Kermett Adams: Bulletproof Baits for Toothy Fish and Other Exotics

When Hanna and I started to prepare for our first trip to the Amazon in 2011, I’m pretty sure I watched every video on YouTube showing peacock bass eating big prop baits. I then emailed my friend Dennis Shew (of TackleTour.com fame), who’d gone the year before and was headed back with us for Round Two, to ask him which “Woodchoppers” I should buy.

This wouldn’t be an easy task, because by then Luhr-Jensen had discontinued the original Chopper and its progeny. It was going to take some eBay stealth to find the right models in the right colors.

“You don’t want any Woodchoppers,” Dennis replied.

I was confused. I thought that brutal topwater strikes were THE REASON to go to Brazil.

“What are you talking about, man?” I asked, while trying to figure out how to ask our outfitter for a refund.

“What you want are prop baits from K Lures in California,” he replied. “They pull much easier, get more bites, and they hold up to a beating. Get on the phone QUICK because there’s usually a wait to get them.”

So I bought a handful, took them to Brazil, and caught a few fish on these affordable hard lures made by Kermett Adams. I didn’t really understand their value until we went back the following year and the topwater bite was ON. Using Kermett’s “Grande,” I caught a 10-pounder, a 14-pounder, an 18-pounder and a 20 on the first day. The key was ripping them hard all day, especially during the hottest, sunniest mid-day period.

Hanna went on to catch two 19-pounders on K Lures that week. Meanwhile, one day I fished with a friend who had purchased similar lures from a mainstream manufacturer – not only did he get far fewer bites, but when that elusive 20-plus smoked his ‘chopper, he set the hook at one of the tines bent out. He lost a fish because of crappy hardware. It was only then that I realized how important every element is when you’re fishing for mean and powerful species. I still get a reminder of that fact every day when I look at our living room wall.

Since that trip, I’ve kept in touch with Kermett, and I’ve noticed that many of the exotic fishing travel specialists I follow – guys like Steve Yatomi, Larry Walker, Steve Ryan, Art Weston, Joe “Sparky” Bullock and Bob Daly – all rely on his products. Indeed, several of them also work with him on his constantly-evolving product lineup as they search for lures that cannot be destroyed by peacocks, golden dorado or GTs.

Here is Kermett’s story in his own words. I think his passion is evident and it makes clear why we all revere his work.

HPFC: Where were you raised and what was your fishing experience before you got into making lures?

Adams: I grew up on a farm in southeast Arkansas and I fished from the time I was a little kid. We lived right next to the bayou called Crooked Bayou which was full of all kinds of fish. Started out with cane poles and as I grew up I loved all outdoor things – deer hunting, rabbits, squirrels. Same thing with fishing. I’ve bass fished all of my life. However, in the last four or five years I’ve almost stopped. I still think about it every day. It’s just that this luremaking hobby has grown into a full-time thing and a couple of my old friends passed away. It just wasn’t the same after they were gone. Even though I’ve pretty much stopped fishing, I enjoy it through others and through lures that I make. In addition to just bass fishing, I enjoyed striper fishing. I made a number of trips to Canada and Alaska over the years. Never been to South America. I’ve been to Mexico a number of times. The first lake I went to in Mexico back in the seventies was Guerrero, south of Brownsville, Texas.

After finishing college in Monroe, Louisiana, my wife and I moved to California and we’ve been here ever since. I moved away for a few years to Washington State, but except for that we’ve been living in California since 1972. Since then I’ve been to Mexico a number of times. The first place we went to was Mocuzaria, east of Los Mochis, and I’ve been to Baccarac three or four times, and El Salto once. I loved it.

I still hunt. One of my sons is an active archer, as I am, and we bow hunt and shoot at a lot of competitive shoots. I’m 76 years old and still going strong.

HPFC: How did you get started in the luremaking business, and with exotic gamefish in particular?

Adams: I retired when I was 58. I worked in the agricultural chemical industry for about 35 years and after 30 with Bayer Crop Science. I did it mostly because I could afford to do it and I wanted to fish more. For about the first six or seven years after I retired I fished six days a week at least and just had a wonderful time. I’d fished all of my life up until then, but just weekends or afternoons and when I could get off. After I retired, I was fishing like I was angry at the bass and wanted to punish them as much as possible. Now, I am just not as angry at them as I once was.

About two years before I retired I started whittling lures. It was just a fun hobby and I got into it more and more, making some for my friends for a few years before I even thought of selling one. Sometime told me I should sell them. At the time I was making only bass lures – poppers and things like Devil’s Horses with double props. I did that for a few years, fishing in the morning and dinking around making lures in the afternoon. I had a four or five inch popper on my website and a doctor from Atlanta named Gary Laden called me and he told me who he was and what he did and asked me to make him a popper that’ll pop every time you jerk it. So I made him a few different poppers and sent them to him and then it just kind of grew from there. He sadly passed away a few years ago. Through him I met Bob Daly and Steve Yatomi and on and on and on and it just grew from there.

For the first few years I only made poppers and the Ripper baits and then it grew into other things. As I met more and more people, and more people contacted me with ideas it just kind of grew from there.

HPFC: Which are the most popular lures in your lineup?

Adams: When I first started making lures for sale I was focusing on bass lures. I realized right away that if I wanted to make any money at it, even as a hobby, I had to do something else because there are just so many really, really great factory-made lures that are very inexpensive that work. I just couldn’t make lures for two or three dollars apiece – I didn’t want to -- so I looked for a specialty kind of thing and what I got into was making reproductions of old Heddon lures, particularly the Heddon 150 Minnow, the five-hook one. I did that for years and I still do it, but the last few months I’ve slowed down on it. I just don’t have time for it.

My customers were just mostly people who loved collecting old lures but couldn’t afford the two hundred dollar ones. They’d buy them from me for much, much less. I sold on eBay and on my website. I enjoy making the reproduction lures and the Ripper lures the most – and I’ve probably sold the most of them.

HPFC: Where do the ideas come from?

Adams: I call myself a tinkerer. Art Weston is a tinkerer as well. That’s where some of the ideas come from. With a lifetime of experience of fishing I kind of know what fish like. The other source is customers. Almost every day somebody contacts me and asks me to make them one that “looks like this” or “acts like this” or “this shape” or “this length.” Guys like Art Weston in particular, he is just full of ideas about how to make a better mousetrap.

HPFC: How do you build a new lure and how many prototypes does it make to get it right?

Adams: It varies. Sometimes I might hit it on the first one. I’ve been trying to make Bob Daly a nine-inch walking lure and I’ve been trying to work on that one for a month trying to get one that really works right. He wants it made with through-wire construction and making a long walking lure like that is like trying to make a ship. It’s just hard to get it to flop from end to end. On that lure I’ve probably made a dozen with different lengths, different amounts of weight. Some of them may be the same lure body but I would just modify the amount of weight or the position of the weight in the tail, that sort of thing. It can go right on the first try, or you might have to make a dozen different lure bodies and throw them all in the trash can. It depends on whether I get lucky, I guess.

HPFC: What have been your most difficult challenges to overcome?

Adams: I don’t think I really have any. I’ve never tried to build a big company, so I’ve never had any difficulty as far as growing my business. My strategy has always been to be a one-man company. I make everything one at a time by myself. Never wanted to grow it, never wanted to hire people. I never had a goal of selling to distributors or dealers. My limitation on production rules that out.

I probably get a phone call or an email or something once a month over all these years from somebody wanting to be set up as a dealer. I’ve perfected about a page-long letter that I just send them all every time. I thank them very much. For the last couple of years most of them have been coming from South America, particularly for my Rippers. I just have to graciously thank them and say I’m sorry, but I tell them I’ll gladly sell them as an individual personal fisherman all the lures you want, but I can’t make enough lures to stock their store.

HPFC: Do you worry about getting knocked off?

Adams: No, not at all. Some of these things that Art and I have come up with, he’s talked about, “We should patent this,” or “We should patent that,” but I don’t worry about that. If somebody can make them better and cheaper, cool. The kind of customers that I want to sell to, they want to buy from someone like me. They want to buy hand-crafted lures. That’s my market.

HPFC: I’m certainly not suggesting this, but is there a reason that your lures aren’t more expensive? People will pay $200 for a swimbait. In that light, your prices seem remarkably reasonable.

Adams: They are. I’ve been increasing the prices slightly, and they need to go up even more. My highest-priced lures are $40 and I should be getting more for them. I’m going to gradually do it. I have to, because the cost of the materials I use to make them have quadrupled or more since I started. But I don’t do it for the money – I mean, I do enjoy the extra cash that I help my children with and do things for them, like all of the archery competition entry fees, but I don’t need it to make a living. I retired comfortably and I enjoy the money I make with it, but it’s not my living at all.

HPFC: What about the components like hooks, line ties, etc.? You never seem to scrimp at all – how do you know which ones will hold up?

Adams: Part of it is just life experience of fishing, but I also use machines. Art has a wonderful digital force machine. People have been pushing me to start offering single hooks on all of my lures, which I’m doing, and I had some friends and customers that wanted me to use BKK Lone Diablos. They are fantastic hooks, but they’re close to $4 apiece and hard to find. As a matter of fact there’s only one dealer in the United States that has them right now, so I started a search for what’s the best, strongest, most-reasonable hook. I probably sent Art a dozen different ones and with the machine he’s got he can test them accurately up to 200 pounds.

The shop I work in is my son’s shop. He’s an industrial supplier of nuts and bolts and stuff. As I told you, we’re archers, and he does different things – builds bowstrings, has the jig device. Part of that device is a string-stretcher that can stretch a string up to 200 pounds. I use that to test different things like swivels and split rings and wire loops.

HPFC: What are some of the things that distinguish your lures from the others in your categories?

Adams: People tell me that I have one of the best finishes out there and I’ve improved it over the years. Back when you bought your first Rippers from me it was not nearly as good as what I use today. Many customers have told me that my clearcoat is the most durable of any clearcoat out there. It will eventually get scratched up, more from hook rash than from fish. In totality, the hardware that I use is better than most other lures.

HPFC: What about paint jobs? How do you decide what you need or what will work?

Adams: I choose them mostly by customers’ requests or input. I’m not a great lure painter. The artists that really paint all these beautiful bass crankbaits – I don’t really want to spend the time it takes to paint a lure as well as they paint them, but I try to paint lures that are attractive. I don’t think color makes a bit of difference in a topwater lure. I love topwater lures and I’ve fished with them all of my life and I have favorite colors, but in most situations I don’t think it makes much difference. I’ll be honest with anybody who asks me, but I’ll still tell them I like orange bellies or green backs or whatever.

HPFC: It seems that historically most of your customers’ focus has been on peacock bass and golden dorado. What other species have you developed specific tools to catch?

Adams: Those are definitely the main two. I make a buzzbait that Steve Yatomi and a lot of his clients use for wolffish, but wolffish is not really one of the most popular fish that people go for. I’ve made quite a few poppers for people going to the South Pacific for GTs, but I don’t really care about making a bunch of those. Even when I get $40 for them, they’re just a lot of work to make. The poppers that I’m making for Art and a few other guys for golden dorado, I’m selling those for $40 and I should be getting $100 for them for all of the time and effort I put into them.

HPFC: Is there a reason that you have not been to South America?

Adams: The opportunity started coming up at a time in my life when it wasn’t right for me. It’s kind of hard to explain. I love doing everything by myself, for myself. I don’t need or want anybody to tell me when to jerk the rod. I don’t need or want anybody to tell me what bait I need to use. I’ve had experiences on guided fishing trips when I wanted to throw them out of the boat. As a matter of fact, I have told two or three of them, “Look, I paid for this. I’ll do it the way I want to.” After I retired, fishing and hunting were almost like a religion to me, and I wanted to be at peace with it and I wanted to enjoy every second of it. I know there are elements of guided trips that are wonderful and enjoyable but there are parts of it that I don’t like. I don’t like schedules. I don’t like somebody telling me when it’s time to go in. I like doing it when I want to do it, the way I want to do it. I had a lot of offers for trips where I’d just have to pay my airfare to South America, but I’d gotten to the point in my life where I didn’t want to take any crap from anybody else.

HPFC: How many countries have you shipped to?

Adams: Literally, I’ve shipped them all over the world. All over Europe, all over Asia – Singapore, Kazakhstan.

HPFC: Do you have any idea how many world records your lures have produced?

Adams: I only know of two world records. Lucas Methner, the Brazilian part-owner of the Zaltana and Art Weston. Art’s was two or three years ago and Lucas was last November. Those are the only two have every told me about it. I don’t solicit a lot of feedback. I don’t beg for pictures. I do ask for feedback when I’m developing a lure, but other than that if people want to share things with me that’s great, but if they don’t, that’s cool, too.

Many of my customers are boat owners or outfitters here in the U.S. In fact, those are most of my customers – either they buy them or they refer their customers to me. Many of them are secretive about lures. They don’t want to share what they are doing with my Rippers, and that’s OK, too. I don’t press anybody.

HPFC: What are some of your goals for the future?

Adams: I’m not doing it for acceptance from the fishing community, but I do really enjoy it when people have success with them and give me feedback that they’re working.

HPFC: Do you worry about the fact that when you hang it up no one will be doing it the “right way” and that you won’t have someone to pass your craft down to?

Adams: About 16 years ago I wrote an ebook on how to make wooden lures. Since then many copies have been purchased on Clickbank by luremakers all over the world. For the first few years sales were good as this was prior to Google buying out YouTube and monetizing with clicks on ads. Early on there were not many YouTube videos on how to make wooden fishing lures. Now there are thousands of great videos on making and painting lures and they are all free to the viewer. For the first few years I tried to update it every year or two but I have not touched it since 2014, If I ever decide to quit making sawdust and paint fumes I have at least another 100 pages worth of things to add to the book that I do now that I was not doing then. So, this is how I will pass on what I know about making wooden lures.

This is just something I love to do. It keeps me going. I’m in great health, as far as I know, anyway. I get up every morning at 5:15. I can’t wait to get up, get out of bed, get to my shop. I have something to do every day. I work until 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I’m ready to go when I need to go. I hope to keep on doing it for many more years.

If you’d like to order some K Lures of your own, contact Kermett through his website, where ordering is easy. Be prepared to get in line, but rest assured that they’re worth the wait.