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Nichols Still Luring In The Big Fish With His Plastic Baits

OUTDOORS COLUMN

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By FRANK SARGEANT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

Mark Nichols, not so many years ago, was a happy-go-lucky guy who lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Stuart, bicycled everywhere he wanted to go rather than driving, and did his fishing by wading because he didn't own a boat.

When the mood struck him, he'd hitch a ride with sailboating friends and head down into the Caribbean for a few weeks.

While some might think that's a hard existence to improve upon, Nichols' life has changed, rather dramatically, since then. It started when he began molding exceptionally life-like shrimp and mullet from soft plastic to improve his fishing action on the big trout and snook of the Indian River, and before long he had the lures near perfection.

"There were a lot of plastic shrimp, but none of them rode upright in the water, and a lot of them just weren't that realistic," Nichols said. "I thought the closer I could get to the real thing, the better, and that proved to be true."

In fact, they were so good that everybody who went fishing with Nichols wanted to buy some of the lures. He founded a company, and the rest is history.

Of course, his happy-go-lucky life is also history, but that's the price of success.

His DOA (Dead On Arrival) Lure company is one of the most respected artificial lure manufacturing operations in the country today, and he has sold literally millions of the original shrimp and mullet, as well as countless jigs from a secondary company he founded, CAL. We won't be able to tell you what the acronym stands for in this case here in the paper.

The shrimp is available in a variety of sizes, but the 3- and 4-inch models are most successful.

"The trick on fishing these lures is basically to just think of them as a live shrimp, but one that the pinfish won't steal," Nichols said. "If you fish them exactly like a live shrimp, you are going to catch fish, particularly in the winter in the rivers and potholes."

Basically, the trick in moving water is to cast the lures uptide and let the motion of the water swing them next to docks, riprap, mangrove shorelines and the like. In still water like that found in potholes, the lure is simply crawled across bottom, literally at a snail's pace, as though it's a shrimp walking along on the sand.

When a hit comes, it's usually just a light tap on the line. That's the signal to set the hook, and most of the time you reel in the fish; the soft plastic of the lures rarely results in rejection. Most anglers who fish DOAs regularly rely on light spinning gear and microfiber line, which transmits the light bites much more clearly than stretchy monofilament.

Nichols' plastic mullet, named the Baitbuster, has proven an outstanding lure for large snook and big trout in winter, and it's also great for tarpon in summer. Nichols fishes the famed Crossroads area around St. Lucie Inlet, and routinely lands trout of 7 to 9 pounds there, as well as snook approaching 20 pounds. Anglers in the Bay area rarely see either species in these sizes, but the mullet works well for trout over 3 pounds and for snook of any size.

The mullet is fished a bit differently, typically with a pull-and-drop retrieve. Again, the action is much slower than with a jig; the idea is to imitate the motion of a live finger mullet. Nichols makes the mullet in both a shallow-water version, with minimal lead, and a deep sinker with lots of lead on the hook, typically used where water is 6 feet or deeper.

Both lures are designed to slide up the line when a fish takes. This helps prevent them from throwing the hook. When the fish is released, the lure can be put back in place and fished again; a single shrimp is usually good for five or six fish, and some anglers extend the life by gluing the hook in with cycolac type instant glue. DOA sells the shrimp in packs of three, so you can have replacements.

Nichols brings his expertise and his latest lure designs to Tightlines Tackle, 6924 N. Armenia Ave. in Tampa, on Thursday at 7 p.m; (813) 932-4721. The free seminar covers not only Nichols' products but also the habitat and habits of inshore fish likely to be caught in the Bay area in winter.

SEMINAR: Captain Richard Seward, one-time commercial trout angler and now one of the state's leading conservationists, joins captain Mel Berman of WFLA, 970 AM, for a clinic on big winter trout Dec. 5, at Toyota of Tampa Bay, 1101 E. Fletcher Ave. in Tampa. Guests get free snacks and door prizes; (866) 438-8696.

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