What makes a great Tube bait

[Grumpy]

If you can find some SNOOZERS tubes and copy them, especially the tapered shape, you will have the perfect tube (in my opinion). I could be wrong, but I think the guy that makes "Hooked Some Bass" tubes is the same one that made the Snoozers, so I agree with Dave. Either way, both are good tubes to copy (if that is the right word).

[Dave Stewart]

The guy that makes the Hook Some Bass tubes is not the same as the guy that made the Snoozer's tubes...but it is basically the same tube. The tubes are hand dipped and come from the same source and the scents are "cooked" into them the same way.

[elnutsmalljaws]

Dave,

Has James come out with a trailer yet? What about his website or catalog that he has been working on for a while now? HSB are the best plastics, love their tubes and lizards(Brush Hounds) and he makes a pretty good spinnerbait also.

[Dave Stewart]

Elwood...he has had trailers for quite some time now. No website..no catalog. No doubt his lures are top notch or I would not be using them in my guide service...wish the customer service was half as good as the lures...hopefully that will improve this season.

[elnutsmalljaws]

Does The Cabin have these trailers? If so, I must be absolutely blind in that I have not seen them. Hell, I gave every brand tube I had in my box away spring of 2005 after you turned me on the HSB. I have a boatload of Zoom trailers to do the same with if I can find the HSB trailers. The absolute PERFECT trailer would be for it to have the action of the Paca but the cooked scent of HSB. That is all a man would need.

[Dave Stewart]

Elwood: I am sure I saw some of the HSB trailers at the Cabin last time I was there last fall. I have some new trailers that HSB came out with late last summer. They look like a sweet beaver with the same type claws attached as the Paca chunk. I am not sure if the Cabin has these yet. These baits do not have the crawfish/garlic cooked into them though...it smells like anise.

[Devils Horse]

Marty,

Nice talking to you last night.

The tube market is pretty saturated, so they'd have to be aggressively priced with superior performance. Like another poster pointed out, my knock on most tubes is they're way too hard. Softer tubes, although lighter and less resilient, make for far better hookups.

A tube jig is a go to for me, if you can't catch a fish on a tube jig it's prolly gonna be a long day. My favorite brand is Cabin Creek, but I fished an HSB with Elnut, and they are very nice. Hawg Slop tubes are also good IMO, RedneckSR from this board tipped me to them. 4 inch tubes from Zoom are soft and work great too.

The biggest problem would be distribution. I think you'd have to somehow make them accessible to a lot of anglers in a cost effective manner. If your tube gained some notoriety or some serious ad money was spent, distributing thru the internet could fly. Renting shopping cart based web space is very affordable.

It all comes back to how well they perform. Make some and I'll be a beta tester. Email or call me. I'll give them a whirl, and you some honest feedback.

[smljaw]

...if you can't catch a fish on a tube jig it's prolly gonna be a long day.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Amen to this statement. A tube is always on my radar and often one the first baits I'll throw. It searches well and will flat out catch em! My 2 favorites are Cabin Creek 4" and Prowler Big Butt Tube.

[Grumpy]

What do you mean "it is basically the same tube."?

During and after SNOOZERS went out of business there were stories flying around about the guy that made the SNOOZER tubes and I got totally confused about where he went and more to the point where he is working now (if he is). I heard he went to BAITS WHILE YOU WAIT, to HOOKED SOME BASS, some other place I don't remember, and that he was still "behind the scenes" at SNOOZERS.

Did he design the HOOKED SOME BASS tubes? Or, are they just modeled after the SNOOZERS tubes?

Thanks
Grumpy

[Dave Stewart]

Here it is:

The Snoozer tubes were not made by Snoozer (Todd Miller) himself. Like most lures they were made by another company to Snoozer's specifications in size and color. The company that made the tubes manufactures a lot of tubes for a lot of brand names under contract. In the case of the Snoozer tube, it is one of their hand dipped tubes (this is what gives it that soft texture vs an injected type tube). Snoozer would "cook" the natural garlic and crawfish scents into the tubes himself and then package and market them.

When the Snoozer company went bankrupt (not due to lack of demand or quality of lure), Todd Miller (Snoozer) formed another company named Hooked Up Baits. The Hooked Up Baits tubes were and still are made by a different manuafacturer and are not a hand dipped tube. In my opinion these are good tubes but I prefer the softness of a hand dipped tube. Todd Miller sold the Hooked Up Baits company to another individual and they are still marketing these tubes.

Todd Miller moved back to Penn after he sold Hooked Up Baits and as far as I know he is not in the lure business anymore.

Back to the Snoozer tube company. Todd had a partner in the Snoozer Baits company and she is still marketing the original Snoozer tube on a very limited basis.

Here is the deal on the Hook Some Bass tubes:

The two individuals that own Hook Some Bass tubes were regular clients of mine that made some of their own lures. About the time that I realized Snoozer was going under these guys told me they were thinking about going into business and marketing some of their jigs and spinnerbaits they were making for their personal use. I told them that Snoozer was going under and that if they went into business, they should include tubes and get the same hand dipped tubes from the folks that made the Snoozer tube and then cook the natural scents into them just like he did...there was and definitely is a market for these type tubes. Of course I had a personal agenda here in that I wanted to make sure I still had access to these tubes without having to make them myself...lol.

The Hook Some Bass guys took my advice and so the tubes you get from Hook Some Bass are basically the same tube as you used to get from the original Snoozer's Baits. The only difference is in the length of the tubes between the original Snoozer and the HSB tubes. Snoozer's original tubes came in three sizes..a single dip 2.75" tube and a 3.75" and 5" double dip tube. The HSB tubes come in a 3" single dip, and a 4" and 5" double dip.

Sounds like a soap opera doesn't it...lol One thing I can tell you for sure...they are good tubes or I would not put them in my boat for my clients to use. I am not in the business of selling baits....only catching fish and teaching clients. If I were in that business, by now you would see these tubes marketed under my name and in every tackle shop you walked into by now....that translates into "you can have the best lure going but if you don't have a good business sense...ie...marketing and customer service, your not going to make much money".

[LJP]

Dave, i'm up in Indiana how can I get some of these tubes?
Thanks, Larry

[Dave Stewart]

There are two places down here that will ship them to you. The Cabin Bait and Tackle (currently closed for the season but will reopen in Feb) 270-388-0122 and Judy's Bait Shop at 270-527-1900