Quality Hometown Baits Made from Hand

Fiddy Baits started out as a hobby in 2018 as I had picked up the hobby of bass fishing. I grew up fishing for panfish, walleyes, and catfish in the Wisconsin River and in local streams in and around Iowa County. I wanted a species to target in the summer months that wasn’t just soaking worms or cut bait and started doing research on bass fishing. I started watching YouTube videos about bass fishing and stumbled across a Channel named, “World’s Worst Fishing”. I fell in love with the idea of making my own baits and making my own color combinations to try and catch fish with. I began to do my research on what I wanted to make for baits and what colors I wanted and that’s when the hobby began. The first order started with three molds, 4 colorants, three different color glitters, and a gallon of Dead on Plastix swimbait blend plastisol. The first baits were not even fishable as the colors were too saturated and you couldn’t even see the glitter! The more I practiced the better I got at making baits. Then it happened, I caught my first bass on a junebug stickworm that I had made the day before. The pride I felt catching a bass on bait that I had made sparked the desire to catch more fish on my baits.

I then added more molds not only for bass but for walleye fishing and panfishing. I added more colorants, glitters, and pearl powders to make a wide variety of colors. I began giving baits to friends to try out and I was getting solid reviews on the colors and baits in general. I caught my personal best smallmouth, musky, northern pike, and walleye all on baits that I produced in my garage and knew that I had reached the time to decide if I was going to keep doing it as a hobby or attempt to try and sell them. This decision was easy to make with a little push from my beautiful bride.

The easiest part was picking the name Fiddy Baits. For those who do not know me, I am a Police Officer and have been for over 10 years and my badge number is 50. Coworkers have called me Fiddy instead of Fifty and the moniker stuck and lead to the name for the Company. The logo was also an easy decision as I knew I wanted to tie my two passions together, making baits and my profession. The badge symbol was selected and the craw was selected for the middle as it is my favorite bait to fish with!

In February 2021 I created the Facebook page and signed up for the Ridgeway Farmers Market as a place to show off the baits I was making and selling. I began making inventory and posting about the baits I was creating and found a local audience. The first Farmer’s Market came and I had people show up at the Farmer’s Market just to check out the baits. As they say the rest is history and we are into year two of operation and making more baits than ever.