exceed the fish species he’ s targeting, thereby creating what he calls heirloom tools.“ These are built to last,” he says.“ They’ re built to hand down to your kids, your grandkids, as long as you take care of them.”
Pretty much everything about Havill’ s lures is custom: the tied tail, the metal lip, the paint schemes, the reinforced construction, all reflections of Havill’ s fusion of artistic vision and engineering problem-solving. He uses locally sourced cedar for its natural water resistance, primes it, airbrushes the schemes, seals it with urethane, and finishes each lure with a two-part epoxy that leaves them feeling like glass. Havill has one test lure he’ s been using for three years, deliberately throwing it against hard surfaces to see what it can take. He finally chipped some paint off the back, yet it still catches fish.
The performance backs up the durability. Retrieve the lure slowly, and
it swims like a dying fish on the surface. Speed up, and it dives. Pause, and it rolls belly-up the way a wounded baitfish does, an irresistible trigger for predators. Even a single lure design incorporates two or three distinct functions, a versatility born from Havill’ s own fishing experience across different waters.
“ I need lures that do multiple things,” he explains,“ and that’ s what I’ ve designed: a lure that can do multiple things for multiple fish, in different locations.” Take any one of his creations from a Massachusetts stream or lake to the Carolina coast, and it’ ll catch striped bass in salt water, redfish in the shallows down south, or largemouth bass in freshwater. They’ re genuinely multispecies tools.
While his day job is at the West Stockbridge Public Library, Havill is trying to make Lost Art Lures, which he started in 2021, a full-time venture, presenting its own set of challenges. Most
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