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Magic Minnows Sunday Mail 1977

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beesknees View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote beesknees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Magic Minnows Sunday Mail 1977
    Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 8:39am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Fysshe Salmon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 8:44am
Would be a good read! Martin wasn't too bad at writing a story, he got me inspired to chase Noosa Bass back in '72. Smile I wonder where those lures are now? Ermm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote grey nomad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 10:10am
Would of been good if we could read it Cry.

Ian any chance of some better pic's ?? maybe like a panorama with 4-5-6 pic's ??
not my forte but others will know how to do it better Smile
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Seaweed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 12:27pm
Fysshe, 'wonder where these lures are now'? I can tell you, they're at Capt. Cranky's LOL.
Thanks for the article Ian. 
Seaweed.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote beesknees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 1:23pm
suggestions on how to copy article as pdf doesn't load. if you copy pic and post to your computer you should be able to read regards Ian
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Fysshe Salmon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 1:48pm
Tried that. Clear as mud... LOL.. LOL May need a higher resolution picture.. Confused


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote beesknees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 4:49pm
Magic Minnows
Even fish can't resist them...these works of art!

Sunday Mail Colour, February 27,1977   Story & photographs by Martin Bowerman

Its been a long time since most of the knick-knacks of everyday life could be described as home-made and it was the phrase 'store-bought' that denoted something special.
For instance, you would have to be a white-haired angler to recollect when most freshwater fishing lures were hand carved from cedar and Saltwater spinners were moulded from scrap metal in the backyard.
All that was ended by the plastics revolution and mass production, and it became a multi million dollar business filling tackle boxes all over the world with shiny, look alike products of the machine age.
But with home-made objects of any kind becoming increasingly fashionable, and the rapidly rising cost in Australia of the mostly imported lures (its nothing to pay $4 for a barramundi 'minnow' and lose it to a big fish, or a snag, in your first cast), there’s been a re-kindling of interest among fishermen in 'carving your own'.
But the growth of the hobby has been largely inspired by a 70 year old craftsman at Cardwell in North Queensland named Eric Moller.
Eric's lures are famous throughout Australia. Sports fishermen treasure the little wooden minnows for two reasons: they are works of art in themselves and they catch fish!
The grey haired old fisherman carves lures as a hobby. “I don’t let anything interfere with my fishing” he says. “This is just something to do when I get a bit of spare time.”
Some fishermen refuse to fish with these products of Eric's spare time-they frame them for a den or office wall. But most take them out immediately and cast around mangrove creek, rocks or reefs... catch barramundi, mangrove jack, trevally, queenfish, threadfin salmon, cod, tarpon, jungle perch, sooty grunter, in fact almost anything that will take a lure, and eventually lose them to fish just a shade too big or too fast.
Then they make their way back to Eric's place to see if he has one or two spare, or try to carve their own.
Eric began fashioning lures about 12 years ago because he couldn't afford the commercial ones. Besides he reckoned he could make better models.
He made up what he calls now “a pretty crude sort of lure” from two pieces of wood glued together, and he and his wife took it down to one of the local mangrove creeks. It caught a barramundi and Eric's been catching fish with his own lures ever since.
In that time he's carved hundreds, most of them given away to friends, and worn out two knives in the process. The finest wood he ever worked was a piece of figured red cedar. It yielded 40 once in a lifetime lures, the polished wood giving each a marbled, translucent look. He kept only one. The single imperfect lure of the batch, scarred by grub holes.
But through he's never said so, he obviously enjoys the gleam in the eye of the experienced angler running his fingers over a Moller minnow for the first time or the novice landing his first fish on a lure, and figures that makes it worthwhile.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote beesknees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 4:50pm
Eric uses white beech and red cedar, two timbers with the good clear grain he says wood must have to carve easily. Both grow in the area and local timber-getter and friends keep him supplied with his needs.
He begins with a small block of wood, about 10cm by 2.5cm by 1 1/4cm. From there it all depends on a good eye and steady hand. Eric prefers to use a simple penknife, although he tried a spoke-shave at one time. He says the knife blade does a better job.
The first cuts determine the critical angles of the head and tail that will be reflected in the swimming action of the finished lure. It has to swim with just the right wriggle, one that will be interpreted by a predator as the action of a wounded bait fish and thus food.
A few more side cuts, looking deceptively easy, produce the final shape and he just scapes off the rough spots with the same blade then gives the bland a quick rub with fine sandpaper.
In fact the only other tools Eric needs are a saw for the angular cut that will later take a small tin 'bib' to help the swimming action and a drill and bit for holes in the nose., belly and tail into which loops of wire will be glued to take the trace and a pair of treble hooks.
The lures are finished with a coat of varnish, if they're cedar, or paint for the beech. But Eric says the coat of paint is more for the fishermen than the fish.
'I don't think colour makes any difference. Fish hit them no matter what colour they're painted- or even if they're not painted at all.
'But most people like the yellow and black pattern. Its easier to see it swimming through the water and you can actually watch a fish take it: fishermen seem to like that'
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote beesknees Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 4:51pm
If there's such a thing as a 'secret' in carving lures, Eric says it is to use the knife in a long straight cut.
'when you carve, start at the back and take your cut right through. Don't keep stopping and starting. You'll see a lot of blokes carving who've got holes and hollows all over the wood. Keep the knife sharp and use the blade straight and you won't have any problems.”
Transforming a block of wood to a fish catching lure takes Eric 15 minutes, about a quarter of the time most beginners will need to hack out something that even then might still swim like a lame duck.
But Eric Moller is certainly no beginner. He's been working with wood most of his life.
“I was a sleeper cutter, girder cutter and broad-axeman for 30 years. “ he said”I used to shape girders for bridges and decking with a broad axe.”
He lifted a block of wood off the floor that was probably 90cm by 30cm by 15cm.
“This was part of a piece of wood I cut and squared for the keel of a boat. It was 36 feet long in a single piece. I've cut out girders thicker than that and 45 feet long.
But working in wood is now just a hobby and Eric spens most of his time at what's always been his over riding interest- fishing.
Its a bad day indeed when he can't catch a feed in the mangrove creeks around Cardwell, and yet as both an amateur and former professional- he spent 10 years working as a commercial fisherman- he is saddened by the decline in fish numbers in the area in recent years.
“Up until five years ago the fishing was good. But that's when mono filament nets were introduced. Since then fishing generally has gone to the pack.
“Mono filament nets are deadly. They're made from transparent nylon fishing line and fish can't see them as easily as the normal cord nets. Hard to catch fish like the mangrove jack would swim up to a cord net, see it and swim away from it .but they'll swim straight into mono filament.
“Not only that but mesh sizes are too small, down to three and a half inches. Professional fishermen in the past have always used nets with far bigger meshes so the small barramundi wouldn't get caught. Now they say they want smaller meshes to catch mullet, fish you couldn't sell here a few years ago because there were so many better fish available.
'These nets are taking all the small barramundi and other good species as well. And it's no use trying to release them- anything that hits a mono net is killed.
It's not all that long since you could go down to any of the mangrove creeks here and catch two or three barra for a day's fishing, now you're lucky to catch one for every five or six trips.
The fishing's only been like that since mono filament nets were introduced. Even professionals agree that mono nets are killing off the fishing in the north. They should be banned in Queensland the way they already have been by the New south Wales State fisheries.”
Eric's activities as a fisherman, luremaker and conservationist have already been widely recognised. For instance in 1974 the Australian National Sport fishing Association awarded him its first and to date only, honorary life membership for his “significant contribution to sportfishing”
Eric has caught thousands of fish in his lifetime and enjoys catching them still. But its probably the thousands he's caught and yet never seen that please him most-all those fish taken by anglers lucky enough to own one of Moller's magic minnows.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote bignanny Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 5:09pm
Thanks for going to the trouble of posting the article Ian. That was a great read.
All my braids gone!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote grey nomad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 5:10pm
Ian, thank you very much for going to this amount of trouble Thumbs Up.

I have already printed it off and am sure a few more will.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ducks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 5:28pm
Thanks for that Ian. I enjoyed the read.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote micknq Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 6:45pm
Good on ya Ian   cheers.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Seaweed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2016 at 3:14pm
Thanks Ian, great read. That last 'fiddle-back' grained red cedar lure in the story, is still in his tackle box, Bruce showed me the first time I met him.
Eric's tackle box containing the two reels he used, a red ABU 5000 and a fixed spool of older vintage, plus his ABU two piece, trigger grip tubular glass rod, are presently at my place in Darwin. I'm looking after them for Bruce while he lives on the Tiwi's.
Regards, Seaweed.
"Always Merry and Bright"
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote steiny Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2016 at 5:03pm
Thanks for that Ian....top job!
cheers steiny
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote justlooking Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Feb 2016 at 2:44pm
Great Job Ian !! Did someone get paid for the typing ?
By the minute or by the word ?
Commitment !
Go early - Stay late.
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