“When I go out on a charter with Frank, I don’t know who’s having more fun – him or me…” says one of the regular clients of Captain Frank Cresticelli of Fin Chaser Charters. Frank loves to fish, and spends 150 days a year running charters out of Staten Island and Manhattan. No matter how much you love to fish, that much time on a pounding boat takes its toll on the body.
“It was after my second back surgery that I realized I wouldn’t always be able to spend this much time on the water,” said Frank, “but I wanted to take my experience as a charter captain and turn it into another aspect of fishing.”
After spending countless hours casting plugs to stripers, blues, false albacore and bonito, Frank knew the basics behind designing a productive fishing lure and decided to create his own line, Guide’s Secret Lures. But, Frank is quick to admit that he couldn’t do it on his own. “I don’t know everything about making a good lure, so I work with other fishermen to get their input.” Frank wanted the fishermen to dictate what kind of lures he made, so before putting anything into production, he sought out the opinions of serious anglers in the Northeast. Frank was surprised that many of the responses included older lures, some of which were no longer being made.
After seeing the demand for these vintage lures, Frank decided to revitalize them, taking a popular–but discontinued–lure style and customizing it for the inshore fisheries of the Northeast. He also looked at popular lure designs that weren’t made in saltwater sizes, and beefed up the hardware.
“Beyond some much-needed hardware upgrades to the original designs, I wanted to make sure the lures cast well,” Frank said, “I wanted to make them heavy.” Take, for instance, the Old School Swimmer. This Finnish minnow-style plug has a similar profile to a Bomber Long A or a Cotton Cordell Redfin, but while those plugs weigh 7/8 and 1 ounce respectively, the Old School Swimmer weighs about a half-ounce more at 1-3/8 ounces—so there’s no need for an angler to load the plug with additional weight.
Guide’s Secret currently has two series of lures in production, the Fin Chaser Series and the Shore Catch Series. The Fin Chaser series, named for Frank’s charter business, contains three topwaters, the M-80 Popper, the Striper Slider and the No. 2 Pencil, and two swimmers, the Old School Swimmer and the Bunka Boy.
The Bunka Boy is a large-profile, plastic-lip swimmer. When retrieved slowly, it has a wide wobble right on the surface, just like a wooden metal-lip plug. The Bunka Boy design was modeled after the larger Cotton Cordell Big O crankbait, which were once popular surfcasting lures, but were discontinued by Cotton Cordell. The Guide’s Secret Bunka Boy weighs in at 2 ounces and measures 6-5/8 inches.
Freshwater anglers may see a resemblance between the M-80 Popper and the Storm Rattlin’ Chug Bug. Frank took this effective lure style and super-sized it for stripers and blues. The M-80 Popper is just shy of 6 inches and weighs 2¼ ounces.
In 2011, Frank introduced the Shore Catch Series. Working closely with his friends Captain Gene Quigley and Shell E. Caris of Shore Catch Guide Service, Frank came out with six new lures, many skewed toward the surf crowd. The Shore Catch series consists of the Needle Stick, Poppa Pencil, Mucho Minnow, Skinny Minny, Bottle Pop and Baby Bottle Pop.
Captain Gene Quigley recommended a souped-up version of the well-loved, but out-of-production Megabait Swimmers, which would become the Mucho Minnow and Skinny Minny.
As Frank sought to upgrade the lure hardware, there were some unintentional, but beneficial effects on the lures’ action. The Skinny Minny, for example, was intended to float, but when Frank upgraded the hardware and added weight, the lure actually sank slowly. Before dismissing the idea and reworking the plug, Frank decided to fish it. He found that the lure didn’t fish like a traditional minnow plug, but instead acted as an excellent twitchbait. When fishing the Skinny Minny by snapping the rod tip, the lure darts from side to side with an erratic action.
At 8½ inches and 3 ounces, the Poppa Pencil is the largest plastic pencil popper on the market. Shell has used the plug with great success on the New Jersey beaches, catching stripers up to 42 pounds.
The Needle Stick is 6½ inches long and weighs 1-3/8 ounces. Anglers will notice that it has a slimmer profile than many needlefish currently being made, making it a more realistic imitation of a sand eel or spearing. The plug sinks level, an important attribute for any needlefish plug, and swims with a very subtle wiggle. While it’s already been a very productive striped bass lure, in 2012 the Guide’s Secret Needle Stick also proved itself as a false albacore magnet. “I would have thought it was too big for the albies, but my friend called me one day while out on the water and said that he was killing them with it.” Frank later tried it himself and was blown away by the explosive surface strikes of the albies on the Needle Stick.
Compared to the expansive color options available from some manufacturers, the Guide’s Secret color choices may seem spartan. Offering between four and six colors for each lure, Frank says he kept to basic colors – those that have worked best for him over the years. With a good mix of light, dark and chrome patterns, the Guide’s Secret Colors cover all the bases.
There are more good things coming from Guide’s Secret in the future as Frank works with more hardcore fishermen–including Greg Myerson, the striped bass world record holder–to develop more innovative lures and tackle.