By Carol Stiffler
Noah Bentley is a tall young man who, at age 18, has accomplished what seems like a lifetime of work.
He completed a boat-building internship at age 10. He spent a summer as a teen working at a metal forge on Mackinac Island. He started his own business making fish lures. He published a cookbook with his own recipes. He sings. He taught himself to play guitar. He learns, learns, and learns – supported by his photographic memory. And he is unfailingly polite.
Bentley is the son of Jennifer Earls, who works from home and is essentially also a business partner for Noah. They live in Curtis. She supports his broad interests, getting him those internships and bringing him into contact with people who can teach him what he wants to know.
“His name is Noah, and he did a wood boat building internship with all hand tools. I just had to laugh at how awesome that was,” said Earls, delighted with the parallels between her Noah and the one in the Bible.
We’ll leave that there for now.
Bentley is currently focused on fishing. He’d like to fish every day, though he doesn’t always get to. In the summer, though, he fishes early and often. Bentley says he goes fishing an average of “2.3 times per day” in the summer.
You can trust him when he makes precise declarations – photographic brain and all that. He knows what he saw.
Bentley is the proud owner of Bentley’s Baits, a business he established to make and market his own fishing baits. Studying fish while fishing for them, he observed what colors and movements they were interested in. He watched how they interacted with the lures his friends used. Then he got to work to make something better.
“My baits are known for their action. They have an insane amount of movement, and fish feel the vibration because of how much they move in the water. That comes from my plastisol blend,” he said. “It’s a trade secret, but when you create your plastisol and you use your colors and stuff, that changes the way that the bait moves.”
Bentley almost always releases whatever he catches, even when it’s a personal best. He doesn’t eat much fish – he’s actually allergic to some kinds of fish – and he prefers to return them to the water.
Bentley sells custom fishing trip bait packages. Customers tell him which lakes they’re visiting and what they want to catch, and he outfits them with lures specific to those lakes and those fish.
“My slick shiners mimic what is called a ‘shiner minnow’ up here so perfectly with the tail movement that it’s almost like the trout crack for small mouth [bass] because it looks so similar they shoot from feet away into the direction of my baits if the water is clear enough,” he said. “I would call that a predatory reaction.”
His lures come in a variety of precise colors, and his most recent colorway is similar to the color of bloodworms. He doesn’t have a name for the color yet and would love to hear suggested names from readers. If you want to reach out, he’s available on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and at his own website, bentleysbaits.com.
He’s in a testing phase for winter lures, his mom said.
“This is the first time he’s been able to test what he has with ice fishing stuff,” she said. “We’re in a lot of testing phases, seeing what colors, seeing what styles [work best]. He’s got some new molds and stuff coming on the way, so there’ll be new stuff on the website.
Bentley admits he’s a renaissance man, though he doesn’t necessarily want to wear the label. He prefers to travel through Curtis on foot. Perhaps you’ve seen the tall teen, often wearing brown, carrying a fishing pole. He’s never on his phone; you’d think he doesn’t have one, but he does. Watching him walk or ride his bike across town carrying his fishing pole and tackle looks like a blast from the past. Do kids do that these days? Noah does.
“I personally always said I was born in the wrong generation,” Bentley said.
Bentley also likes to spend time in the kitchen, and he’s developed a collection of recipes for snacks and comfort foods. He turned them into a cookbook, which was published on December 3, 2025.
