Laceration Lures
Manufacturing tackle came somewhat by accident to Raleigh’s Joey Massey, but demand for his custom big game lures eventually led him into full-time production under the Laceration Lures handle, a name alluding to the series of events that spawned the business.
“In 2010 I was trolling and lost my shotgun lure to another boat,” Massey explained. “When I came back home I couldn’t find a replacement I liked but I was building a boat at the time and had a lot of resin on hand so I figured I’d try and make one.”
His new creation proved effective on its first trip into the water, attracting the eye of a hungry wahoo. The lure wasn’t the only thing that met the fish’s sharp teeth, however, as its open mouth found Massey’s leg after it came aboard.
“That fish got me in the ankle,” the lure maker continued. “And the doctor said I couldn’t walk for a month and a half. So I sat around making lures and people started asking for them.”
Massey’s creations follow in the Hawaiian tradition of skirted lures based around translucent heads with iridescent shell inserts, which give a three-dimensional “live” look that can’t be matched by other materials. Key to the lure’s beauty and success, Massey sources his shell material from a sole supplier in Hawaii.
“He’s got 30-40 different kinds of shellfish he uses in about 800 colors,” he explained. “It’s all AAA, jewelry-grade material.”
Not content only to make the heads of his lures, Massey makes the plastic skirts as well, and the wide variety of hues available perfectly complement the beautifully detailed heads.
Responding to the big demand for lures to be fished atop ballyhoo or other natural baits, Massey also skirts select lures with fiber “hair,” and the hair lures have proved highly effective on blue marlin and giant bluefin tuna along with all the smaller gamefish of the blue water.
His current stable of models features Mini, Small, Medium, and Large lures with a variety of head styles, so there are models appropriate for everything from dolphin and picky blackfin tuna to grander bluefins and marlin. The Tailwalker, an even larger offering, is designed as a hookless teaser to pull those larger fish into a boat’s spread.
New for 2015, Massey is bringing out more smaller skirts designed to minimize washout of natural baits and multi-colored hair skirt options.
“The new hair is cool,” he added. “We can do stripes and multi-colors, including a new rainbow color that looks just like a plastic rainbow skirt.”
Anglers can learn more about his lures at www.lacerationlures.com (with a brand new website also in the works for 2015) and find them for sale at Capt. Joe’s Bait and Tackle in Atlantic Beach, EZ Bait and Tackle in Goldsboro, or online at Tackle Direct and Tournament Cable’s websites.
