All Goosestix are hand made and crafted from the finest quality wood. The process begins on a lathe, then sanded and sprayed by hand to give it a realistic wounded baitfish imitation.
Goosestix are especially designed for anglers seeking top water action targeting species like Giant Trevalley, tuna, billfish, grouper and snapper. Our smaller lures are for those anglers targeting predatory fish in estuarys, lagoons, flats and the surf zone. Freshwater species like tigerfish, bass, pike, perch and bream can't refuse a correctly fished Goosestix . To get the maximum results fishing a Goosestix is limited only by the anglers imagination. Using a very slow wind and twitch retrieve gives the lure a darting action leaving the lure in the strike zone for a longer period. This imitates a wounded baitfish which predators take definite advantage of. Skipping the lure across the surface is an effective way to entice a strike. If you find the Goosestix skipping out of the water too much, slow it down slightly or pause every few cranks of the reel. A softer more parabolic rod is recommended to bring the Goosestix to life causing rod bending reel screaming action. Just trawling the lure behind the boat can also be an effective way making a slow days fishing all worth it.
Our stick bait come in both floating and subsurface. The floater generally gets better results in calmer conditions, where the sub Goosestix is deadly in choppy water.
Fourteen years ago a good friend of mine, a legendary big game fisherman Johnny Harel, gave me one of his top water bass lures. Standing on the beach in Mozambique he cast out the lure showing me the "walk the dog" action his lure had and I was mesmerized by it and still am today. I started fishing his bass lure between my fly-fishing clients and was amazed at the result the little lure produced. And so my love for "walk the dog", slow retrieve stick baits came about. Over the years a few saltwater sticks became available but at crazy prices so they became prized fishing possessions. I will never forget a day on a deep pinnacle off Mozambique where I lost 3 of these prized stick baits in 3 casts, hooking Yellowfin only to be taxed by hungry Zambezi sharks.
So when Ettienne, an old hunting and fishing mate of mine said he wanted to start making a few stick baits for his own fishing expeditions, I was hot on his heels to try get some. He made us a few over weekends, which we used with great success. Ettienne Goosen, an artist in his own right, soon came up with some amazing designs and paintjobs and so the Goosestix was born.
Ettienne's first Goosestix design was the floating 110g, which worked wonders in calm conditions. He soon realized we needed a subsurface stick to fish the rougher, choppy conditions. The 90g sub surface Goosestix was created first through many horrors of sanding, grinding and weighting the lure to achieve that deadly wounded baitfish action. This led to the 130g sub and recently the 50g subsurface Goosestix which is deadly on most small saltwater and freshwater predatory fish. It is something to witness a hand crafted wooden lure come to life with the twitch of the rod tip.
Ettienne has grown with his lures and is forever studying various bait fish and trying to create the exact replica for a pelagic to chew on. All Goosestix are hand crafted and painted by Ettienne. It never ends with his creativity and passion for fishing.