John ELLIS |
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reel deal
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 11 Aug 2010 Location: Shellharbour NS Status: Offline Points: 2607 |
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Posted: 19 May 2014 at 11:36am |
Can anyone tell if John is still with us and/or contact details..
Working on a sort of bio on him and the stumpie origins and evolution. I have gleaned a lot of info from the many LL posts but always room for more.. Screamin' John - your magazine extracts has been a wealth of information - thank you. wadey |
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www.reeldealfishing.com.au
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reel deal
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 11 Aug 2010 Location: Shellharbour NS Status: Offline Points: 2607 |
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Further update......
THIS IS NOT my words - copied n pasted from elsewhere....... unidentified author.. The Stumpjumper StoryThe StumpJumper story can be traced back to 1986, where it began appropriately enough, on the Victorian banks of the mighty Murray River. In those days, an angler by the name of John Ellis was spending a lot of his time chasing cod in the river near his home base of Cobram and in the backed up waters of nearby Lake Mulwala.Now anyone who does a lot of lure fishing will know that if you are being serious about catching cod, then snags are a fact of life. In fact, if you aren’t getting snagged occasionally, then you probably aren’t getting down to where the fish are. To make matters worse, Mulwala (and to a lesser extent the Murray River itself) probably has more drowned timber per hectare than just about any other stretch of freshwater in the country. And while all that timber makes it cod heaven, it sure can be an expensive place to toss lures. Obviously, with John doing a lot of cod fishing, he needed to have a lure which didn’t snag every second cast and even then, he realized he was going to need lots of them. So what does a bloke do if a lure with the specific attributes he wants is not readily available and even if it was, he couldn’t afford to keep buying them anyway? Easy, you make it yourself of course, which is exactly what John decided to do. As we now know, John’s first wooden StumpJumpers fitted the local cod fishing environment perfectly. They dug down deep, had great buoyancy to help them jump over the stumps (hence the name) and were as tough as nails. In fact, they were so good that by 1987, there was enough demand for John to go into commercial production and he needed some way to speed up the lure making process. Being the inventive bloke that he is, John knocked up a machine to automate the shaping of the lure bodies. He describes it as a cross between a copy lathe and a profile cutter and it enabled him to pump out somewhere between 20 and 30 lures a week. He must have done a great job with it because he assures me the original machine is still around somewhere. Interestingly, those early wooden Stumpies were built from Western Red Cedar. Keen lure collectors might be interested to know that John estimates he produced somewhere around 1500 wooden-bodied StumpJumpers all up. They originally came in only 10 colour patterns and had flat aluminium bibs. Speaking of bibs, John did play around with some plastic bibs in his wooden lures but only in very small numbers. He also started looking at the concept of ‘slide-in’ bibs, which gives you some idea of how far ahead of his time he was. By 1991, freshwater fishing was a boom industry in this country and there was an almost insatiable demand for John’s cod lures. The only way for him to go close to satisfying it was to swap from the traditional wooden bodies to plastic, which is what he eventually did. However, even at this point, John continued to be an innovator and he believes his were the first Australian made lures to be moulded out of ABS plastic, which has since become the industry standard. In recent times, the demand far outstripped supply and subsequently the lures are now being manufactured offshore, but John’s input and strict standards have assured that the lure is as tough as it was, if not tougher, than the earlier models. With the change to plastic, John was also able to introduce what is still about the world’s only truly successful interchangeable bib system. I asked him how he came up with the idea for the snap-in, snap-out bibs and believe it or not, he got it from a simple clothes peg! As unlikely as it sounds, it’s an idea that really works. With the deep diving bib, the No.1 StumpJumper is a great cod lure, but switch to the pointy, shallow running bib and you have a minnow lure capable of taking saltwater speedsters like mackerel and tuna or even barramundi. Not many other lures can do that! Of course, going plastic also allowed John to increase his size range. These days, there are four different sizes in the Stumpie line-up and it doesn’t matter whether you are stalking fussy feeders like trout or bream or smash and grab merchants like dog tooth tuna, you can find a StumpJumper in a size and running depth to match. I am still looking.... |
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www.reeldealfishing.com.au
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westy
Senior Member Joined: 12 Feb 2011 Location: bundaberg qld Status: Offline Points: 334 |
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Mate great read only have 7 timber stumpys but love them all
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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
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steiny
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 29 Jul 2011 Location: Mackay Status: Offline Points: 5285 |
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Interesting read...thanks Wadey!
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cheers steiny
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gavk
Unverified New Member Joined: 18 Jan 2013 Status: Offline Points: 12 |
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Love the stumpy's, but have noticed lately the bibs seem "cheaper", very flimsy and a few not swimming very well at all. They also seem thinner as my older bibs won't fit in the newer lures...hoping they go back to however they were being made before.
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justlooking
Senior Member Joined: 26 May 2010 Location: S/E Queensland Status: Offline Points: 694 |
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Stephen Booth did an article in the Kad Club newsletter.
Dave Magna did an article for AFN. John is still upright and fishing 3 or 4 times a month !!! |
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Go early - Stay late.
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stinger
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 05 Jan 2012 Location: wellington nsw Status: Offline Points: 1475 |
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BUT HES NOT OPAL MINING ANYMORE,,,,,,
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REMEMBER FOOLS RUSH IN WERE ANGELES FEAR TO TREAD
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Baboon
Unverified New Member Joined: 23 Dec 2013 Location: Tenterfield Status: Offline Points: 42 |
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What are timber stumpys goin for these days I've got a few I mite wanna sell
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jaybonnie
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 19 Nov 2011 Location: Queanbeyan Status: Offline Points: 1071 |
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$500 to $1000 depending on condition and colour
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THE CODFATHER
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dalbykayakin
Stall Holder Smick Lures Joined: 26 Jan 2012 Location: Dalby Qld Status: Offline Points: 956 |
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Or $150-$300 each depending on condition and colour if you buy the ones I buy
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ashleyanne
Unverified New Member Joined: 15 Jan 2015 Location: melbourne Status: Offline Points: 1 |
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Hi,
I am looking at purchasing a timber stump jumper for my partner who is an avid fisherman. It is his birthday coming up and i would like to purchase one to start a collection for him. I am now realising how difficult they are to find! I am not really a fishing person so have no idea where to start. Any tips on where to start to look would be of great help!
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CaptainCranky
LureLovers.com Guide Beta Tester Joined: 12 Nov 2009 Location: Cairns Status: Offline Points: 7143 |
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Just by putting this up on the site you may have a chance.
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The Journey is the Reward
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Trouti
Beginner Member Joined: 09 Apr 2015 Location: Albury Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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Just joined this forum from a recommendation from a lure collector in Townsville, I am looking to off load 2 original cedar wooden stump jumpers in perch scale pattern, good condition and 3 hand signed ken Henry seekers! I'm from Albury and fished around cobram and mulwalla when I was a kid, used flatfish and French floppies, when stump jumpers first hit the shelves in the mid 80's advertised as a lure that jumps stumps I ripped into a tackle store in cobram and bought a couple for me and my brother. 28yrs later I've still got them and they really didn't get a lot of use!
Ken Henry who made seekers in bendigo was a good mate of my uncles and when I was 16 fishing torrumberryweir with my uncle he introduced me to Kenny who was trying out his first batch of lures, he had about 15 beautifully hand made painted lures on the rim of a bait bucket in the bottom of his boat. He asked me to pick the colors I liked and I did and he through 3 of his lures to me. My brother and I used 2 of them but by some stroke of luck the 3rd lure never hit the water. Its in pristine condition, about a decade go when i realised how rare this seeker was i wrapped it up in felt and tucked in a safe spot.I've had these lures for the same length of time as the stumpers but it's time they went to a good collector for the right price? Any info would be helpful? |
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Aussbasstony
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 04 Jan 2010 Location: Gold Coast Status: Offline Points: 2410 |
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Mate take good pictures of the lures and post adds in the classified section of this forum.
If you have problems adding pictures ask one of the guides on the site and they can add picture to your post. But I'm sure if you have stumpy,s for sale you would have already got hammered with private messages. Good luck and just take your time selling them . Looking forward to seeing the pictures. |
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Trouti
Beginner Member Joined: 09 Apr 2015 Location: Albury Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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Thanks aussbasstony I'll have a crack at posting some pics
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Aussbasstony
LureLovers.com Fanatic Joined: 04 Jan 2010 Location: Gold Coast Status: Offline Points: 2410 |
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Mate I just checked your profile, you don't have access to the classified section of the forum yet, you will have to wait a very short time untill Tony or one of the guides allow you. Different world in there mate. Cheers |
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Trouti
Beginner Member Joined: 09 Apr 2015 Location: Albury Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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Yeh had a feeling this is why I couldn't find the classified section, saw couple of other posts asking exact same question, no dramas!!
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