Parker is demanding and this character trait is paying off for customers of his business.
Parker pays attention to the smallest details of his hand-tied and constructed musky lures. He doesn’t settle for inferior material. He will not have it. He makes the point clear over and over during an interview.
Parker builds bladed musky lures with flasher buck tails.
He insists on using stainless steel and the sturdiest hooks and blades. He uses solid brass for beads and a brass skirt collar. He meticulously ties every lure with the flasher buck tail material and heavy thread and epoxy. This dedication to building the best comes from Parker’s father, Gerry.
“Before my dad passed away in 2011, he told me to never cheap out,” Parker said. “He took a lot of pride in what I did and carried around pictures and showed people. He told me I had a good product and to keep it that way. The lures speak to the quality my father taught me.”
Parker was born in Chatham and moved to Greater Sudbury with his family when he was a kid and lived in the Nickel City into his 20s. He moved out west to drive transport trucks for a living and it has been his full-time job since. He still considers himself a Northern Ontario boy no matter how long and how far away he lives from Sudbury. Eighteen years ago, a job opportunity came up in Chatham, and Parker moved there and has been there ever since. He met his wife, Danna, and they started a family.
When Parker was growing up, he did a lot of tinkering with lures and made his own tackle. At 16, he joined a club with his dad and they tied flies together. Later, Parker started making his own worm harnesses for walleye fishing. This was the foundation that would launch his musky lure business years later.
Parker lost many walleye to musky when fishing on Lake St. Clair. He beefed up one of his worm harnesses and ended up catching a musky more than 40-inches long. It all started there as Parker got more into musky fishing, but didn’t like the cost of many lures on the market. He went about making his own, along with the help of his wife and kids, and it took convincing from a friend to eventually bring them to the retail industry.
“I was a die-hard walleye guy,” Parker said. “I got that musky and shared the moment with my dad. It was a fish I had to catch over and over again. I started by making lures for myself and friends. In 2009, the lures started selling at a local store and it’s been slowly growing ever since.”
Parker hopes his lures will catch on with more musky anglers and it becomes a full-time job.
“Five days a week, I drive truck and see thousands and thousands of cars,” he said. “I would love to see Handlebarz keep growing and growing to where it becomes my full-time job. Each year, we are picking up new customers. It is a great end goal.”
“Before my dad passed away in 2011, he told me to never cheap out,”
-Mike
Parker