Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
Date: August 16, 2006
Tight Lines: Reel 'em in with bling on a string
Brett Prettyman
The Salt Lake Tribune
TIGHT LINES
There's a new way to achieve the ultimate "pucker factor" for all those anglers who freak out about fishing with a $14 Lucky Craft lure for the big cutthroat at Strawberry.
Imagine tying on a 14-karat gold-plated lure, a wet fly weighted with a diamond, ruby or sapphire or the ultimate in trusting-your-fishing knot - a $1 million lure made with more than 3 pounds of 14-karat and 18-karat gold and platinum and sparkled with 4,753 diamonds and rubies.
"Some people just say I'm crazy and the others think I'm crazy like a fox," says Mac McBurney, designer and inventor of MacDaddy's Fishing Lures.
I met Mac at the Outdoor Writers Association of America annual conference in Lake Charles, La., in June. His lure display immediately caught my attention.
I've always joked that some of my mother's earrings would work well as lures during desperate situations, so the idea of combining jewelry and fishing lures and flies didn't seem odd. What's more flashy, especially underwater, than diamonds, gold and silver?
Mac then started floating prices for the lures and of his plan to design and then actually use a $1 million lure.
"I've lost a couple of thousand dollars," Mac said. "But I've also caught a lot of fish."
He shared a story of fishing with pricey lures during a trip to Colorado. He lost a couple to snags and was amused to hear that guides on the river had nearly frozen to death retrieving the lost hardware.
He plans to fish the Million Dollar Lure, all 12 inches of it, at the 26th Annual Bisbee's Black and Blue Marlin Tournament this October in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
He doesn't mean to just attach it for a quick dip and claim its use. He plans to use it during the highly competitive tournament.
I fished with one of his $10,000 lures while in Louisiana. Actually, fished is the wrong word. I cast the lure several times, but reeled it in way too fast to pick up any fish for fear it would snag on the rocky bottom.
Other, more daring anglers caught fish - not sure what they were - with the lures.
Mac has been doing a combination of outdoors and jewelry shows this summer, and he says the response has been amazing.
"I'm offering something nobody else in the world has. We are in a league of our own; nothing else even comes close. We are so over the top that it's unreal," he said. "We are selling everything on the line. Everybody wants to see something fun and exciting like this."
Better hurry and make your order -
http://www.macdaddysfishinglures.com. Mac is only producing 25 of the $1 million lures.
He just reached an agreement with the Make A Wish Foundation: If Make A Wish sells a lure, he will give the organization 5 percent of the take.
To cover himself from potentially
anglers, Mac provides this handy-dandy disclaimer on his literature and Web site: "Fisherman beware. If you choose to fish with a MacDaddy lure or fly, there is a possibility a large fish will get so excited that it won't give it back, and you may lose it. Unfortunately, we can accept no responsibility for your loss. But, you will love the fish story you have to tell your friends!"