Faux frogs come next with three tools – hollow
body, hard popper and walking hard bait – and
12 colors, most of any LiveTarget lure family.
Golden shiners, key members of the sunfish
family and threadfin and gizzard shad have
all inspired multiple lures, and the BaitBall
concept has brought even smaller bait species
like Emerald Shiners in for imitation.
Fans of LiveTarget, create a constant clamor
for more baits, more iterations of their
favorite lures or forage species. But often
those suggestions collide with the logic behind
the line.
“We’ve had a lot of requests for a goby crankbait,
but we won’t make it,” explains Chopin. “A goby
does not have a swim bladder. It doesn’t swim in
the water column. It scoots and hops along the
bottom. A goby crank would be like making a frog
crankbait or a crawfish BaitBall, which we’ve had
requests for, too. The concept makes no sense. We
won’t do it.”
Next the world
With so much concept and nuance packed into
its baits, even delivering a handful of new baits
each season would seem amazing, let alone
the 100-plus products that it has averaged the
last eight years.
“We call ourselves a technology-based company,”
says Chopin. “We embrace technology. The
most important is in our 3D computer modeling
process… It used to take us three to four months
to develop a prototype. Now it takes two weeks.
A lot of our