The Barra Snax Is Not A Sexy Lure?

The Barra Snax is not a sexy lure!

But, as we like to say at Old Dog it has a pedigree as long as your arm. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye and it can be used in many different ways:

• it can be trolled (which is what it was originally designed for)
• it is a sinking lure so you can allow it to sink and then jig it (very effective)
• it can be cast at the snags of course,

Back in the day, I lost forty in one weekend jigging the snags in a creek north of Townsville. As a result, a friend had this cartoon drawn for me.

The back story of the Barra Snax aka 3" Barra Bait

I first made the Barra Snax (aka the 3" Barra Bait) back in 1986 - yeah yeah I know you weren't even born then right - but I'm sure many of you were and will know of its heritage. It was probably the third commercial type lure I produced.
Anyway, that same year, the family and I went on a holiday to the Northern Territory to see if what we had been reading in the fishing magazines was true! We were going the stay with George Voukolos, the owner of the famous Fishing & Outdoor World in Darwin. We had never met George or the Voukolos family face to face although we had been selling our lures through their shop for a couple of years.
Anyway to cut a long story short we had made 500 of the 3" Barra Bait lures and had packed them in the back of the car just in case..... After a day or so I showed the 3" Barra Bait to George & Greg Chan and they said "you won't sell these up here (the NT).....? We were planning a trip to Corroboree Billabong and they said "they won't work down there the only lure working down there is the Nilsmaster Spearhead in blue & white"....mmm OK ....not off to a good start. Incidentally, I had designed them to compete with the Nilsmaster Spearhead! Anyway, we cleaned up and the 500 x 3" Bait Bait lures did not make the return trip to Townsville. This lure pathed the way and gave us so many new opportunities in and out of the water - but that's another story! It was the beginning of our journey into the real, commercial world of lure making. For this reason, I will always have a soft spot for this lure. In the true sense of the word maybe it is pure-bred sexy what do you think?

Boy, many years have passed since the trip to the Territory with my family.