Chip Cartwright from Silver Streak recently joined the Great Lakes Fishing Podcast.  Captain Matt Yablonsky from Wet Net Charters co-hosted the show with Chris Larsen from Fish Hawk Electronics.  

Chris Larsen  

Speaking of Silver Streak spoons, here's the guy. Chip Cartwright joins us now.  

Chip Cartwright  

Thanks for having me, guys.  

Chris Larsen  

Thanks for stopping by. It was pretty funny because we just said the word "Silver Streak," and you came right around the corner. That's perfect timing. Tell us about your favorite Silver Streak spoons and what you're using out on Lake Ontario.  

Matt Yablonsky  

Already, we've already talked about the Green Skirt. CJ painted it and came up with that crazy design; I think I brought its name to life.  

Chip Cartwright  

You certainly have. That's been a staple for you for quite a while out here.  

Matt Yablonsky  

It's been a great spoon. A lot of our water has color here. The water's green, and sometimes it's pea soup green. Those fluorescent colors and that bright UV that's on it: they can see it. And they can see it down deep when there's not a lot of light penetration. It's just been a great spoon. When the water gets a little clearer going into July, they kind of fade away from it. Then, we have other spoons to use. The Green Alewife has become my second favorite spoon. It's a silver, smooth back, so when you turn that spoon sideways, it kind of turns black. And then you've got a really shiny flash and then black. Flash, black; flash, black. We call it "hard to see, easy to find" because when the fish looks at it, it's like, "I can see it. I can't see it. I can see it. I can't see it." When it flashes, it gets their attention. They seem to hit that spoon hard because it's "easy to see, hard to find."  

Chip Cartwright  

I think it's the draw. I was talking with Jake and Mark(Romanack) in the booth, and we were discussing trying to draw fish into the spread. Have you ever noticed that if you've got a rotator down there, it's not taking any bites, but everything around it is going well? It hasn't had a bite, but when you pull it out of there, suddenly everything goes down. That was the draw, and then they wanted something else when they got in close. That's like the Green Skirt with the UV where we put that in our paint. The whole silver part of the spoon is the draw. It's just like glow-in-the-dark stuff. If the fish can see that at a greater distance, you're drawing more fish in. To me, fishing's a numbers game. The more I draw in, the more I can increase my odds of getting a bite: that's how I approach everything and try to get as many fish as possible in to look at everything. Not everyone will bite, but the more you draw in, your odds of getting bites increase. I think that's where the UV comes into play. You're talking about flash on the back of Green Skirts: it's just on and off, but it's an eye-catcher for the fish to draw them in.  

Matt Yablonsky  

One of my other favorite colors is the Yellowtail. There are quite a few variations of the Yellowtail. There's a double glow, which is glow in the back and glow in the front. Then, they have a glow front with a smooth silver back, and then there's also a pearl. And you've got the Antifreeze now. It's yellow and chartreuse, with a little red dot on it, but it still has a minnow look to it and a lot of silver. It's not too much color, but there's enough color to make it work. Some days, you just go from the double glow to the glow to the pearl glow and throughout as the sun goes up and down. I'm an old-school guy. I stick to the old-school stuff, but it still works. 

 

Chris Larsen  

We just got a message here from Luke Gehring. He says, "Greasy chicken wing, mag, Silver Streak is an everyday go-to here in Lake Huron." That's a message from a Michigander.

Chip Cartwright

About what Matt was pointing to: he's old-school in doing stuff. A lot of the new colors that we do are based on old colors. A lot of the new stuff this year is a Hulk pattern we've been doing for the last couple of years. The one that was good, I pre-fished all summer in Ludington; it's a Kevorkian. I just put color down the ends with some tape on the ladder-backs. It's just taking a proven color and a couple of others that are just fishing machines, and we add some color. You're taking proven stuff and just tweaking to make the new stuff that's available: add different paints and tapes and try something different.  

Matt Yablonsky  

You’ve still got to make new stuff.  

Chip Cartwright  

It's much different than when we started. It's our 41st year, and back in the mid-80s, you couldn't see six feet down in Lake Michigan. We went to the silver plating, just trying to get any kind of flash. We didn't have to run lead core then; we didn't have to do anything. I laughed when my mom was cleaning out some of my dad's stuff, and we had videotaped all our charters in the 80s. My son was watching them, and I'm like, "holy crap, it was easy then, you put five divers down, and a couple dipsies, and that's all. You were two o'clock, dead flat, and you were hammering big kings. That's all you needed. Mother Nature changes a little bit. The lakes are a lot different than then. That's why tactics are much different now. Things have changed over the years. All products are changing because new paints or new tapes are available to us. That's why things keep changing as we go along, and we try to develop new and better stuff that works a little better. The old stuff still works great. 

Matt Yablonsky  

Then you've got the UV tapes that you put over the top of some of them.  

Chip Cartwright  

We use a lot of tape but still put the UV in the clear when we clear everything. I think that helps to get the whole spoon, like the Green Skirt. Instead of just putting a piece of tape on there, do the whole thing.  

Matt Yablonsky  

Yeah, when you look at the face of that spoon in the sun and turn it, it's got a purple haze. It's a purple hue. The fish are seeing something that we aren't seeing, and in low light conditions or down deep, they can see that UV before they see other colors. 

Chip Cartwright  

You never know what the fish want, and that's why we try to test everything. You can paint up the prettiest thing when you're prototyping stuff, but it may not appeal to the fish. Forget it. Then, the God-awful ugliest thing you paint up, thinking, "Why would a fish bite this?" You can't keep it in water sometimes.  

Chris Larsen  

They have a different taste than we do. Chip, I'm really glad you came here today and jumped in when we were talking with Matt. Tell us about how you got started on this. I was talking to Trevor Sumption from Fish Hawk Electronics this morning and told him you were coming on. He's like, "Oh, you got to have him tell you how he got started. He's been doing this since he was a boy." Tell us that story and just how you got going.  

Chip Cartwright  

This all started through my dad. He started in ‘68. He got the fishing bug when we had our first big salmon runs in Michigan. No one knew how to catch kings back then. And he fished a little river up by Cheboygan called the Ocqueoc River. He and his one buddy were up there fishing. They couldn't catch a dang fish. He says he saw one when they were in the boat right by the dock, and a big King jumped right up on a beach in the freaking swamp. He said, "I dove in there with my knife in my teeth, like an alligator fighter, and wrestled out this big king." It was the first fish he ever caught. He had the bug ever since. Then I got him started, but we went through the Michigan Steelheaders. He was big into that, and then it progressed. In ‘70 or ‘71, he fished for Luhr Jensen and did a lot of stuff for those guys. He worked for Chrysler in the big layoffs in ‘78 and ‘79. He got laid off, and Eppinger hired him to run that and develop a Great Lakes market. He designed the Flutter Chuck there, then worked with them for a while until that ended in ‘83. In the fall of '83, we sold a few lures, but 1984 was the first year we started making Silver Streaks. Here we are 41 years later. He's passed away. I run it for my mom and keep it going.  

Chris Larsen  

Trevor said that you started doing this when you were 12 years old.  

Chip Cartwright  

When my dad was at Eppinger's, we'd go to the shows. I was 12 years old. I'd tie spring wigglers. I had a little bench. I sold them for a quarter. They weren't pretty, but I'd make three or four dollars. I'd buy more material and tie some more while he was selling spoons. I'd sit there on a little bench, and that was my start in the fishing business. Tying Spring Wigglers at 12 years old.  

Chris Larsen  

It's still a family business. You said you work for your mom. Did you say your sister also works there, too?  

Chip Cartwright  

She runs the office and works on all of that.  

Chris Larsen  

How has it evolved now? What do you do? What's your day-to-day?  

Chip Cartwright  

Developing new colors and just running the operations. Right now, I'm scrambling to buy brass and get stuff stamped out for this year. Working with the platers and making sure we got stuff. I've had two painters most of the time, but the second one likes to fish more than he likes to paint. He does the fill-in work, but the one great painter that's been with us for 25 years paints a ton of stuff and is really, really good at what he does. That's my day-to-day: just run the operations. I still run charters a little bit, but not many- just a few for walleye fishing. I have gone salmon fishing the last couple of years with my boat, but I don't run charters. I just have fun fishing and testing lures. Whoever says, "Oh, what was working for you today?" I'm like, "It doesn't matter. You don't have any." "What do you mean?" "You don't have that. Everything I'm running is for next year." I have no standard stuff on. I'm playing. The guys that do fish with me, the charter guys, can't always play when you got it. Your first priority is your customers. You have got to catch fish. Me. I'm just playing. If something's going good, I take it off and put the next thing down to see how it compares to what we've had in the past. Just trying to see if it's better, worse, or what's going to work, and where.  

Chris Larsen  

When you're out testing, how many times are you surprised by something working or by something that you thought would be really great but didn't work?   

Chip Cartwright  

Not a lot because after this many years, I've progressed, and now the new stuff I'm playing with is tweaks of old patterns we've developed. We've been here so long that it's hard to come up with new patterns and colors; it's just a twist on some different things. Everyone's got patterns down pretty well and is good at fish catching. Sometimes, you come up with something that's an oddball and works pretty well. Most of the time, it's just small tweaks and filling in gaps.   

   

Chris Larsen 

 

Matt, do you have a question for Chip? Is there something I didn't ask him that you're thinking of over there?   

Matt Yablonsky  

He'll send me some new stuff, and I'll try them out. They work, but I'm here to catch fish, charter-captain-wise. If it's slower, I'm still going with old faithful. I like the looks of the new stuff, and a lot of them work. There are a couple of variations of Green Skirt patterns, with green and yellow at the top and tails with UV tape on them, that catch fish, but they still don't catch fish as well as the original. Some days, they want a little different look, and then it'll go. I try to test out the newer stuff, too, and every now and then, I find one. I'll find a good one that works, and it goes right into the arsenal. I'll call him and say, "Hey, this one worked good. I need a few more of those. I think maybe you should make some more." It works out.   

Chris Larsen  

Where Matt fishes, he has a lot of green in the water. There are a lot of nutrients coming in the water and down the river, and where you're fishing is probably much clearer. How do those things differentiate what he may have tied onto the end of his line compared to what you may have tied on the end of your line?   

Chip Cartwright  

I don't pay a lot of attention to that. I go by results. For me, this summer, we had a new one. It was a twist on the old tequila sunrise. I did it with Antifreeze instead of plain paint. I put UV tape and watermelon dots on it. We had cold water. Usually, Antifreeze in Lake Michigan did okay in the spring, but it never did well in the summer. I'm in August now. And shoot, that was my hottest spoon, but normally, I would never run Antifreeze that time of year. But we had cold water. I mean, we were fishing 56 and down on the downers most of the time I was there. That was a strange deal for me. I will do a wide variety of colors in the morning, or if I don't have the information and I've been fishing in this spot a lot of days, I just try to narrow down what colors work. Everybody's different. What works great for Matt may not work for others. He's got a good buddy who only orders plain Antifreeze spoons. Puts his own tape on them and does his own thing, but that's all he freaking runs out here. Works great for him. That's not a great seller for me mid-summer, but that's why there are so many colors; everybody has a different opinion.     

Matt Yablonsky  

Kurt's one of those old-school guys, too. He's got boxes of tape that are this high. He's got every ladderback known to man. He's got scallops and eyes that I've never seen. He takes the Antifreeze and puts some orange tape on them. Some have orange and green. He'll parallel, especially early in the morning when it's dark. Kurt also fishes on a lot of afternoon trips. That last light bite, when you're fishing half an hour or 45 minutes before dark, and your fish finder screen is blank. All of a sudden, it's just like a Christmas tree in how it lights up. He puts that Antifreeze down if he's having a slow day; the last 15 minutes, boom, he’ll fill the boat using the Antifreeze Silver Streaks. He's got his own program. He does his own thing. He and I work together a lot. The Green Alewife is one of my favorites, but he'll put those on a little higher than those Antifreeze, and they fire right along with them. He does his own thing. 

Chris Larsen  

Well, we have a question here. Somebody wants to know what Chip's thing is. Scott Makowsky says, "Chip if you had to pick one go-to spoon for Ludington in the summer, what would it be?"   

Chip Cartwright  

Oh, that's a hard question.  

Chris Larsen  

It's limiting you to one.  

Chip Cartwright  

Are you fishing early in the morning or late? Because it changes. It makes a difference.    

Chris Larsen  

Well, let's hear your morning spoon and then your midday spoon.     

Chip Cartwright  

Well, I'm an old Hot Lobster fan. That is a good one, which is a glow spoon. It was always good for me. But, if you're going to go there, the Blue Dolphin with a glow back gives you the best of both worlds. I mean, you can't go wrong. That one's been good for 30 years. I made a bunch of new patterns off the Blue and Green Dolphins, which has been really good. If I had to pick one, it would be a Blue Dolphin with a glow back, which gives you the best of both worlds if you're fishing early or midday.   

Chris Larsen  

All right, you come up with new patterns and colors every year. What happens? Do some get discontinued every year?    

Chip Cartwright  

If they don't sell well for two years, they get washed away. Some say, "Oh, that was my favorite bait." Well, I never forget how to paint. I can still make them. I can't store them all if they don't sell enough. In 41 years, we've had thousands of colors. We can't expect to store them. There are only so many pegs on the wall. You can't carry everything. 

You get to a point where maybe one's not selling that much. And like you say, it's not that it's a bad one. It's just that, for whatever reason, it didn't catch on. It often comes down to having a cool name, or maybe that spoon catches fish, but for some reason, when it sits on a peg in somebody's shop, it doesn't catch the eye.  

Well, the big thing now is how things have changed since we started. Back then, it was all about word of mouth and Marine radio. No one uses Marine radio anymore. You're texting your buddies or in online chat rooms. That drives a lot of sales. If you get the press talking about colors, that's easily converted into store sales. You can see it. I can watch the boards and see what they're talking about, and then two days later, the orders come in. That drives a lot of it nowadays. That's how people get their information. I hear it all the time at these shows; people say, "Sell me the one that's going to work." I'm like, "Which one are you going to run? Everything catches a fish; it depends on how long you want to drag it around before it catches a fish."  

Matt Yablonsky  

There's a spoon you made years ago and sent to me with a bunch of new stuff called Kato. The first time I ran it, nothing, nothing, nothing. Then we were out one day, and it was flat, calm, with a high sun and gin-clear water. I put that spoon down, and it instantly fired. Then I put it back down, and it instantly fired again. I had one mag and one standard. Before I lost that original one, I took a picture of it, sent it to him, and said, "I need more of these." He goes, "Really?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "I don't know its name, but that's Kato." It's a metallic green spoon and a very shiny green. It's got some dots on it, a little glow eye, like a little glow pan eye, and it's very unique. When the fish want it, they will pick it out of the spread no matter where it's at. Doesn't matter if it's at 30 feet or 60 feet, but when there's high sun, flat and gin clear water, the brighter stuff, the glow stuff, the Green Skirt, the yellow, they're not bit, but that one just fires. Every now and then, you get something that's different and unique.   

Chris Larsen  

Chip, one more question here from the audience. Martin wants to know, "Do you think the spring king run around Manistee and Ludington will be a little later this year with the colder winter weather?"    

Chip Cartwright  

It depends on how fast the lake will warm up with this cold winter and how long it will hold on. We'll see how fast we can get into Michigan City, start that spring coho, and get the kings going. In Lake Michigan now, weather patterns or wind patterns drive it more. It's driving the bait on our side or the Wisconsin side. We had good winds and steady weather patterns all summer for us. We kept the cool water on our side. The bait stayed in close. I just ran south and played with them; we had a great coho fishery. I played in the coho all year until the last week, when we did a video with Ross(Robertson). He said, "I just want some big kings." I pulled an old Jerry Lee. I went right around the pier head in 50 feet of water and pointed north.     

Chris Larsen  

I wanted to talk about one other thing briefly because we're coming up on our next guest. You guys have four different sizes. We've been talking about a lot of colors here, but how about the sizes and how they differentiate throughout your line?      

Chip Cartwright  

Well, we do the Juniors, the Minis, the Silver Streaks, and the Mags. Juniors are mainly for walleye. I've got a few guys running them for lake trout and tying cowbells. That's a unique situation. The Minis are a great spring king bait or walleye bait. We used to sell way more mags than we did Silver Streak size. Last year, we sold more Silver Streaks, so we're starting to downsize that spoon size. I know a couple of guys from Northern Lake, Michigan, who were running all mags that are running mostly streak size now. Times change, and the size changes. It's what you have in the water more often.    

Chris Larsen  

Those usually catch more for you.    

Chip Cartwright  

You have to have them in the water to catch fish.  

Chris Larsen  

Well, Chip, I really appreciate you stopping by and talking to us. It was a lot of fun.  

Chip Cartwright  

Thank you.