bluewatermag.com.au 19patterns that I thought resembled flying
fish, dolphinfish or bonito.
Bart loved to share his knowledge and
passion with the captains and mates who
frequented the shop. I saw this in action
when I fished a tournament in the
Bahamas with Patrick Rusbridge. James
Ewing was the captain, and he was good
friends with one of Bart’s long-time pupils,
Scott Levin. Bart and Scott flew over to
fish the tournament with us, which was an
exciting opportunity to say the least. The
fishing was quiet, and Bart had been
watching the spread for some time before
he walked up to Pat with his famous ‘1656’
lure in his hand and told him to put
it in the right-short position. Pat followed
Bart’s direction and within 10 minutes he
was hooked-up to a blue marlin of more
than 400lb. To watch my friend catch one
of his biggest blue marlin with Scott on
the wire and Bart alongside him in the
cockpit was an awesome experience that
I will never forget.Above: The huge Pacific blue marlin that Bart’s
charter angler caught off Kona, Hawaii in 1984 is often
quoted as weighing 1656-pounds (751.15kg), but that
weight included the weighing sling. Its actual weight
was 1649lb (747.97kg), which is still the second-
heaviest of the species ever recorded.
Right: Bart (holding the marlin’s pectoral fin) stands
behind Capt Scott Levin with the team’s winning catch
during a 1996 tournament in the Bahamas.
retailers around the world. When I took
one of my own creations to the boat one
day, rigged it and put it out, within five
minutes a 500-pound blue had it in its
mouth. I was so excited!
One day a Californian charter angler
noticed the abalone chips within a lure
head. He said he was a guitar maker
and frequently used abalone and pearl
inlay in his custom pieces. I phoned his
supplier who then sent some paper-thin,
laser-cut abalone shell that had just been
developed. Bart saw the value of it right
away; you could cut it with scissors or a
razor and it was semi-transparent so you
could put colour behind it to enhance its
intensity. We used it on our inserts over
mylar foil and the lures were beautiful!
Thus was born the ‘Art of Bart’ line of
lures. It was our secret for a couple of
years, but just about every big game lure
maker uses this same shell these days.
Bart moved his family to Florida in
1993 and once he’d made new lure
moulds and set up his shop at Scopinich
Fighting Chairs I packed my bags with lure
equipment and joined him. We streamlined
our methods, speeding up the production
of each handmade lure, but still worked 12
to 16 hours each day.
Before following my heart back to Kona,
I learned some great lessons from that
man. Bart had a real sense of where
to find a fish and then how to catch it
wherever he went in the world. He was a
real artist in his craft.
FROM MIKE PARSONS
(former deckie and staff at
Black Bart lures):
In his Florida office, Bart always had
custom versions of his lures we sold in the
store. He had these really cool taxidermy
eyes, along with various types of shell
that you wouldn’t see on our standard
lures. He would also use different skirt
patterns than our standard colours.
One day I saw a lure that he had made
up with a red inner skirt with a pink outer
skirt. We thought the colour combo was
a little weird, but Bart insisted that it
was an excellent colour. I added a Black
Bart ‘Canyon Prowler’ in those colours
to my arsenal, but it never saw much
action until I took it to Samoa and ran it
on the long ’rigger one rainy day when
the fish seemed scarce. It was quickly
nailed by a 100+lb yellowfin tuna, which
was a good lesson on trying new things. I
would never have skirted the lure in those
colours because I was normally stuck on