No joking: Recycled Booze Bait catches bass

CHAPEL HILL -- Page Skelton was relieved.

The top-water bass plug he fashioned out of a wine cork and beer bottle cap finally had produced a largemouth bass as the sky darkened on a September evening.

It didn't matter that the fish was little. Skelton needed evidence to back up the dozens of pictures on Facebook of bass with his creation, the Booze Bait, hanging from their lips.

Skelton is selling these things, which bring to mind those tubular crank baits Heddon Lure Co. made in the likeness of Coors and Budweiser cans.

But the Booze Bait's action -- side to side or jerked for a loud pop -- are more reminiscent of that classic top-water plug, the Arbogast Jitterbug.

"I shy away from using that name," Skelton said before setting out for an evening of pond fishing. He snatched up the pair of bottle caps after sharing a cold one and declared, "We save those."

Skelton's wife, Caroline, motioned to the bags of corks and bottle caps on the dining room table.

"I was surprised at how many friends gave us their corks and caps," she said.

Later, out on the pond, Skelton explained that his wife works in marketing.

"When I get the green light from her, it's a really big deal," he said. "She likes the extremely low overhead."

This isn't his first entrepreneurial venture. He quit his job at MCI about five years ago to focus on his Cackalacky Spice Sauce, a sauce that sells in respectable quantities over the Internet and in select food stores and has won awards.

Skelton, 41, grew up in Missouri. He has fished since he was a kid but never used top-water baits for bass much until a fishing buddy got him started a few years ago.

But he was hanging expensive baits in the loblolly pines lining one of the ponds and wanted a cheaper alternative.

"I was trying to think about something I had around the house that floated," said Skelton.

With glue, random hardware and plastic eyes from Michaels craft store, he quickly had a prototype, which caught six bass on its first outing, he said.

The bait sells for $5.69 via PayPal on www.boozebait.com, where a handful of testimonials are tempered with humor.

Ken White, an outdoors writer from Missouri, said he figured the lure worked.

"I took it to a pond and caught a nice bass on my first cast, so I know it works," White said recently when reached by phone.

Other testimonials poked fun at the bait.

"Some of the people that are buying -- this is what breaks my heart," Skelton said with large grin. "They're buying it as a gag."

That's why he has posted all those pictures on the Internet.

"There ain't nobody that's going to believe," he said.

So Skelton was getting a little anxious when all that seemed interested in his bait were a couple of large snapping turtles and some bream and a small bass that rejected the bait on second thought.

The sun went down, and bats circled the pond.

"The bats are great," Skelon said, making a pitch for a little more time. "That's when the bass really hit."

Not much later, at 8:07 p.m., he grunted at the end of a retrieve and yanked an 8-inch bass out of the pond.

"We got the monster bass," he said, joking. "It might be the smallest bass I've ever caught!"

But he had proof.