would bring every week a change of crew and fuel and stores and different people, and went out there and worked it up for Marlin fishing.

JAKE: Wow. Not many people would've been going out there at that stage either.

BEN: There were commercial boats. No one had seriously Marlin fished it.

JAKE: And probably Indonesians too.

BEN: Yep. Yeah.

JAKE: Any of those illegal fishermen?

BEN: There's more there now than there was then.

JAKE: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. There's a bit of a deal going on with the government or something?

BEN: We send — yeah. We can't keep all — we can catch a fish in certain areas, we can't keep a Coral Trout. We can't eat one even when we're out there. And then you've got boats sitting on top of the reef with people plundering it.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And that's all okay.

JAKE: Yeah. Just go figure that out.

MARK: We could literally sit here for an hour talking about the state of fisheries.

BEN: Yeah. God, at the moment —

JAKE: Our country too. But we won't do that. We're here to talk —

BEN: Rabbit hole.

JAKE: The Rowley Shoals — is that up there on your list of places to fish?

BEN: Yeah, definitely. It's a fantastic place and it's still a great fishery. It seems to have some years where you get more sharks and less sharks. We went there on one of our later trips in the early 2000s and there were a lot of sharks. You just couldn't get a sailfish boat, so you just didn't go sailfishing.

JAKE: Wow.

BEN: I went last year, it was good. Didn't lose many fish to sharks. Lots of dogtooth, lots of different stuff around to catch. And did you guys have a good year? And the guys at Real Teaser — they're the people who've got a dolled up boat up there. Yeah. They're unbelievable. Yeah, they're really good.

The sad thing is you go there — in the eighties, we'd hand feed the big Potato Cod off the back of the boat, and you'd go for a swim and they'd grab you by the hair and drag you under. And they were amazing. They're all gone.

JAKE: Yeah. Who took them? I dunno.

MARK: Put two and two together.

BEN: I dunno.

JAKE: Scary though. Fish. I've actually been up there spearfishing. I've been surrounded by Dusky Whalers. Even Bull Sharks up at nLoo. Still the scariest creature under there that can take you. Those big ones — like queens and big Potato Cod — they're so big. Like you can fit a two footer in their mouth.

BEN: Yeah. I remember one ate my sister's depth gauge and pressure thing on her tank and dragged her under. She didn't have a reg in either, and then it finally decided it wasn't food.

MARK: So when she was diving?

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: One of the times when we were at the Montebello Islands, someone tied a fish frame to a rope and it came up and grabbed it, towed them around for a bit while they were underwater.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: But doing all these trips, Ben — obviously Halco, your old man purchased it in 1980, is that correct?

BEN: Yeah, that's right. Yep.

JAKE: So during this time you guys have got a lure company, you're going up to Rowley Shoals, you've got this fantastic fishing at your disposal. Lure testing and ideas for new lures — surely that had to be a part of those trips.

BEN: Oh, it is. And it influences what we do. I've never — we're not a company that goes and does consumer surveys.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Normally I go away fishing, think that'd be good, we need that. I've just done a shallow version of a lure, because I always went Barra fishing with one of our newer Barra lures and we needed a shallow one.

JAKE: Is that the T-Bar?

BEN: I can't tell you because it's a secret.

JAKE: Okay. Yeah. We'll keep that to yourself.

BEN: Yeah. Just keep it quiet between us.

JAKE: This is not going out to anyone, you know.

BEN: Yeah. Not going out to thousands of people. All good.

JAKE: I like that. That's a good point though. I love my Barra fishing and I reckon you're onto something.

BEN: So I think it's a good question — does that lead to design? And yes, it does. And I think the other thing always, is I'm still out fishing with product all the time and if we need to change something, we will, or tweak something. And we do from time to time.

I'll give you a good example — A Crazy Deep Laser Pro 190 with a curved bib. It went really deep, about seven and a half metres, but when you design something like that — particularly something to go deep and fast — that's the hardest thing to do. And I pushed that bib to the edge to get the absolute maximum depth out of it. The problem is, you go into mass production — even when you do it yourself — and little things change, and that's not right. And so people always had trouble with it. I knew it. We changed it to the one we've got now. It's now a fantastic lure. So there's always tweaks going on as well where I just go, I don't think it's alright. It could be a bit better. And I'll go up to the factory and we'll change the die around a bit, or whatever it may be, just to get the lure running all the time.

And Halco has a reputation — you can pull it out of the box and swim it.

JAKE: You don't need to tune them.

BEN: No. And I would hope that's right 99.9% of the time. It's not always, but it is.

JAKE: I can speak from experience here and there's absolutely no bias going. And I won't mention the name, but there is another brand of lure that looked fantastic — first time I'd ever used it and it didn't swim out of the box. But for me, it's a Pink Chrome Laser Pro. Whenever I go up to Ningaloo, I know that I can tie that lure on, I know it's gonna swim, and I know it's gonna catch fish. So you're absolutely right.

BEN: Yeah. Yep. We work pretty hard at that. And we try and make the Toyota of lures. That's our aim.

JAKE: And that's a great comparison.

BEN: Yeah. I think car brands are a good one to look at. And we are that reliable, good quality, allegedly good value for money product. And that's what we are. Yeah.

JAKE: So is that your whole ethos around making lures and producing lures and designing them — is that you want them to last and you want them to continue to work?

BEN: Yeah. Yep. And one thing that really pisses me off is that we're in a world where everyone's going all varying shades of green, and we are happy to go into a world of products that just don't last.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: If you can't catch 30 Spaniards off a lure, you may have to change the hook — because I'm not sure — but there's something wrong.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And the world's going the other direction.

JAKE: Throw away.

BEN: And so I'm just — it just pisses me off. So we just — I just wanna keep making really good stuff.

JAKE: Yeah. Sustainability is important. I guess as fishermen, we say it all the time — you've gotta look after your playground, don't you?

BEN: Oh, I certainly do. But if you've got a lure, once it's done it's plastic waste, isn't it?

JAKE: I've found — talking of plastic waste — I reckon if I'm walking a beach and beach combing and I find a Halco, that goes back in the tackle box. And I know it's gonna keep working as well. So it's a good point that you make.

BEN: The amazing thing about seeing those ones on the beach is you realise how shit people are at tying knots.

JAKE: No, that's actually a great point. What is your go-to knot? What's your go-to attachment for something like a Laser Pro?

BEN: Look, double granny — No. Look, very often if we're using a wire trace, I tie Uni knots. Easy, it's quick. And I've never had one fail.

JAKE: The Toyota of knots.

BEN: Yeah. Yeah. I should do loop knots, whatever. The thing about loop knots — and people talk about those a lot — it's a lot of — we have a lot of flexible towing points, like in the Scorpions and things. It makes that less important. And also we make lures that just swim. There's a lot of the Japanese lures you have to do special things and hold your elbow the right way and everything to make it do what it's meant to do.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: We don't make those sort of lures. We make ones where you just — they'll swim with a heavy leader or whatever it may be. But I think it's horses for courses on that one.

JAKE: Yeah. Even the hooks — this morning I was trolling Laser Pros. Didn't catch fish. I know — dumping on myself here — but they were still swimming and I only had a single hook on the back. I took the middle treble off in an effort to avoid getting bitten off if I did hook a macky, which I didn't.

BEN: You might as well have taken both hooks off, mate.

JAKE: Yeah, because you're gonna — yeah. Seriously. I can't catch a fish to save my life at the moment. But that single hook on the back, it still swims like it would with that middle hook. And sometimes I find with the stickbaits that I use, particularly those handmade ones or the higher-end Japanese ones — if you change the hooks at all, they might not swim. But especially if you take that middle treble off, that seems to be the pivot point for a lot of these lures, eh?

BEN: Yep, yep. And I think we have lures where I say you can hang house bricks off and they'll still swim. And certainly we do try and make it so that they'll take a wide range of hooks.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: But we have customers — like South African customers — they want singles on those Laser Pros. I go and test every single one. I say, what hooks do you want? And I'll go test them. So I'll go — no worries. But that does start stalling or pulling out one side or the other at about a knot and a half below where the trebles swim. So it still does make a difference, but I think as long as you're aware of that, you can do a fairly wide variety of changes.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And if you're gonna start asking me about hooks, we can do another podcast on that if you like. But I would say with hooks — 'cause people say, why don't you use this, why don't you say what blah blah — is that, again, I come back to the car analogy. Hooks are like tyres. And the tyres on your Land Cruiser — I'm sure you've changed yours.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: But the average guy, most of them say, oh, I'll stick with the Grand Treks or whatever's on there. And hooks are like that for us. So we try and find that hook for 80% of people, not for the other 20.

JAKE: It's a good point.

BEN: Just trying to fit in nicely.

MARK: Yeah. Before we move on — I wanna go back to the Abrolhos, 'cause I know it is one of your favourite places. But before we do, while we're on lures and trolling in particular — we have a lot of listeners here that love chasing metro Spanish mackerel, similar to what Rothi was doing out there today.

JAKE: Having donut days.

MARK: Yeah. They have donut days. We have a lot of listeners that have donut days. What is your Spanish mackerel spread of lures look like when you go out? What are you tying on and what are you trolling around?

BEN: Okay. So if I was down here, I'd be using probably a Laser Pro 160 for a slightly smaller profile in a deep diver, possibly a Crazy Deep. People don't like that lure because of the perception that the bib — there's the polycarbonate attached to the lure — we just don't get any returns on it. But so I'd say a Laser Pro 160 deep diver, a Laser Pro 190 Crazy Deep always, just to get that depth. And maybe a Laser Pro 190 deep diver. That'd be about it. If I'm fishing light tackle, like at the Brolgas Tournament, I fish Scorpions and Laser Pro 160s. I'd have to put lot of hooks on the 160 because on four kilo you can't send them.

MARK: Which tournament was that, sorry?

BEN: The Brolgas Tournament.

MARK: Gotcha. Yeah. I would go with a spread of those three or four lures. I just think that's a very good combination. You've got all the depths covered. They troll at the right speed and fish bite them.

JAKE: Have you ever — so Whitey gave me this tip, Craig White from up north. So I'll tow around a very similar spread to what you just said, but he said, throw a stickbait right out the back. And I always throw — I'll throw like a Sly Dog way out the back when we're trolling and it skips along. I've caught so many fish.

BEN: That is a very good idea. Yeah. And I haven't done a lot of it, and it's something I intend to do more of. I'm actually speaking to a commercial fisherman up in Kalbarri last year. And I've actually done some 150 Sly Dogs in floating for him, 'cause he said, I just love floating stickbaits. And I said, why? And he said, when I stop the lure it's just flapping around on the surface. And he said, very often I'll get another fish — get a hit on the stall.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And I haven't actually got to give them to him yet, but I've got them sitting there. I'll drop them off to him.

JAKE: Good taste. But it's really interesting you say that because I think it's a very good idea. It's well, and it's got that bit of a garfish look to it just flicking along on the surface.

BEN: And you get the aerial bite as well. That's why —

JAKE: Yeah. Sound and visual.

BEN: Yeah. Yeah.

MARK: Something else that you've said a couple of times now, Ben, is speed. You've referred to speed. What is it about speed with trolling for mackies? Is it a slow speed? Is it fast? Is it somewhere in the middle? Is there a speed that you found it works?

BEN: Look, these guys who do very well slow trolling baits and that sort of stuff — and I don't know that style of fishing very well. For me it's six and a half knots — or five and a half, six and a half — somewhere around there. Sometimes you want speed to cover ground. So I may be going up to eight knots because I think this is not very good, but I wanna get up to that spot up there that I know is good.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: The thing with mackerel — and I've learned this from fishing about 20 Abrolhos tournaments in a row — is that it's so critical: you need clean water.

JAKE: Yeah. Okay.

BEN: Fishing for mackerel in dirty water is very difficult on lures. And to get bites — you can see them on the sounder, I can see them, I know they're Spaniards — to get them to bite in dirty water is very difficult. And I'll tell you why. The Capes Current, when it pushes north — and that's that terrible green stuff, which these days tends to come through the Abrolhos more than, anecdotally, what I remember.

JAKE: Which current, sorry?

BEN: The Capes Current comes south. So the one coming north from the south, which is basically generated and switches around the sea breeze.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And I also have a theory — this is why we've got an early Marlin bite, and then as the sea breeze eases off, we get a better Marlin bite again. Because the Capes Current comes along and pushes too much current out with the wind. But that's another discussion. So I had this really interesting talk at two o'clock in the morning when I was parked in a commercial fisherman's parking bay at the Abrolhos. And he wanted me to move. And as I was standing there in my jocks, I started talking to him and he was a mullet fisherman. I said, how do you go getting mullet in the dirty water? He said, we just don't bother. I said, why not? He said, the mackerel can't see the mullet, so they don't ball the mullet up. So we can't go and get a seine net around the mullet.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: So suddenly I looked at this whole thing in reverse. And it's like the mackerel going — I'm gonna waste way too much energy swimming around this dirty water trying to find a mullet and I can't find anything.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And so that certainly turns them off. Clean water is just an absolute — okay. And I suspect — and I don't know, I haven't fished that area — but I've looked at it on rip charts a lot to see if it confirms my theory, is that you'll get more mackerel out at areas like the Feeding Station.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: When the water's dirty on the coast. And so when that water's clean on the coast, I think you'll see those same fish move in. And when the water gets dirty, they'll move out.

MARK: Mate, that comes back to — remember Whitey had that theory of the fish moving in and out?

BEN: Yeah.

MARK: Early days. And there was a lot of people that said nah, they move up and down the coast. And he was like — oh, I've found them out on the shelf in August. And he had a similar theory that they come in and out.

BEN: I actually hadn't heard that, but I totally agree with that concept. I think they move up and down as well.

MARK: I think he does too. But I think what they're doing is they're following the clean water out.

BEN: Yeah. That's a good point. That's what they feed in.

JAKE: Yeah. Clean water, bait.

BEN: Yep. Yep. Bit of everything.

MARK: We had a year last year — fished the Brolga Tournament. Good. I was fishing an area that I know is good. We're having good days. The last day, I think we tagged 36 fish or something on four kilo line in the comp — best day in 20 years I ever had.

BEN: Yep.

MARK: The water turned blue in the same spot, got a bit warmer, went off its head.

BEN: Yeah. I wonder if that — did those fish come from somewhere else and come in? Or were they there and they could see everything so they fed? I dunno.

JAKE: Yep. Dunno that one.

BEN: Good tip though.

JAKE: Oh, while we were talking about the Abrolhos, you said that you've pretty much been going there every year. I've actually never done the Abrolhos. I've been just about everywhere else in WA. It's on my list of places to go. Talk to us about that as a place and how it evolved from when you first used to go there to what it is now.

BEN: Okay. Look, I have got it fairly dialled in just from years of going there and watching and catching. I've had my kids there — at school, for too long in the fisherman's school there for two years — and lived there on the boat, and have gone pretty well every Easter since I was in about Grade Five. And I'll be out there for about a month this year, hopefully. And got some great friends out there. There's some unreal people. The commercial fishermen are unreal — 80% — like everywhere in the world, 80% of people are good.

JAKE: Yeah. Yeah.

BEN: And they feel lucky. They're unreal. They're really good people. And there is generally — and it's quite remarkable — there's a very good relationship between the pros and the recreational guys out there. And that's always been a very nice thing. There is a mutual respect. It has its problems, but basically it's pretty good.

But anyway, coming back to it — yeah, I started going there in the early seventies. I would say the Baldchin fishing now is better than it was then.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And a couple of things have happened. One of the big ones is the non-consignment of catch. Because it was —

JAKE: What does that mean?

BEN: There were people sending fish on the plane, on the carrier boat — commercial guys and family. So there was a lot taken. There used to be commercial spearfishing out there.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And Dad said that was the thing that denuded the Abrolhos of Baldchin.

JAKE: They're all in shallow water now.

BEN: Oh God. Like one of my favourite fishing in the whole world is catching Baldchin on 80-pound hand lines in eight foot of water. That is almost unbeatable.

JAKE: Yeah. Yeah. Site casting too. And they're brawlers too.

BEN: They're absolute brawlers. It is unreal. Love it.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Look, I haven't seen a lot of changes. I see the mackerel population go up and down. I reckon there's more dirty water than there used to be.

MARK: Have you noticed a difference in other demersal species making their way down? Like Red Emperor or anything like that?

BEN: Not really. No. People catch a few more Red Emperor, but people have got better at fishing too.

JAKE: Yeah, true.

BEN: And so I think it's hard to compare. But the pinkies out there are just a freaking pest. You just cannot get away from them — these are the endangered ones, sorry. Just in case you're wondering. I've never seen pinkies like it.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And the other one I would say is they are the best eating pinkies I've ever had. They live off cray. You put one up against a baldchin or a Coral Trout — chewy — up there. They're up there. God, they're good.

JAKE: Just purely because of their diet.

BEN: There's something else. Yep.

JAKE: Interesting.

BEN: It's from a good fish to a bloody good fish. And WA's blessed with lots of bloody good fish.

JAKE: Yeah. We have a lot of fish snobs when it comes to eating.

BEN: Oh, we do. Way too many.

JAKE: That's a great point. And I never thought about it with fish, because I know with — I do a little bit of hunting — and same sort of thing. Depending on what the diet is, whether it's pigs or whether it's — yeah, even here in America, the bear they hunt bear and it's — if they're living off blueberries, they'll taste a bit sweeter. That comes through the meat. So I never thought about it with fish like that.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: If they've got a better diet, that old saying is that you are what you eat.

BEN: Exactly. There's something about those fish. They're exceptional.

MARK: And what are — so I have heard that you do a bit of the history around Abrolhos with the Batavia as well.

BEN: Yeah. Look, I've dived on a lot of the wrecks and got involved with that, with a little bit of stuff through the museum as well. Dived on a lot of the Zeewijck cannons in the Southern Group, and that's been really interesting. Getting onto the outside ones — I've only got to the close outside ones — so you have to go through some fairly big swell. More people have been on the moon than have been on those Zeewijck cannons on the outside of Half Moon Reef.

JAKE: Oh wow. Yep. Really.

BEN: And I've seen a couple of days, years ago, where I could have gone on it. I'm gonna get on there one day — it's on my bucket list. Just to have a look. It's just extraordinary.

MARK: Kurt Waterman, who works for you — Kurt — Kurt Waterman's been on the podcast before. For our listeners that aren't sure who I'm referring to, but he told me that you had been to a museum somewhere in the world and you told one of the guys that you'd dived on the Batavia wreck and she called bullshit on you.

BEN: Yeah. No, it was a woman. We said — we've dived on the Batavia. It was actually a replica of the Batavia they were building. We said, we've dived on them. She said, no you haven't. And in the end I had to agree with her and just say, look, yes, I haven't. You're right.

JAKE: Can you give us a rough — 'cause Rothi doesn't know. I've mentioned the Batavia before and it's like the story behind it — there's probably a lot of people listening that don't know anything about it. Have you — can you give us a rough rundown?

BEN: Okay. So in 1629, the ship Batavia was on its way to Batavia, which is now Jakarta, to pick up spices — which is basically pepper. The reason why they loved spices was because it made their rotten meat taste better, because they had to do something because they didn't have refrigeration. So that's what drove the Spice Trade. The East India Company was the biggest trading company in the world at the time. And the captain just went a bit too far — ignored the signals of birds and weed in the water — didn't turn left as he came across. I think coming across the Roaring Forties they don't want to hit Australia. They turn left and go up and they reckon they'll get to end of Asia. And they couldn't measure longitude then. So that was the dead reckoning guess. They go, we're doing eight knots, this is where we are, we've gotta turn left. And he just got it wrong. And he just shaved the edge of a reef. If he was a hundred metres away, he would've missed it fine and gone on as gold.

JAKE: Yeah. Yeah.

BEN: And now it's still Australia's biggest peacetime disaster. And what happened — 180 people were slaughtered.

MARK: Yeah. The mutiny side is the real sort of history lesson there. Unreal. What happened — give us a rundown.

BEN: Pretty dark. Okay. So there were mutineers on board, run by a psychopath, which is never a good thing. And then yeah, he killed — rape and murder — a lot of people. And the goodies got away — the army guys. And when they finally got back from Batavia with a boat, it was a race between the baddies and the goodies to get to the island to tell them what was going on. And the goodies won. Basically they got out there first. So it was a relative happily ever after, except for 180 of them.

JAKE: And there's the remnants — all the little shelters and everything.

BEN: Yeah, it's all still there. Yep.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And amazingly — it's not so publicised — but the Zeewijck in the Southern Group, they all swam to Gun Island. None of them can swim. So you've gotta remember — there's a huge storm. They get washed up on a reef. Half the people don't leave because they're gonna drink all the booze on board. Which I said — that's the thing. So they sit there, they drink all the rum and then they go. Sure. Then over about six months, with all the assorted gear they've got, they build a 160-foot boat. And the captain sails back to Batavia. I think he took everyone with him. Not one person was lost on that journey.

JAKE: They built a boat.

BEN: I've never heard that. Pretty amazing — on Gun Island. The power of liquid confidence.

JAKE: Yeah. The Batavia wreck. Anyone who wants to read it — by Hugh Edwards. Bloody ripper book.

BEN: Wow. So there's a lot of stuff out there that happens. I just — I think the Abrolhos are in great shape. It's looking really good. Really interesting. People — there's always subjects about coral disappearing or the — and I speak to my crayfisherman mate, the jetboat guys, and Darren Bailey in particular. He said one year he said, it goes over an area, there's no reef. Next year he comes back, there's huge plate coral everywhere. And he said, it's amazing how much it changes. It's always evolving. Just like weeds. And I know the areas where I've been looking for cannons that the museum can no longer find because the coral there — you just can't get through the staghorn anymore. There's just so much.

JAKE: Yeah. 'Cause it's just grown over.

BEN: Yeah. It just keeps growing. Just an evolving thing. Yeah. Some areas die off, some get strong. It's just bloody hard to work out what's going on.

JAKE: Yeah. So let's get back to Halco, Ben, because you've arguably designed some of the most iconic lures in the world. But when your dad took over the company, what were some of the bigger changes that he made? Because I know it was metal lures and then you went into plastic lures and that sort of thing.

BEN: So for him it was the Laser Pros — or Lasers, and then later the Laser Pro.

JAKE: And what's the difference between the two?

BEN: The Laser actually had a moulded bib into it. And it was a good lure, but it wasn't like the Laser Pro we know now. That's not in that class. And I think it would be hard to argue that it's not one of the better trolling lures — blue water trolling lures, bibbed minnow in the world today. Possibly one of the most copied.

He was in that, and then he bought RMG. And so that ended up with all the Scorpions and that sort of stuff. We changed that from horrible foam-injected moulds to poly injection, and that's been a very strong thing for us.

Interesting — that sort of market's evolving. And the biggest thing that's changed is echo sounders and LiveScoupe. So we're seeing quite a big change in that, where we used to troll around looking for barra in the river.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And doing some casting in good areas, to now you drive around and you look for them on the sounder or LiveScoupe, you find them, and then you work out how to catch them. So that was your scouting technique?

JAKE: Yeah. Yeah. So trolling —

BEN: So that fishery, from my perspective, has changed a lot. And it's the sounding and scoping technologies that have really changed that.

JAKE: But how is that influencing the lure design?

BEN: Okay. So the T-Bar 80, which is our plastic version of our old Tilsan Barra 80 — which is just the most unreal lure on earth, and I'm biased — so that's a suspending lure. It's silent. And so especially for LiveScoupe and LiveScope, it casts well and you can crank it down and then just twitch it in. Whereas the Scorpion floats — it floats rear-first and it'll float up backwards very quickly. So you trail along, hit a log, then drop your rod tip, back it off, it floats up backwards off the log and over. You go over the side, hopefully there's a fish under it, and bang, it bites it.

JAKE: Brilliant.

BEN: But those floating lures don't work so well on a casting application. So we're moving more into that suspending, casting area. Where we think it'll — we can see that it's getting stronger and it's just an exciting time for us in there. We're moving back in.

JAKE: There's a good technique. I've definitely even with flatties in the Swan River, found a suspending lure really good. And same with Mulloway as well. Yeah. Okay. Got a suspending lure — one of the best there. The pauses are so important.

MARK: One of the best Barra sessions I've had was on those T-Bar 80s at the Pentecost. I showed you where it was — at that rock bar with Chiz. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a different time of year to when we went there. It was slow over, and it was literally just fish on cast. They were unreal. Yeah.

BEN: Can't beat it.

JAKE: I wanna ask you — what's been your biggest seller? Because we get a lot of people in here, there's a question we ask in the quick fire — it's what one lure for the rest of your life? We haven't spoken about it really yet, but the KO Twisty is a lot of people's desert island lure.

BEN: Yep.

JAKE: For sure. That's the one.

BEN: Yep.

JAKE: Is that your biggest seller over time, or has it changed?

BEN: Over time? Yeah. Funny thing was, Dad almost dropped that when he was —

JAKE: Did he really? No way. Why?

BEN: Just no one wanted it. Really. Oh, and they wanted Slices and Hexes and Streakers and whatnot. And then I think it just came into its own. And it's — yeah, it's a huge seller still. It's expensive because it's solid brass.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: It's well-made. It's tough. Yeah. So it's still very strong. And then some Laser Pros are obviously a big seller for us as well. And got some other very strong ones — Rooster Poppers. And I think, you could look at what's our biggest seller, or what do we own the most market share in — would be probably two different ways of looking at it.

MARK: So you mentioned Rooster Popper. This is a subject that me and Rothi definitely want to talk to you about on the topic, because that's a lure that you designed yourself. Yeah, start to finish. And it's — this is it? Yep. This is a Rooster. That's 135. This is the one that got nothing today on Rothi's.

JAKE: Yeah, no. That actually got hit by a sambo. So I think it was my laziness not sharpening the hooks.

MARK: Yep. So you designed this?

BEN: I did. Yep.

MARK: It's become — internationally, I think it's —

BEN: It's the best selling mass-produced popper in the world.

MARK: Yep. I would think so. So talk to us about how you came up with this.

BEN: Okay. That was an interesting process, 'cause that's about when I changed to CNC machining of timber bodies. So it's to make the CNC the two halves.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And that took a year — that lure. And what drove it was, I got sick of standing at the Mandurah Boat Show with people going, you make squid jigs? And I'm like — I'm never making squid jigs. And then they go, do you make poppers? I go, no. And I thought the only way to solve this, I'd better bloody make one.

JAKE: What year was this?

BEN: Oh god. That must have been early 2000s. Okay. Yeah. So we just weren't in that popper market at all. And then so I just went and fished a lot of poppers, and then I just went and looked at a lot of them, fished a lot of them, and saw some glaring issues with them that I thought — I can make that better. A lot better. And I can see people who copy that lure actually go back and bring in the old stuff that I took out.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: That's what makes it not such a good product really. It's really interesting.

JAKE: So you've simplified it?

BEN: Not simple — it's actually more complex. But it's just a few different things in there that are different that make it a good, stable lure. It took about a year. Mike Roelofse was instrumental in helping me with that, 'cause that was really his field. He was a lot into casting repeatedly, 'cause he needed something he could cast for hours for tailor.

So the original one I made actually blooped too much and was a bit too hard to work. We actually took a bit of bloop out of it. Because we just said, oh, you're gonna cast that for three hours. It's gonna be a bit too —

JAKE: Yeah. You're pulling that thing through the water.

BEN: It's gonna — yeah. Where that one's just got that nice little mix.

MARK: Was there a specific fish you had in mind when you were designing it? Did you think — if that fish is gonna take it, it'll translate across everything? Or were you thinking fish, or were you just thinking design?

BEN: It's really interesting. I haven't actually had that question before. But I think it would be — with something like that — trying to meet certain criteria. And obviously, we live in rough oceans, so half the time you're casting that into a sea breeze or alongside a sea breeze or whatever it may be. And so we have to have something that works in rough water. Anyone can make a popper that runs really nicely on flat water in the river. It's not hard. But to make something that's fairly stable in rough water — that's where it gets trickier.

So I had some — I thought, Salmon, Tailor — that's gonna be the real big one for us. Then maybe going to those tropical species as well. And so I want casting distance. I want to be able to do it all day. And obviously fish have to bite it.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And that's what drove me in that direction with that lure. And that was just the first of the Roosters. And yeah — it's possibly the lure I'm most proud of. 'Cause it just — there wouldn't, if there's a good popper market around the world, they're using Roosters. I had someone from Maryland in Virginia email us yesterday and they just said, this is now our go-to lure. We just use Roosters. And he sent me a picture of one — another local one there. And it was a quite nice looking little lure.

JAKE: What are they fishing for over there?

BEN: They were fishing for Stripers.

JAKE: Okay, so Striped Bass?

BEN: So they have Bluefish over there. Yeah.

JAKE: Yeah. Like a bread and butter fish — that's like a tailor.

BEN: Yeah. So that's more in that North Carolina coast. Like we've got a lot of guys over there. They use it for Bluefish.

JAKE: Yeah. Yeah. Their Striper seems to be like — what a tailor would be here in terms of accessibility.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: Yeah. Everyone seems to target them.

MARK: That I can vouch for. Birchy — my mate up in the Kimberley — he fishes poppers around the Pentecost and all those sort of rivers. And that's the one popper he uses. That's it. He said if you had one lure for the rest of his life, a KO Rooster Popper.

BEN: Oh, really? Wow. Okay.

MARK: And I can give you a story of a fishing memory with me. My son caught his first ever barramundi with Bertie on, I think it's an 80 size as well. On a KO Rooster Popper. It was an 80-centimetre barra. It's one of my favourite fishing memories.

BEN: Yep.

MARK: One of my favourite fishermen teaching him how to cast it.

BEN: I love that 80. That River Lure. It's slightly more niche, but gee — I love it. What my favourite lure is — and my bias is — the 105mm.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Yep. That's the perfect size. We can catch big fish on it.

MARK: You can catch smaller fish on it. Exactly. Like the Rooster Popper 105. Sly Dog 105.

BEN: Yep.

JAKE: My next lure — 105.

BEN: Yeah. That's a sweet spot. Like, if it's a mention in —

JAKE: So anyway, they would've used to call it the four-inch lure.

BEN: Now what about the cup face, Ben? Because if — correct me if I'm wrong here — this compared to the 105 seems to have a slightly shallower cut face.

JAKE: That's right.

BEN: Yeah. Have you got a deeper cut face on your smaller lures?

JAKE: Yes. Because it's easier to work them for a long period of time. With a small head. So if you put that into a big cup face and you want to cast that all over for tailor — for the average guy it just starts getting a bit tiring. Whereas that — we just brought a little bit of that out, because it's a bigger head, just to make it easier to use all day.

MARK: Yeah.

BEN: Yeah. And you've gotta — when you've got that big cut face too, there is such a thing as too much pull into that lure, isn't there? There is. And that can blow it out of the water. And also it can flick them. And the other thing on that head — you'll see it's wider at the top. So we had perfectly round ones. And what that does is as it starts going over, it starts getting more resistance on that side. And that's when it starts wanting to turn and tumble.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: So that's just that little thing that just helps push it back a little bit more and go — get back where you belong.

JAKE: Yeah. You can see there too — I'll point at the camera — but there's also a slight angle in that face too.

BEN: Yeah. And the idea is probably that the water's gonna hit the bottom of that toe point and then come up and —

JAKE: Yeah. And there's more resistance at the top.

BEN: Yeah.

MARK: What about the Haymaker — your big Rooster Popper?

BEN: Okay. So that's got a very different face. Yeah, it is very different. And the 160 Rooster Popper, which is one — talk about all the lures that we've got that are great lures that are underutilised — that's one of them. But yeah, that's got a far bigger bloop. It's more specialist. You're gonna get tired arms. It's for a particular purpose. And it's for a production built big tuna and GT lure. I'd challenge you to find a better production one, you know. And again I've got some bias here.

And obviously we're there at the moment. This year they've gone off in the Mexican Gulf. Yellowfin Tuna had a great season down there with them. And the other one they've really woken up to is Sly Dog. So yeah, they're great.

JAKE: Let's move to the Sly Dog too, 'cause that's relatively new. When I was first getting into lure fishing for tailor and stuff is when the Sly Dog came out. I know you've since brought out a heavier version as well. So what was the reason for bringing out the Sly Dog? Obviously you didn't have a stickbait in your market.

BEN: I think you had the Gutter Rat.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Which is a crossover lure.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Yeah. Look, there was a trend towards stickbaits. And it's a — we're a trolling lure, largely a trolling and cast-and-surface blue water company.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And we didn't have a stickbait in the range. And I looked at a lot of them and there's just some stuff I didn't like about them. I thought they were — again, some of them could be tricky to use and we don't need tricky. And I thought I could do a good one.

JAKE: Yep. Yeah. You did that.

BEN: Yeah. And then you're talking about the heavy one — the 105 Heavy. I was at Rowley Shoals sometimes. I've got a spot where I can just catch pinkies in about 40 foot of water on stickbaits. Drive out there, grab a couple of pinkies for dinner, and it's good fun. And they just weren't getting down the water column fast enough. And I was also with Tom Miller in Shark Bay, and we had similar issues in a little spot he put us on too. And we just thought, gee, it'd be good if we could get that down. Because you've seen them wobble down.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Once they drop down and the line just takes off. You haven't even put anything into it.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Yeah. So that again harks back to that earlier question about being out on the water all the time. Does that help with your lure design? And yes, it certainly does.

JAKE: Yeah. And say that specifically — if you're out there and you're like — being the owner of a tackle company as well — if you're like, oh, I think I need something, it's gonna work for me, then —

BEN: I'll just go and make it.

JAKE: All of a sudden mass produce it. It works for everyone else.

BEN: I want to ask you, because you've said you fish so much — we're asking you about the lures, but I wanna ask you a bit more about the best fish you've caught on some of your lures. So I'm gonna throw three lures at ya. We've spoken about all of them.

JAKE: Okay.

BEN: What's the best fish you've caught on a Halco Twisty?

JAKE: Oh gosh. Come back to that one.

BEN: Yep. All right. What about a Laser Pro?

JAKE: Look, one year I caught about a 180-pound Tarpon in Panama.

BEN: Ah, we were told about that.

JAKE: Yeah. To ask you about that. Tell us the story of that fish. So we're fishing on the Pacific side where the Tarpon aren't.

BEN: Yep.

JAKE: And we were casting around and something big and silver swam under the boat. We were with our Panamanian distributors — these great guys — and we fished for a while, caught a couple of fish. We're actually casting Haymakers for Cubera Snapper. So they're casting up in about 30 or 40 foot of water and you're just casting poppers on the surface to get the Cubera to come up. It's pretty exciting stuff. And anyway, so we just thought, oh, we're gonna go somewhere else. We'll troll, and put a Laser Pro 160 out. And hooked a fish. And yeah, so it was about — well, released it obviously — about 180 pounds, possibly 200 pounds, after about two and a half hours. I was on 50-pound braid. But I fished to — I'm traditionally a line class fisherman — but I fished to the hook strength. So I was fishing to what pressure I thought I could put on a 2/0 Mustad 7794B. And yeah, we got that. And yeah, after two and a half hours — it was just an amazing fish. And it was the first, so that fish had actually swum through the Panama Canal and come out the other side. 'Cause they're not on that side, which is a manmade canal, isn't it?

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: So that was interesting. And so I'd caught the biggest Tarpon ever seen in Panama.

BEN: That was the biggest?

JAKE: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

BEN: How good is that?

JAKE: And it was quite funny 'cause Dad caught a — well Dad caught 1,400 pounds of Black Marlin at Tropic Star Lodge, and the biggest fish they've ever got there is about 400 pounds.

BEN: Iconic lodge. Yeah. Iconic.

JAKE: Got the lodge which — that one got set-tagged, and you can — so that was the biggest they'd seen there by miles. And then you've backed it up with —

BEN: It was a legendary fish. Just Google it on YouTube. Just put Neil Patrick Panama Marlin. 1,400 pound. It was — 12 to 14 hours. Yeah.

JAKE: So 12 to 14 hours. That's a story in itself. Yeah. I think — oh, because they said — we'd love to get your dad in.

BEN: So Guy Harvey was there and he dived down and put another line on it. Wow. He said, this is 800 pounds. We should set-tag it. This is making an epic story really short. And Dad said — he jumped the back of the boat and just went — oh my God, what have I done? And they got it up, but it was on 50. He said, I might not have got it either. He said, I was stuck. He said, I've been there for two or three hours. I get it up. It was sitting down about probably 40 feet down. He said, I just — and if you wanted a big fish on heavy tackle, he was your man. And he's just — he's in a crappy chair, foot on the transom — and they got it up. Brilliant. But they knew how to get them up.

JAKE: You should maybe tell that story some other time, but it's a — so that was probably one of your most memorable ones.

BEN: In the last round. Yeah. Do they make — I can only assume that Tarpon jumped?

JAKE: Yeah. I've heard some audio from the really good filmmakers over in Florida in the Keys. And when you hear a Tarpon jump, it's almost like their gills are flapping against their body. And it's like — I don't know, it's almost like somebody's getting a cardboard box and rubbing it together or something like that. It's so hard to even explain.

BEN: Yeah, they're very — they do make some funny noises.

JAKE: Every time I've — I've been too wound up in other things.

MARK: Yeah. Know those tarpon, they used to give you the footy where you could throw like they — but that's what it sounds like.

JAKE: My two kilo record Tarpon didn't make that noise. Yeah.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: So it's Laser Pro, yep.

BEN: All right. What about Rooster Popper?

JAKE: This is a bit of a funny one and it just comes to mind. My nemesis fish, probably till I was about 35, was Cobia. I just never caught one. Wherever I went — great blazers, whatever — never caught a Cobia. And I caught one on a Rooster Popper off a huge turtle, way out to sea off Exmouth, Marlin trolling. And that was probably my most memorable fish. It was just a 20-pounder. He would've come out from that turtle like —

BEN: Come out from under that turtle.

JAKE: And it was just — it was one of those sort of David Attenborough moments you get out there, where it just — you just — it goes all Attenborough on you. And there's birds and there's fish and there's just — it's happening. And there's big turtles there and there's huge Cobia under it. Just magic. Never forget that one.

BEN: What about the Twisty? Can you —

JAKE: Probably caught so many fish on it. I suppose some of those bigger Shark Bay Tailor would probably be my most fun on a Twisty. 'Cause Twisty is a bit iconic with Tailor, you know what I mean?

BEN: Yeah, definitely.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Do you still have the original Twisty machine?

JAKE: Yes. Yeah. Certainly do.

BEN: What is it? So how is a Twisty made?

JAKE: Okay. So it's made out of brass rod.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: And so Hal Cooper designed it 'cause he's a smart bastard. And it was this — the older guys listening to the podcast will know this — it was actually this old machine called a slotting machine. And like in a cray boat shaft, there's a keyway in the taper to put the shaft on, like shafts go on. And it was this thing that would go forward and cut those keyways out. And how they designed that into a machine — we've still got it. And I've still got three others in Batam now that we do the same thing. We tried to reinvent it. We tried to do it with better things. We tried water cutting, we tried laser cutting. We still do it the same way that Hal came up with.

BEN: It ain't broke, don't fix it.

JAKE: There's a few little things to it. 'Cause you've gotta try and make something — cut something — so perfectly that you don't get too big cut marks that you can't get out of it. 'Cause you've gotta twist it out and you never see a cut mark in it.

BEN: No, it's smooth. Yep.

MARK: I know you want to ask.

JAKE: Yeah. I want you to do a limited run off the original machine.

BEN: Oh Jesus.

JAKE: That would be — I'd have to get Brian — our tool maker — and an old tool maker. That'd be a mission.

BEN: Alright. Let me stick my neck out here. Kurt — on your social media, I spoke about Kurt before — marketing for Halco. He posted the very photo that's on your shirt from an old catalogue.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: I messaged him and I said, you need to make T-shirts with that on there.

JAKE: Thanks for that.

BEN: And he did it.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: I'm gonna say it again. You need to do these limited edition Twisties out of your original machine, mate. Only do one of 50, one of 100. Yeah. Collectors — label them, and it'll be a full collector's item. I guarantee you. That'll be a very special release.

JAKE: Machine going, a T-shirt with it. Yeah. Yeah. Do it. I'd love to watch the process.

BEN: Watch this space.

JAKE: Yeah. Cool.

BEN: The other thing you've done before we move into some of our segments that we've got — you've gone noodling for catfish. Have you got a good story there?

JAKE: Yeah, that's a good story.

BEN: Yeah. But what is noodling for catfish before you get going?

JAKE: Okay. Exactly. Okay. So noodling is where you actually go down into dirty, crocodile-infested rivers in southern USA — and the gators — yeah. Get in there where the gators are, and find holes and stick your arm down them until you can get a catfish to bite your arm, or bite your hand.

BEN: That must be the most unnerving — this is again the same thing as harpooning whales in the harbour that we spoke about the other day. Just sticking up out.

JAKE: I love just going — I travel around a bit, so sometimes I just like out-of-the-way sort of places. I like little small places.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: And so I've been to see the culture. Yeah. And I've just been to see our warehouse in Texas and I thought, oh God, I found this place called Lake Fork, which is surrounded by permanent caravans. So if you can imagine what it's like. But it was — it's an amazing place. Salt of the earth, great people. There wouldn't have been a lot of Biden voters there, I wouldn't have thought. And everyone's packing. So it's just an oh-my-God unreal place. They're well strapped up. They're a — but anyway. So we went in there and we went bass fishing, caught a few bass, and we're having a beer in our little motel room. Walked down the jetty, talked to this dude coming in — his boardies, wife and baby and whatever. I said, what have you been doing? He said, ah, I've been noodling. I said, I really, I wanna go noodling. And he goes, where you from? South Australia. He goes, oh, okay. I'll shift some things around. How about we go tomorrow? I said, I'm flying back to Australia tomorrow. He goes — no, might be on time. And I had a beer with him and he was full of all sorts of funny stories. And I said, I'm coming back next year. And he said, about the same time? I said, yeah. And he goes — oh, I said, I'll be in Orlando anyway. He said, I'm coming over. It's only a three-hour flight. I said, yeah, no worries. So I got his number and next year I said, I'll be there on about the 15th of July. And he goes, yeah, no worries. Okay.

And so I'd met him for half an hour on the jetty, and Curtis came with me. And I said, look, we could be going with a serial killer. We could get taken back to his house and tied up and —

BEN: Tattooed with stubbie holders on your arm or something like that.

JAKE: So anyway, we turned up and they were just the nicest people you'd ever meet. His wife and kids came out and we went out noodling. And they brought this scuba diving outfit — I think it was the down market version of Temu.

BEN: Yeah. Down market of Temu. That's a lot.

JAKE: Which lasted about three minutes. And his son nearly drowned. I'm not quite sure. So then we were just free diving. And like I do a lot of diving and I'm happy to go diving and yank crays out from under ledges and push all sorts of evil stuff out of the way to do it. In pitch black water, going shoulder deep under, just trying to put your hand under these holes, and you can feel a catfish in there. And you have to try and annoy it enough that it'll bite you, and then you grab it by the bottom jaw. And their catfish don't have stings, but you cannot get that out of your mind.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: The spikes.

BEN: Yeah. We're used to it.

JAKE: And so hand — oh, like the catfish up in Karratha — they've got these — they're like blades. They're like scalpels.

BEN: Same as cobbler. So you grab it by the hand, then you have to pull it out of the hole as much as you can. This is all on breath, like down eight feet. Then put your hand right down their throat and grab the back of their gills. So your hands are coming out the gills. And you've gotta get in between the gill plate and the actual gills themselves, otherwise you cut your hands even worse. And then you've gotta drag it out and hopefully get it out the hole that your arm went in.

JAKE: Yeah. Wow.

BEN: Without drowning. And they're big catfish too. Oh, I caught this little one — you know what, it was probably a five or six pounder. But one of the young — the guy's young bloke who — he reckoned he almost drowned. His dad jumped in. It all got a bit dramatic. He pulled out a 60-pounder.

JAKE: Wow. Kidding.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: No way.

BEN: And it was just out of this world. Luckily he'd given us a bit of tequila to scale before we went in. They're well prepared. Nicest people on earth. I'm going back one day. With you.

JAKE: Yeah. If you ever get a chance to go noodling, if you feel like a bit of fun, that's out there. Go for it.

BEN: Did Kurt get one?

JAKE: He was more looking after the boat, I think.

BEN: There you go, Kurt. Man up. Get down there.

JAKE: Alright. We might as well get into some of the back half of our podcast that we do. We have a couple of segments. One of them is your biggest Wood Duck moment. So a Wood Duck —

BEN: Oh, okay.

JAKE: Biggest stuff up. What is it?

BEN: Yeah, I've got a few of those. But probably the best one was — 'cause it's been on national television numerous times. When Al McGlashan used Screaming Reel TV, we were doing a thing at Exmouth with Eddie, and I was casting. And somehow my Rooster Popper had got magnetised to the drone, because they look good when they're going overhead.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And so unfortunately, the drone basically sucked the line in. I thought, oh, I'm clear of it. The drone then sucked the air in and wound it — I wound as fast as I could because it started winding down the line — and so it died about — you could almost touch it with your fingernails. And then it went straight in the drink.

JAKE: Oh no.

BEN: And so it'll be on national TV and people still tell me they see it.

JAKE: Yeah, it'd probably be on his YouTube. Really cool YouTube channel too, by the way.

BEN: People —

JAKE: If you wanna watch Al McGlashan, he's a brilliant filmmaker.

BEN: Yeah. And I think if the military are looking for someone to bring down drones, good timing.

MARK: Bruce Kuret Wilson, who does a bit of film for — actually had a similar situation, I think, when he was filming with the guys at Tackle West. Somebody sniped his drone and drowned it. Because I got a message from him — hey, what drone are you running these days? What should I buy? Got absolutely smoked.

BEN: That's a good one. Sniping a drone.

JAKE: We might as well — another segment we do is the Daiwa listener questions, and we always get sent in a bunch of different questions. But this week, Rothi?

MARK: Yeah. So this segment just continues to grow big time. So yeah, Daiwa — thanks for hooking us up with the listener questions. They get behind us every week with some epic giveaways. Ben, I feel like I'm a bit offensive here, but we're actually giving away a Daiwa with Tiago and Bait Junkie casting lure pack.

BEN: So go for it, mate.

MARK: Feel free.

BEN: They're good people and make great products.

MARK: They're awesome. They support us. They're back on what we're doing. They're unreal. Thanks to Daiwa. Great company.

JAKE: Alright, so I'm gonna kick it off. We've had so many good questions this week, so it was really hard to sift through them. But this one is hilarious. So this one comes from Jared Kirk. My partner is refusing to name our future son Halco. Is she a keeper or should I let her go?

BEN: You might have seen our Instagram — Halco, the dog that comes in every now and then from one of our avid fans. Oh yeah. I've got a photo of him sitting at my desk when I was away. Nice. But oh gee, that's a hard one. Part of me says — look, she's a little happy to go along with the joke. I think she's a keeper. Yeah.

JAKE: Nice. I've got an actual one here. Patty_Lad_86 on Instagram. What's been the most rewarding moment in your journey with Halco so far? It can be anything. It can be all lure, it can be watching someone catch fish on a lure, the people you work with.

BEN: Oh, I think probably when there's recognition for a product by people I don't expect it from — that's probably the most rewarding. A well-respected angler wherever they're around the world, and they say this lure is it — I think I get a lot of kicks out of that.

JAKE: Yeah. Because you respect their angling ability.

BEN: Yeah. And I love it.

JAKE: They're qualified to say a lure is shit or it's not.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: Can you think of any times where that has happened? Example?

BEN: I have had it in the US. And probably a good example at the moment is the Sly Dog. They're just like — this looks unbelievable. Just fantastic. And they wanna catch multiple fish on it, it works every time, comes straight out of the box and they're just all over it. That's been probably the latest one. And yeah, I probably find that — those little things when you're feeling down in the dumps. I go — at the end of the day I run a business and a factory and a few other bits and pieces. And when you have a shit day, they're the good ones. When you get those messages or whatever.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: You're a business owner. You're putting out spot fires all the time.

BEN: Yeah. Stuff going on. It's just busy.

MARK: Yeah. On the back of that, I just wanna ask you — you strike me as a bit of a perfectionist. Would I be correct in saying that?

BEN: Do you wanna get my wife? Because I'm possibly not in the kitchen. But when it comes to lures —

MARK: Does that quality — my question is —

BEN: I know what I want. Yeah. I know what I wanna make. Yeah. And I know the standards I want it to be. Yeah. And if you call that perfectionism, yes. But I'm confident in what I want to produce. Yeah. I suppose that would be the best way. But my definition, or at least my experience with perfectionism is —

MARK: No matter how hard you try to do something or how perfect you try to get it, it's still never good enough. Do you ever experience that with lures where you're like — I can still make that better — or have you ever nailed one that is bang on? That's perfect.

BEN: Okay. It's — that is a really good question. Is where do you stop? And I think that's where you're asking — do you just keep going? And I think that's where you have to stop somewhere. And we have to translate something that I've done on my 3D printing process through to a die, and there can be changes. So yes, I will go and change it if it's not right.

MARK: Yeah.

BEN: But working out where it's — I've got fairly high standards of where I want it to stop.

MARK: Yeah.

BEN: And but you've gotta have confidence too. Yep. I'm there.

MARK: Yeah. You've gotta —

BEN: Eventually you just steer around forever.

MARK: I struggle — the reason I ask is I struggle often when I am producing something, whether it's the podcast or whether it's in my photography or it's a standard of work while I'm up north. I always want some feedback. And it's almost if I don't get some negative feedback, I'm disappointed. Because I want something to continue to work on. And I pick that up maybe with you a little bit.

BEN: Where to stop is a great point.

JAKE: And unfortunately Rothi, you can't win the Daiwa prize pack. And you keep asking me great questions. Sorry, sidetrack. No, it's good. Yeah. I've got a question here. How do you go about selecting colours and patterns for lures? What testing's done? Great question. Not necessarily the design, but the colours and patterns. Always interested in that.

BEN: Okay. I'll try and give you a short five-minute answer on this. Colours come in all — there's obviously contrast, there's match-the-hatch, and then there's weird stuff. And I've had people ask at open forums and go, why do you put colours on fish? Aren't they colourblind? They're not. Some have different levels of colour perception than others. And you have to have — you want a product that looks good.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: You want your Land Cruiser to look nice. Yeah. You didn't ask for the galvanised one, did you? And a red bonnet and a white Land Cruiser.

MARK: Yeah. 853 Land Cruiser. Yeah.

BEN: So they've gotta look good. Don't get me wrong, they have to look good. And people want everything that looks good, whether it's your shoes, your hat. And then — so we do testing. The one that I suppose is a really good example of a bloody hard lure to sell, and the only way we got people to do it — to convince them to use it — was Chrome Pink, which you mentioned earlier.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: It's a ripping colour. Pretty hard to sell off the shelf.

JAKE: Really?

BEN: Yeah. Sorry — it's not anymore, sorry. Because reputation supports it.

JAKE: Yeah. Americans love purple, so they're not such —

BEN: Is that the one behind you up — yes. That's Pink Chrome. Yeah. Do you wanna pull that down? Because that'll be out — just above. You don't throw your shoulder out there. There we go. That's Pink Chrome for anyone who's wondering. And that's my go-to. If I could only have one lure, that's the one.

JAKE: It's unreal. We had to do a lot of convincing to get people to use that, and then a lot of people used it and go, oh, it's a good colour, it works. It makes so much sense though, because if you're a fish looking into a light and you hold a lure up against the sun, you sink contrast. And on that you've got dark and silver shine and then you've got striped black lures. Tim Barlow actually said he puts stripes on a lot of his silver lures just for that contrast effect.

BEN: Yeah. I'm pretty sure. I remember growing up and watching Fishing WA do a Halco lure testing with the colours, and that winner stood out. And I'm pretty sure that was the colour.

JAKE: Yeah. Right. We should do that.

BEN: The thing with colours — a lot of people say to me, oh, white redhead's the best. And interestingly, in America it's the all-pink that's their equivalent, in a way.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: And I don't run many of them, but I do run a lot of different lures. And one thing I would say about colours — 'cause we've gone forever — is on a red-hot day, it doesn't make any difference.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: On a non red-hot day, it can make a difference.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And just remember that you also have to understand that you've gotta catch a lot of fish before you know whether a colour really works or not. You just can't catch one or two.

MARK: Yeah. It's like doing a scientific test and taking it as gospel on one sample.

BEN: You can throw 10 heads at the casino.

JAKE: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. That was from the Wheatbelt Stocky — that question. Wheatbelt Stocky. Yep.

BEN: I'll give you another one. This is from BGA_84. How does it feel knowing your lures have created some of the best fishing memories?

JAKE: That's Jace Belcher. I was fishing with him this morning.

BEN: I love it. I suppose that comes back to that question earlier — is what gives me great satisfaction. I'm probably a bit thin-skinned, so I love hearing that people have great memories, they have great product. Not often — people very rarely — I don't get too many complaints and I want to keep it that way.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Great question.

JAKE: It is, yeah.

MARK: This is another one from — it's CW_Johnson on Instagram. What's one lure design principle most anglers completely misunderstand?

BEN: Oh gee, that's a good question. Maybe something that's really imperative to design. Okay. So it depends on the lure. I would say people look at weight in lures. I also don't think about where the air is. And I think the relationship between buoyancy and weight and what that does for the lure is really important.

JAKE: As in how it casts or how it —

BEN: How the action is and how it's gonna make it stable or unstable.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Yeah. Or for example how the 135 — what's one of the 5% or 10% is — it makes it hold its correct alignment.

MARK: Balance.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: Good question. All right. This is from Send and Ben Sport Fishing. I'm sure you know those fellows.

BEN: Yeah. I feel like you may have answered this one, but what's your favourite Halco lure of all time, and the backstory as to why it's your favourite?

JAKE: Oh, that's like asking me to pick my favourite child.

BEN: Yeah. Who's your favourite kid?

MARK: You just said your favourite child was potentially a boat — your dad's.

JAKE: What's my favourite? I still find it hard to go past a Laser Pro. My favourites — I could tell you my favourite lures: Laser Pros, Sly Dogs, the Rooster Popper to the Halco range. I can't — I'm sorry. I'm a bit stuck on that one.

BEN: Yeah. That's all right. I'm gonna just throw a question in here quickly.

JAKE: Go for it. I'll do what Rothi did — I want that Daiwa prize pack. Have you got a product that you've stopped producing that you regret and you'd like to bring back?

BEN: That's, again, a really good question. And I'm not gonna quite answer it except that we have got some really good products that are way underutilised and we should be discontinuing them. And I can tell you a great one — everyone loves Vibes. No one uses the Trembler 70.

MARK: I was just about to say.

JAKE: And you speak to Biggs, it's his go-to barra lure. Oh, Tim Carter?

BEN: Yep. Yep.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Scott Jarman from Salt Fix on YouTube loves the Trembler too. Oh gosh. Curls up a kingy on them nonstop. He's fantastic. Getting people to buy it — that's partly our fault as well. So I think we've probably got some that are still alive that should be really alive and they're not.

MARK: But you are keeping them around 'cause they're a good lure.

BEN: It just frustrates me so much. Yeah. They're a vibe effectively, aren't they? I get pressure from Laura in our office, who says, we should be dropping that. Incidentally, she's been with us for 37 years, so she knows this stuff around Halco. And just — product. So yeah, you don't — I've got some that sort of should be dropped by sales that are just so bloody good that I'm just determined not to drop them.

MARK: Good answer.

JAKE: Great question. And a crack on the Mulloway — love Vibes for Mulloway.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: Yeah. Great question by me. Pat yourself on the back. Really good question. Yep. Got a good answer. Anyway.

MARK: Alright, so here's — while we just touched on it — we've got some really good listener questions. Jack Michael James — does a Redhead Laser Pro really catch more fish, or does it catch more because it gets fished more?

BEN: It catches more 'cause it gets fished more. Yep. 'Cause there's so often one in the pattern.

JAKE: Yep. Just 'cause your dad used it, your granddad used it, sort of thing, isn't it?

BEN: Yeah. Don't get me wrong, it's probably a good colour. And in those range of — if you could say, gee, I've got five or ten colours that are really good colours.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: It's up there.

JAKE: Gotcha. When would you pull out a Redhead Laser Pro?

BEN: When I run out of everything else.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: I don't run it much 'cause everyone else does.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: Yeah. So you wanna catch fish on something different.

JAKE: Yeah. So you wanna prove the rest wrong.

BEN: And very often we've got new colours coming every year, so I'll be using those a lot of the time. But don't get me wrong, it's a bloody good colour.

MARK: So just on that Redhead, another good mate of mine, Sam Hodge — would you ever consider changing the name of the red and white Laser Pro to the Pauline Hanson?

BEN: I have been asked that. I've been told it should be Qantas, should be Pauline Hanson, blah blah blah, all sorts of things. But oh look, it's just — I think everyone has their own pet name, their own nickname for it.

JAKE: Yeah. You can do it yourself. I'd never heard the Pauline one.

MARK: Yeah. I've heard it a few times.

BEN: That's brilliant. Let's make that a winner.

JAKE: I've got one more here that I really want to answer 'cause it's from a young grommet that loves the podcast. This is from Jack Goo and he has asked — I'm a fourth year apprentice, but I hate it and want to get into the fishing industry. Have you got any advice for me?

BEN: I certainly do. Jack, finish your apprenticeship.

JAKE: Said and done.

BEN: I'm totally serious — finish your bloody apprenticeship.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: You've always got something to go back to. Yep. Then go and get involved in the tackle industry if you want to.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And I've got a mate who's been in a very similar situation, and finish it.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Just get it done. You've got something to fall back onto forever and then you can go and chase your dream.

JAKE: Yeah. Your fourth year apprentice mate, finish it off, get it done. I was lucky enough — I did a plumbing apprenticeship while I was before footy and I was lucky enough to finish it in my first year of footy. It was one of the best things I did.

MARK: Your motto was "your shit is my bread and butter."

JAKE: That was gonna be my business name. Yeah, it was gonna be my order. But we actually — just on what Jack asked there — we've probably got about five questions that were of a similar ilk of people wanting to either get into lure making or anything like that. Have you actually got any advice for somebody? Let's say Jack's finished his apprenticeship. Have you got any advice for someone who might want to gain entry into the tackle industry?

BEN: I think that you need to get some experience in — very often, one of the first places you can get experience is in retail.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And I think that's a good place. I think if you can work in the actual fishing side as well — think about the young — the Western Angler Next Gen fishing.

MARK: Next Gen, sorry.

BEN: Maxie Sampson, Mick Tar. Okay. That was one of the most amazing things for getting a whole lot of young people into the industry. It's sad it's not still going. That was amazing. It was really good because they had a podcast —

MARK: On SoundCloud.

BEN: All those kids are still — now, nearly all of them, or a lot of them, are still in it. If not, they're very keen wreck fishermen.

JAKE: Yeah.

BEN: So I think you just gotta go and cut your teeth in all sorts of places, and learn as much as you can. It's not a big industry. So get as wide an experience as possible and then see where it takes you. What you're gonna get into from — otherwise, from retail, what it is in the industry in WA. But yeah.

JAKE: One thing I'll say — you can disagree with me here, Ben, if you like — but I think personally, coming from a surf industry background, the tackle industry — maybe not in terms of product development, but in terms of marketing and sales and the approach to fishing tackle — I believe that the fishing industry is quite behind. So I think somebody with a fresh approach to marketing or new ideas, or how you can share content — I think that content and marketing space, there's a real opportunity there for anybody that might want to get into the tackle industry. So that's my advice for you, Jack. Anyway.

BEN: My advice would be to make as much money as you can with your trade, and then just go fishing and spend it.

JAKE: Yeah. Be a tradesman and just go fishing.

BEN: Yeah.

MARK: Yeah.

JAKE: Nice. All right. That sums up the listener questions. Daiwa — was there one there that stuck out to you? Ben, I'm gonna throw it to you, mate.

BEN: Ooh. I didn't mind the — oh, you go.

MARK: No, you go.

JAKE: I'll give you some ideas of good questions that we had. Was the colour one?

BEN: Yep. I quite like that.

JAKE: What was that one and who was it from?

BEN: That was one of the first ones I asked. That was from the Wheatbelt Stocky. How do you go about selecting colours and patterns for lures? What testing?

JAKE: Yep. That's a great question.

BEN: Got a good answer.

MARK: What was the other one about? How does it feel —

BEN: Most sentimental product that you've — oh no, I didn't ask. No, it was — how does it feel when someone catches a fish on your lure or something like that?

JAKE: Yeah. Oh, look — I think we'll go with the Wheatbelt Stocky.

BEN: Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

JAKE: The colour.

BEN: Well done.

MARK: Cool. Who was that?

JAKE: That was the Wheatbelt Stocky that asked that question.

BEN: Beautiful.

JAKE: So mate, we don't have any Halco — we might know a guy that can hook you up with some Halco lures. But this week, what you're getting is a wicked range of Tiago stickbaits. Cuddler's got another one called the Frother. Now, it ain't a KO Rooster, but that's a pretty good looking lure. Yeah. Beautiful.

BEN: Yep.

JAKE: And then we're throwing in a 10-inch Gulp as well. These Gulps are wicked for jewies and that sort of thing that I was casting these this morning. Granted, I'm not proving the point that they're good lures, 'cause I'm not catching anything on them. But you're getting hooked up, mate. So we'll get that in the mail for you. Thanks to Daiwa for supporting the listener questions. Bloody legends.

BEN: Keep them coming.

JAKE: Alright, so the next thing we do is right behind you. We've started this wall — it's a wall of fame with lures, with stories of all our previous guests. And it's starting to build up and look quite healthy at the moment. And we asked you if you had a lure that you'd like to bring in and possibly donate. And I see there's a couple of lures on the table in front of you there. What have you got for us?

BEN: Okay. So one of them is the Laser Pro 190 Deep Diver in the sort of retro colour, which was our 75th anniversary lure. And then one of the first of the T-Bar 80 in the three-metre bib — so that got used up. That one was one.

JAKE: Oh, it's sharp hook too.

BEN: Yeah. Yeah. Pretty sticky hooks.

JAKE: Yeah. Wicked. So that's one of the first ones.

BEN: Yeah. That was one they took up to Two Spit Islands.

JAKE: Unreal.

BEN: And it's got some battle scars, mate.

JAKE: Yeah. Seen a few fish.

BEN: Yeah. A few. And it's missing a barb on the rear treble.

JAKE: Nice. So was this one of the first? Was this a prototype or one of the first ones?

BEN: No, that was the very first one. So they only just arrived in the warehouse from Batam last week. But they would've been ones that I just brought down that were some of the first finished ones.

JAKE: So yeah.

BEN: Wicked.

JAKE: We'll hang that on the wall, mate. That's gonna look awesome. And I love the T-Bar as well, so it'd be good to get one of those up there. And that looks wicked as well. Yeah. Love the packaging.

BEN: Yeah. I love the retro stuff, mate. I think you guys should lean into this stuff more. It's so cool.

JAKE: Yeah. The great thing for us is it's all real.

BEN: Yeah. Yeah.

JAKE: Like we are 75 years old.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: We've been around forever. Yeah. We sell everywhere. We make it ourselves.

BEN: Not a rip-off.

JAKE: It's everything — we're not making something up.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: Love it. Awesome, mate. We've had an unbelievable chat. It's been great to get you in here. And I feel like I say this with other guests as well, but you in particular — we've only just scratched the surface. And if your old man's up to it, we'd love to get Neil on, to get you both back in here and hear some of those stories about those big Marlin.

BEN: Yep. Yep. That might take a few beers, but we'll get there.

JAKE: We'll hook them up.

BEN: Yeah.

JAKE: We finish every episode with quick fire questions. Okay?

BEN: Yep.

JAKE: So I'm gonna throw about eight questions here.

BEN: No worries.

JAKE: And first thing that comes to your head. All right. So — top three eating fish.

BEN: Okay. Top three fresh eating fish: Bream, King George Whiting, and Wahoo. Nice.

JAKE: Totally different list frozen.

BEN: Oh, go frozen as well. I'd probably go — top of the list there — Jewfish. Yep. Coral Trout.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: Probably some other northern species.

JAKE: Love it. All right. Daiwa or Shimano?

BEN: I'd probably lean a little bit more towards Shimano, but I have both and they're both bloody great.

JAKE: Yep. One lure for the rest of your life. What is it?

BEN: It's probably gonna have to be a 40-gram Twisty.

JAKE: Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Best boat snack.

BEN: Barbecue Shapes. No question about that, mate.

JAKE: You're onto it. Bucket list fishing destination.

BEN: Oh gosh. Okay. Probably Stonehaven Lodge. And I've gotta go back to Madeira. I've got unfinished business there.

JAKE: What's the unfinished business?

BEN: Look, Dad had a great year there and I didn't get to fish with him and with Bristow — and yeah, Peter Bristow has probably seen more big fish than most people around the world. And he reckons the second biggest fish he ever saw — over 1,400 that they — actually, the fish purposely broke them off under the boat. We're talking Blues, two to 300 or 700 pounds. So I went the next year thinking, oh, it's gonna be off the hook. We fished for a week. Didn't see a fish.

JAKE: Wow.

BEN: I've gotta go back and solve that one.

JAKE: Yeah. Catch that fish. All right. If you could have a beer with any fisherman, dead or alive, who would it be?

BEN: Oh, okay. I've been having a beer with any fisherman basically, but I — probably dead. I would love to go back and just pick Garrick Agnew's brain again. He was the pioneer in the era of game fishing, and in particular in WA. Caught the first Blue Marlin — and that was called Ant's Territory.

JAKE: Yep. So in his second boat, I think it was Blue Band — not Wahoo — which was a fibreglass-built boat. And obviously he took his boat to Cairns for eight or 10 years — Panonica. And it's still probably the most famous old boat in Cairns. He's got a remarkable WA Marlin fishing history. And probably started 10 or 15 years before I know my dad did.

MARK: Wow. Wow. So sorry — did you say the first Marlin in Western Australia?

BEN: The first Marlin, sorry, on game tackle. Yeah.

MARK: Gotcha.

BEN: Yeah. And it was Onslow, right? So commercial tackle before that was — I think people were catching the odd one, but it was on whatever. He was into his game fishing and he was out there to catch them.

MARK: Yeah. And he owned Shark Bay Station then, so he did a lot of fishing out of —

BEN: Oh yeah.

MARK: Shark Bay was catching a lot of sailfish then, which is interesting. 'Cause we don't — we see sails there but we don't catch heaps of them.

BEN: Not as much. Yeah. So he'd be here. I'd love to go back and — his name — sorry — Sir Garrick Agnew.

JAKE: Sir.

BEN: Sir Garrick Agnew. So his boat was Panonica. So there's a town called Agnew.

JAKE: Yep.

BEN: And there's a town called Panonica. There you go.

MARK: So work that one out.

JAKE: Wicked. Alright, last question. Any advice for a young fisherman? What is it?

BEN: Oh god. Learn as much as you can. Get out and go fishing. Join a club. And if you really can — there's plenty of people out there who'll give you a chance to go fishing with them, to learn off them. And then you've gotta go and learn and work out a lot of stuff yourself. And that's the rewarding bit.

JAKE: Nice. Love it. I like that. Go and learn, and then go and work stuff out for yourself. That's the ticket. This has been an epic episode, mate. Thanks so much for coming in. Ben Patrick — owner, Halco Lures. Anything we wanna finish with?

BEN: Look, just appreciate what you do. You make some great — and you've given me and my family, and I know Rothi, plenty of great memories. So keep it up.

JAKE: Unreal. Look, I just — everyone who's ever bought any of our lures, thanks very much. We appreciate it. And we'll keep making them.

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Episode 29 | Tall Tails Fishing Podcast