SECTION THREE
when collecting squirrel tails with his technique.
See, my buddy takes tails off of roadkills squirrels.
“I do have to be careful and make sure I look each way
before going out in the middle of a road to clip off a
squirrel tail,” he says, noting he’s had some close calls
with cars and pickup trucks.
“I’ve also had people stop and ask if they could give me
money to buy a meal,” he says, noting that his ancient
pickup doesn’t exactly make him look wealthy. “They
think I’m picking up roadkill to take it home – like
maybe under the bridge where they might think I live –
and cook it.”
Since he doesn’t have to wait until squirrel season to
start his collection, he can accumulate quite a stockpile
throughout the year.
“Let’s just say I haven’t had to buy a Mepps spinner in a
long, long time,” he says. He is a Lake Michigan charter
captain and uses Mepps spinners in his business, mainly
when trolling for shallow brown trout in the spring.
But he doesn’t ever use the spinners with fur.
“It’s a pretty odd-looking lure, but I use those Comet
Minos,” he says. That lure has a molded, soft-plastic
baitf ish dressing the rear hook.
“Quite some time ago – probably almost 25 years ago –
I put one of the Comet Minos on as sort of a joke and
it started catching brown trout of all different sizes,” he
claims. “Using it every spring since, I can def initely say
it was no f luke.”
So whether you’re a squirrel hunter or just someone
not too embarrassed to harvest tails from road-kill
squirrels, the tails-for-lures program continues.
Mepps buys fox, black, grey and red squirrel tails and
will pay up to 26 cents each for tails, depending on
quality and quantity.
Plus, the cash value is doubled if the tails are traded for
Mepps lures. For details on the Squirrel Tail Program,
either visit the company web site or call 800-713-3474.
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