4/4/1999

Reeling it in

Two Westmoreland County men take fishing to heart with inventions

By Genna McLaughlin

FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Bill Steffey takes the disbelievers fishing.

He hands them his latest lure and watches as they reel in fish - steelhead, walleye, salmon - one after another.

That's when they bite, when they buy his line about thinking like a fish and, with it, all the nickel-plated pieces of brass he has with him.

Most times, he returns empty-handed, and smiling, to the garage-turned-office connected to his North Huntingdon Township duplex, to an old wooden table and a rickety chair where he begins the next batch.

Thirty-five years in the lure business and he still runs into people who doubt his "hunks of metal" can catch fish.

The way to prove it, says the 80-year-old, is to show them.

That's what he did with business partner Brian Selai. Five years ago, Selai took Steffey's lures up to Lake Erie to try them out on his charter boat. He returned and created a partnership in the business. He promotes Steffey's lures while on 60 to 80 charter trips a year on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

"If you're running a charter boat you want the best," said Selai, of Elizabeth, Allegheny County. "These are quality products."

They weren't always, Steffey says. Forty years ago they were one fisherman's dream of better lures, that swam like fish and looked like small bait 20 feet under the surface.

They materialized after Steffey's retirement - first as stainless steel that rusted, then aluminum that wouldn't sink. Finally, nickel-plated brass decorated with iridescent stickers reeled in customers.

"I'm proud of these products because they catch fish," Steffey says as he lines up rows of his latest success, the Zoom Spoon lure with double hooks. "They really, really catch fish."

The proof hangs on the walls of the small garage - pictures of proud fishermen and the fish they lured to the hook with a Steffey product.

"I try to think like a fish when I'm making a new lure," Steffey says.

Even now when he fishes, he's watching the way fish swim, what attracts their attention, what they like to eat.

The Zoom Spoon came about on one such fishing trip. It's designed to move like a small fish in the current. It comes in different colors for water depths and clarity. Its double hooks hold two live baits for longer fishing.

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Orders

To order lures from Steffey's Lures in North Huntingdon Township, call (724) 863-6812. Lures range in price from $2 to $4.25.

Barry Reeger photo