LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
THE SOLE MAN & SOLE MEN
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, special 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 twenty 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 over my love for funky, simple lure colors and rigging my skirts upside down by those shiny, fancy lure and lively live bait fanciers 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 shop parrot up on its perch both passed out cold from the rancid odor of the shoe. Worse yet, a buzzard circling far above us apparently got a whiff of that flip flop, gagged, and flat fell out of the sky! Ignoring all of that, I said “I will make a lure called “Sole Man” out of this here beauty 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 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 figuring out how to rig Sole Man so that he would look good in the water and 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? I called them, "Sole Men".
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 major bets from all of them on whether or not Sole Man would produce.
I ran both off my long riggers. Amazingly, they ran great! Different, yes, but still great; part of the time they skipped across the surface, looking exactly a fat skipjack or little tuna. Then they would flip over and dive down, darting back and forth and looking like a baitfish trying to escape a predator. I knew then that Sole Man was going to catch fish!
In ten minutes we had a pod of four 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 of Checkmate 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.
Being the inveterate and incurable lure tinkerer and modifier that I am, I expanded the lineup to include three small models rigged as a daisy chain with a bigger one with a hook in it chasing them. I call 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 folks...It really rocks!” and then he proceeded to moon walk - something that he was very good at - to their delight. Then he would say, “No keeding, amigos. Thees 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! Hook up!” Then he'd finish his act off by grabbing a hooked up outfit out of the holder and moon walk it over to the chair! Julio was a real pisser and the people loved him!
Sole men and Sole Trains 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! 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 make wonderful little tuna and dorado lures and they come in neat colors like pink, 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. The big NBA sizes are a little harder to find, but if you can corner some they make good big marlin lures.
Yeah, Sole Brothers. Shoe enough, I’m soled on ‘em!
Reply With Quote
Laughing my butt off----
