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Sharp Eye Swimmer

Greenpoint Tackle Company
Brooklyn NY
www.greenpointtackle.com
info@greenpointtackle.com
917.757.7493

By Jimmy Fee

Of all the custom wood striper plugs on the market today, the overwhelming majority are made on a lathe. The plug builders take a wooden block, lock it into the lathe, and, when the block begins to turn, the builders use tools to shave down the spinning block to create their desired profile. For Kevin Gledhill, operating a lathe in his New York apartment wasn’t an option, both because of the noise and the mess it would make. Nevertheless, Gledhill still wanted to make and fish with his own plugs.

Through online plug-building communities, Gledhill connected with a man by the name of Gary Hull. Hull, who lost his battle with cancer in 2008, made lures by hand, carving them out of blocks of wood and fitting them with metal lips to give them a seductive swimming motion. The Gary2 plugs were extremely popular with striper fishermen up and down the surf. Inspired by Hull’s works, Gledhill set out to carve his own plugs.

Gledhill sought advice from Hull and landed on an asymmetrical, minnow-style plug design. The design he created in his New York apartment was one that plug builders using a lathe to shape their plugs would be unable to achieve.

After settling on the shape of the lure, Gledhill began designing a metal lip to make it swim. This proved to be the toughest part of the process.
“I was cutting the metal lips by hand, and I went through quite a few of them without finding one I liked. Gary [Hull] told me that it’s not about getting your plugs to swim just like other builders’ plugs; it’s about getting them to swim the way I wanted them to, the way that looked right to me.”

At one point, Gledhill’s custom wooden plug collection consisted of over 800 lures from such popular makers as Habs, Beachmaster, RM Smith and, of course, Gary2. “I fished all the lures in my collection, and I got a good idea of each plug’s swimming action and style, which helped me figure out what to look for in my own.”

Eventually, Gledhill landed on a lip design that gave the lures the action he was looking for. “The lures swam a little differently than other minnow-style plugs. Mine have a wider tail kick.” Gledhill also learned that his lures could hold their own in a heavy current without rolling out to the side. This was unique among minnow-style plugs, which generally do not handle heavy current very well. Gledhill’s design was able to fish and catch effectively in the fast-moving water that big stripers love.

The lure would come to be named the Sharp Eye Swimmer, after the signature cut-out Gledhill makes right in front of the eye of each plug. “I was adding the eyes to one of my plugs and accidentally took a chip out of it. I thought it looked pretty cool, so I made the same cut on the other side of the plug. Later, when I showed it to one of my friends, they told me I should do it to all of my plugs, that it could be my ‘signature move.’”

At first, Gledhill was just making the plugs for himself and a few friends, but when he posted pictures of his creations online, there was immediate interest among other fishermen. Pretty soon, he was receiving offers from anglers who wanted to to trade for and purchase his lures. The call was strong enough that by 2008, Gledhill was offering his plugs for sale on his own website and at a few tackle shops under the name Hand-Carved Lures.
What allowed Kevin to produce the lures on a commercial level was a CNC Machine that duplicated the asymmetrical Sharp Eye Profile and removed the need for Kevin to carve the lures by hand out of a block of wood.

Hand-Carved Lures has since added two new partners and a new name. Known now as Greenpoint Tackle, Gledhill brought on two other fishermen, Brad Smith and Peter Sillen, to help him create Sharp Eye Swimmers and a whole line of wooden lures. “I could begin making these lures out of plastic,” Gledhill said, “but I like to think of Greenpoint Tackle as an ‘old school’ company that makes plugs the way surfcasters have for generations, out of wood.”

Despite the obvious similarities between the style of a Sharp Eye Swimmer and plastic minnow-style plugs, there are a few important differences. For one, the solid wood Sharp Eye Swimmer casts much farther than hollow-plastic models. The Sharp Eye also swims with a much more pronounced tail kick than plastic-lipped swimmers, thanks to both the buoyancy of wood and the unique, laser-cut metal lip. The lip’s design also helps the plug stay upright and swimming in heavy currents that would cause plastic minnow baits to roll onto their side.

The lures are available at a number of shops from New Jersey to Martha’s Vineyard, as well as on Greenpoint Tackle’s website. If you go to order your own Sharp Eye on the web, you’ll notice that under popular colors such as “wonderbread” and “schoolbus,” there is an option for a custom color. “I paint all the plugs with an airbrush,” Gledhill says, “so if guys want a custom color, whether it’s a small variation, a pattern from another lure or just a personally thought up concoction, I can paint that up for them.”

Despite its relatively short time on the market, the Greenpoint Tackle Sharp Eye Swimmer’s popularity with fishermen may only be overshadowed by its popularity with fish. The lures are unique in that they offer a small-lure profile with a big-lure action, which really seems to drive stripers nuts.