Author, writer, marine artist, charter captain, lure manufacturer, ind. consultant
Outrageous marlin lure - with sole.
An article written for and that appeared in Salt Water Sportsman Magazine...for fun...or is it?
THE SOLE MAN
No, that’s not a miss-spell up there. It’s “Sole” as in the bottom of a shoe, not “Soul”, as in the world of blues music. And I’m not talking about any old kind of shoe bottom, either; I’m talking about a specific, common kind - Flip flops. You call them shoes; I call them fishing lures; ones that have won me a lot of money over the years.
This Sole Man thing began well over twenty-five years ago when I heard about famous Australian marlin fishermen Peter Wright making bets and catching black marlin on them on the Great Barrier Reef. Peter figured out how to rig up an old flip flop and then caught two, not just one marlin on it the first day that he tried it.
Jump ahead ten years to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico where I lived and operated my charterboat for many years. One morning I was involved in a heated lure discussion with a group of other charter captains and was being beaten up soundly by those shiny, fancy lure and lively live bait lovers when Peter’s experience hopped out of my memory and winked at me. I said, “I’ll prove to you guys that marlin are dumb enough to hit this”, slipping off and holding up one of my old, black flip flops.
The guys hollered and scattered holding their noses and a small dog on the floor and the coffee shop parrot up on its perch both passed out cold from the rancid odor of the shoe, as did a buzzard that happened to be passing over far above us. Somehow immune to the cloud of shoe stink, I said “I will make a lure called “Sole Man” out of this beauty here and I’ll bet you a minimum of a hundred bucks a man that I can catch a marlin on it tomorrow, who’s game?” They all made the bet. Two, including my old pal Bobby Dobson of the famed “Checkmate” raised the ante to three hundred bucks.
I swaggered down to my boat, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Then I spent hours frantically trying to figure out how to rig Sole Man so that he would look good in the water and hopefully hook anything that hit it. After three hours, I figured I had it and rigged both of them – I mean, what are you going to do with only one flip flop? Especially one that knocks small animals and maybe even children unconscious and causes grown men to run for the hills?
After rigging them I spent an hour washing them down with Simple Green and various other soaps in a somewhat successful effort to reduce their nauseating aroma and in order to cut down on the massive insect and bird life deaths that would have been caused by it while they hung outside in the ‘pit overnight.
My charter for the next day was a small group of regulars; casino pit bosses from Las Vegas. My Mexican crew had completely freaked out when they came down to the boat that morning and saw my impeccably rigged Sole Men hanging in the cockpit. They thought that the whole idea was hilarious for some reason and the Sole Men were the first things that they showed our clients when they showed up. Naturally, the Vegas guys gave me a lot of heat about my “funky lures” and before too long I had substantial bets from all of them too on whether or not Sole Man would produce.
My two crew guys laughed wildly, but they weren’t interested in betting. This was early in my Cabo days, but they had worked for me for a while by then and they knew me pretty well. I had already shown them some lures and techniques that they had never seen before that they’d seen work great, but they still thought that I was crazy. However, they had already lost bets when I introduced them to SuperBars, Toad teasers and such. They laughed, but I couldn’t coax or tease them into betting.
I ran both Sole Men off of my long riggers. Amazingly, they ran pretty well! Different, yes, but still pretty damned well; part of the time they skipped across the surface, looking exactly like a fat baitfish. Then they would flip over and dive down, darting back and forth, looking like a baitfish trying to escape a predator. I knew then that Sole Man was going to catch fish! (And considering all of the money at stake, I sure hoped so!)
In ten minutes of trolling we had a pod of four striped marlin charge the spread. All four went after the two Sole Men and next thing you know, we had a double hooked up and jumping!
My buddy, Captain Bobby Dobson was trolling a short distance away and saw our fish jumping. He radioed, “Nice going, Old Man! First ones of the day and a double to boot! What’d they hit?” I replied, “It was a shoe enough shoe-in, Bobby, if you know what I mean.” He paused, then replied, “You don’t mean....” “Yes I do, son. Now you come on over here and confirm what we have these fish hooked up on and be sure to bring that three hundred bucks you owe me!” He came over and was my witness when we let those shoe eaters go and I made sure that he floated a closed plastic bag with my money in it over to me right then and there.
Being the inveterate and incurable lure tinkerer and modifier that I am, I expanded the Sole Man lineup to include three small models rigged as a daisy chain with a bigger one with a hook in it chasing them. I called that one “The Sole Train”. My first mate Julio used to put that one out, then turn to our passengers and say, “That’s the Sole Train amigos...It really rocks!” and proceeded to moon walk to their delight. Then he said, “No kidding, amigos. Dat Sole Train is a shoe-in to catch the feesh”, then he cracked up and no one could tell if he was serious or not until he yelled, “Chew on the shoe! Chew on the shoe! I told you, amigos! Hookaa!”
They are cheap, too. Wait for the big discount stores to unload them at next to nothing at summer’s end. I’ve picked them up for two bucks a pair and since you get “two lures in one” with Sole Men, they only cost me a buck apiece! Heck, that’s a lot cheaper than single, unrigged ballyhoo, to say nothing of a regular, old, artificial marlin lure! I guess you could call a pair of flip flops headed for the rigging bench, “Sole Brothers” – especially since they will be exactly alike.
“Matching the hatch” size-wise is a piece of cake with Sole Men too. The ones for little children ("Sole Babies") make wonderful little tuna and dorado lures (and they come in some cool colors, like pink and green and yellow), while the adult sizes ranging from size six up to ten are good all-around marlin, bigger tuna and dorado lures and the wahoo go mad for them – especially black and red ones if you can find them. (The latter should be rigged on wire, of course). The big NBA sizes are a little harder to find, but if you can corner some they make good big marlin lures, especially for black ones.
Yeah, Sole Brothers. Shoe enough, I’m soled on ‘em!
Crocs? Hmmm. Sole Brothers with multiple jet ports?
Fred,
I wish I could have seen you in action 35 years ago. I bet you were a hoot you mischievous old rascal. Thanks for the great story...the site of those Mexicans laughing and making up soul train jokes must have been special...I am in tears.
Gracias Tio Loco!
Holwachagot
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...I am in tears.
