Bud Stewart -King Luremaker

Bud Stewart–King Luremaker (Michigan’s Legend)

coffee table book of Bud’s fishing lure lore and photos

by Raymond Carver & Frank Baron

comments by Jeff Potter

I’m not a fishing lure collector. There’s only one I really like. As art. The Bud Stewart. The national lure collecting club guys look at me a little funny: don’t I want to join and attend? No, I just want a fine old Bud Stewart, thanks. Michigan’s Legend. Like many modern collectors a lot of these knotheads are into monetary speculation–so just watch their hobby slide with all the others. I wouldn’t care what a Bud costs. Just take a peek at these jpegs to see what I mean. I’ll spill the beans a bit, though. These lures are visionary. Psychedelic is a crass way to put it. And this isn’t an affected pose or effect ole Bud ever strove for. He just wanted to make good lures that caught good fish. He rankles at those who don’t fish his lures. Reading the bio info in this gorgeous volume reinforces this notion in every way. The reprints of his pencil sketches and notes are a delightful look at a countryboy fishing dreamer. Bud’s were some of the last factory made lures to have handmade paintjobs, as late as the 1960’s maybe. Heck, he’s in his 80’s and still making lures. Selling them for, what, $50, to folks he cares to have them. Speculators are running them for upwards of $1K. But not Bud. As a young man, he kept handmaking his lures until just the right factory offer finally came along. And as I recall he went back to handmade after awhile. The book is full of great photos of this lean ole country kid holding heavy stringers. Pure of eye and heart. He still fishes, and kept fishing and guiding all thru his luremaking years. I probably have some details off a bit. But maybe you catch a bit of the spirit. Oh, and Ray Carver has plenty himself: this book cost $40 per *to print*. He didn’t plan it work out that way necessarily, but he wanted to make a good book, worthy. It is. It is. It’s one of my only art books. –Don’t tell me I never put you onto something good….