Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - November/December 2020 - 43

gear. At 12 years old, I did not know a lot about marketing,
but now my fishing lure business can afford me to buy a
bigger and better boat each year."
In 2002, Eshbaugh fished as a co-angler in a few Walleye
tournaments, and he did well. "I was the first professional
Walleye tour angler in Pennsylvania. I was on tour for 15
years, and when I retired from professional Walleye fishing,
I was ranked fourteenth in the nation."
Eshbaugh's training in art and fine arts and his love for
fishing led him to painting fishing lures. During the last few
years, he has painted over 75,000 lures, selling these lures
under Dutch Fork Custom Lures.
There are two facets to Dutch Fork Custom Lures.
They will recreate lures no longer produced for individual
anglers, and they provide a line of unique designs.
"Especially bass anglers will send us a lure, and we can
recreate one or a hundred," said Eshbaugh.
"I also saw an opportunity to make spinner blades out
of plastic," said Eshbaugh. "Every blade manufacturer
made their blades out of metal. I wanted something that
would spin slowly and not sink to the bottom, so I decided
to try plastic." He handed me a few feather-weight blades
and explained that their design would spin easily, because
every plastic blade is half the weight of a metal blade of
the same size. Some remain transparent, while others are
sprayed metallic.
"The plastic blades are a favorite of anglers who fish
structure and weeds. Anglers put it directly on top of the
weeds and pull it slow, because the blades spin at just 4
miles-per-hour. It takes a metal blade at least 7 miles-perhour to spin," said Eshbaugh.
When I asked Eshbaugh about the durability of his
plastic blades, he said, "Break one of those in your hand." I
could not break it. And he added, "The color embedded in
the plastic will not come off either."
"Most sporting good stores will take a few different
colors, but right now, in stock, we have about 450 active
SKUs. There are 12 different size blades, offered in 82
colors, and all blades and components are manufactured in
America except for the clevises," said Eshbaugh.

Trained as a fine artist, Keith Eshbaugh uses his talent to
custom paint fishing lures.

"Our number one selling blade right now is a blade I
developed, called a butterfly blade," said Eshbaugh. "So far, it
has caught 18 different species of fish."
"You can troll the Butterfly Blade down to a quarter of a
mile an hour, and it will spin. It comes packaged with three
beads, two hooks, and the butterfly blade on 48 inches of
leader," said Eshbaugh.
From his manufacturing site in Cochranton, Crawford
County, Eshbaugh also runs Dutch Fork Fishing Charters
on Lake Erie.
They are so busy
producing lures
that Eshbaugh has
little time to devote
to fine art wildlife
painting. "But that
is what I am saving
to do when I retire,"
said Eshbaugh.

Dutch Fork Custom
Lures are found in
many mom-and-pop
stores, major tackle
outfitters in the
United States and
Canada, and online.
Keith Eshbaugh designed the single and double Quik Change
Clevis for ease of blade change out and performance. It is called
the "No Loss" blade system for inline crawler harnesses. The
partially transparent Ghost Blade in the Pink Scale pattern is
attached to the single clevis.
www.fishandboat.com 		

Dutch Fork Custom Lures
www.dutchforkcustomlures.com
www.dutchforkcharters.com

Pennsylvania Angler & Boater * November/December 2020

43
http://www.dutchforkcustomlures.com http://www.dutchforkcharters.com http://www.fishandboat.com
Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - November/December 2020

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