I was working as a bookkeeper during the day and making jigs in my kitchen at night. I would mold the heads on the stove one night and tie 'em up the next night.

Paul Amos died years ago, but he took a liking to me back then and started cutting molds for me until we got one we liked.

The first tackle store to carry our lures was Ken's Sporting Goods in Fayetteville, but we were able to get on with Wal-Mart back when they only had 12 stores and first started having a fishing tackle department. I guess we are one of the oldest of Wal-Mart tackle vendors, but they have been awfully good to us.

I've been lucky these days to have my brother Skip come up and run the company while I do the hard part, which is the fishing.

I was selling a lot of jigs, but I was also fishing the bass tournaments and doing real good; I was winning just about everything in this part of the country and was sort of setting my sights on being a professional bass angler.