By Carol Stiffler
They say timing is everything. The right timing, and the right product, can change lives.
That’s what happened for Mason and Rachel McDaniel of Germfask, who turned a hobby into a full-time business that supports their family and is positioned to take the fishing lure world by storm.
Mason has been fishing since he was 3 years old. Now 33, he’s been fishing for decades. During the week, he used to do roadwork for Payne & Dolan and Bacco Construction Company. On the weekend, he and his wife, later with their kids, too, went fishing.
But there’s no road construction in the winter, and Mason had free time.
“We always get laid off in the winter,” he said. “I just started painting some lures and caught a ton of fish on them.”
He was going after big fish in the Great Lakes – salmon and trout. He once caught a 28-pound salmon using one of his own lures.
When Mason shared lures with his friends, and they caught fish, they told him to start selling those lures. So Mason and Rachel began developing them as a commercial, hobby-scale venture.
Around that time, a popular lure company sold to a new owner, who moved production to China. Quality plummeted, and suddenly the lure market had a big opening for a new vendor.
Enter Mr. Chrome Lures.
Mason and Rachel had developed their own glow-in-the-dark paint formula that glows brighter and longer than other paints. They created dozens of unique patterns to lure fish in and made lures in regular and “magnum” lengths. They also designed fish “blades” that travel ahead of the lure as a decoy.
The McDaniels care very much about quality and it shows. Their lures have the look of factory precision, and all but the physical shaping is done by hand.
Mason adds each design by hand. Eyes, spots, stripes, and the works — with about 60 different styles. Then they attach the metal loops and hooks by hand and seal each lure in its display box.
They’ve streamlined the process – Rachel says they get a little faster every day – and have about 7,000 lures in production at a time. All from their Germfask garage.
March through September is insanely busy for them–too busy for them to go fishing–and business is so good they have both left their jobs to do Mr. Chrome Lures full time. Mason left his three years ago, and Rachel joined him full-time one year ago.
They have friends in the fishing industry and they essentially went viral in the best way.
“They hold up a lot better than most lures,” Mason said. “We’ve kind of perfected the durability.”
Their products sell online at mrchromelures.com and in stores. Their lures can be found in about 40 stores, including Fish & Hunt Shop in Curtis.
When they create branded apparel – often a black fabric with their shiny chrome logo – the pieces sell out in a jiffy.
“We can’t keep them in stock,” Rachel said.
Rachel says they’re at maximum output at the moment, and if their products break into the Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops marketplaces, they’ll be forced to upscale production.
Eventually they hope to be located closer to Manistique and the open fishing waters of Lake Michigan. But they won’t leave the U.P. Their roots are here, and they’re hooked.
