The Pineville
couple have what may prove to be the invention of the
decade on their hands in The Bait Pump. Fishermen in
and around their hometown have started proving that
and, as the injector system went into stores in May,
others will get a chance to try them out for bass and
sac-a-lait.
It’s a clean, tough and durable way
to mash crappie nibbles, catfish dough or other substances,
such as natural bait like shrimp or crawfish, and shoot
the paste into soft plastics like tube jigs and plastic
worms.
Anna’s displeasure with the way crappie
nibbles got so messy, especially after spilling into
the boat and creating a goo, led to the light bulb going
on for Randy.
The computer programmer has been called
on to write programs for others, which he did once at
the request of a friend in Jena who wanted to make a
duck call, she said. They settled on acrylic for the
body.
“He (Randy) saw it and knew
acrylic would be perfect,” Anna said.
But the shape took a while to design.
“Being the engineer he is, he
knew it’d take a thread design to make that thick paste
because whenever you put crappie nibbles into a pump
and start turning the threads it turns them into a paste,
actually mashing them. But whenever you’d try to put
them into a turkey injector, it wouldn’t come out,”
she said.
“When the thread design in acrylic
worked perfect, he used it for a while to see if it
makes a difference getting bites,” she said.
He started making extra ones in Jena
and giving them to fishing buddies, who raved over the
pump, Anna said. He made and sold about 200, and realized
he had something special for fishermen, she said.
The bass pump can inject shrimp into
artificial cocahoes for speckled trout fishing, she
said. “We’re trying to get them into fishermen’s hands.
We’re trying to get them in as many stores as we can,”
she said.
So far, the couple have sunk about
$7,000 into the venture, according to Anna.
“We believe it’s worth it. It’ll
be useful for every fisherman’s tacklebox,” she said.
She was proud of the enterprise they
have shown. She also emphasized that her husband is
an ordinary Louisiana fisherman who has manufactured
this product for fishermen in Louisiana.
And they are expanding the line already.
Randy went to Jena the first Sunday
of May, she said, and produced a model that can be used
for offshore fishing. It pumps chopped up shad into
an artificial lure, she said.
“We’re going to hit every industry
with this,” she said and added one of the targets is
trout fishing up North. They have been told the trout
fishing industry is bigger than the bass and sac-a-lait
industry combined, she said.
By the way, she said, late last summer
she got a certain amount of revenge on her husband while
they were bass fishing at Toledo Bend. He thought he
was getting bream bites — you know, that tell-tale tat-tat
— but she began injecting her favorite paste into the
egg sacs of plastic worms they were using, and starting
catching bass after bass right behind him.
She said The Bait Pumps can be cleaned
easily by soaking them in a cup of soapy water.
“Well, what it is, the Crappie
Nibbles get a little dry, like they do in the bottle.
We’ll clean ours,” she said, “but we don’t clean them
that often. When you deal with shrimp or crawfish, you
would want to clean it after each trip.”
The Hulins haven’t mashed shrimp or
crawfish themselves, she said, but others have with
success. Peel the shell off before putting it into the
pump, she advised.
She likes to put the paste into tube
jigs for crappie and plastic worms and soft plastic
jerkbaits for bass. For the latter, she said, leave
a little hanging out of the hole and some of the rest
oozes out.
“I did it with Flukes a couple
weeks ago. Those bass just weren’t taking it ... they
were swallowing it,” she said.
One bass fisherman who won’t leave
home without it, she said, is her friend, Jonell Whitstine
of Alexandria, a veteran and accomplished angler with
the Women’s Bass Fishing Assocaition.
Anna said a couple drops of lake water
help soften the mash if it’s too dry. Also, a liquid
fish attractant does the same moisturizing job and adds
more scent, she said, adding she prefers garlic-flavored
Kickin’ Bass put out by Kenneth Kross.
How to use it? Put whatever substance
you want to use, up to the threads ,replace the plunger
and turn clockwise until the paste reaches the nozzle.
Insert the nozzle end into a tube or soft plastic and
fill with the desired amount of paste. After injecting,
turn the plunger counterclockwise one-half turn to release
the pressure and avoid waste.
For more information on The Bait Pump, contact Info
