Jul 11, 2013 5 min read

It’s not often a person gets to turn a lifelong passion into anything more than a distraction from everyday life.

But Henry Likar and son-in-law Matt Marsula – along with the rest of their family – have done just that.

Likar and Marsula, a pair of passionate bass fishermen, started making bass baits a few years ago for their own fishing enjoyment.

“We were just making them up for ourselves,” said Marsula. “It was cheaper than everything else out there.”

But one fateful trip to South Carolina by Likar changed things for the Meadow Lands pair.

“We found these blades in an old catalogue we had and I said, ‘Let’s try them,'” Likar recalled. “I went down to South Carolina to visit some friends, and I was at Santee Cooper in this canal and was just throwing it. A guy came in and said, ‘What are you throwing?’ I said, ‘A spinner bait.’ We had been making them up and had some different colored skirts. He said, ‘I can see that flashing coming in on my boat. I’ll give you $10 for it.'”

After selling that spinner, Likar spent 10 hours driving home with his wife, Sandy, and came to the realization that he and Marsula might be onto something.

Whip Em Baits was born.

That was four years ago. After struggling to start up and figuring out just what they would need to do, the company was formed as a limited liability company two years ago and has become one of the fastest growing bass bait makers on the East Coast.

Likar and Marsula’s five-year plan from two years ago is way ahead of schedule and Whip Em Baits – their motto is “If you can’t beat ’em, Whip Em” – just recently became an international seller.

“We have 12 or 13 dealers handling this on the East Coast over into Ohio,” said Likar, who had been fishing competitively through local Bassmaster chapters for more than 30 years.

“Locally, we have Cross Creek Bait and Tackle handling it and S&S in Chalk Hill. We became international because we had an order from Moscow, Russia. That makes us international. I didn’t know they had bass in Moscow.”

There was a lot about the business of building baits Likar and Marsula didn’t know. Through trial and error and constant testing, they have created spinner, buzz and plastic bait lines that are not only effective, but durable.

Often, their innovations are putting a new twist on an old standby.

Take, for example, how Marsula, the creative force behind Whip Em, came up with the idea of creating plastic baits with multiple colors running through them.

“Every time we’d go fishing, when we’d come back in, instead of me putting this color in that bag and that color in that one, I’d just put them all in the same bag,” Marsula said. “We were at Cross Creek right after we started, and we weren’t getting too many hits. We had a purple lizard and we were throwing it and (Likar) got snagged. He asked if I had any more of those lizards? I said, ‘Sort of.’ He said, ‘What do you mean, sort of?’ I said, ‘Well, they kind of were in a bag with something green. So it’s kind of a purple, green, chartreuse color now.’ He kind of just shook his head. He said, ‘I’ll try it.’ First cast out, he got one. Next cast out, he got another. He got like six fish in a row.”

“And he was throwing the plain one and wasn’t getting anything,” Likar said, continuing the story. “I said, ‘We might have something here.'”

All of Whip Em’s baits are completely American made, something the company is very proud of.

But with an increase in popularity of their products, Likar and Marsula have been forced to outsource some of their production. They now have a person in Chicago, who paints the heads on their spinner baits, and others in different areas who finish other aspects of their products.

But the innovation and assembly takes place in a tiny shed behind Likar’s home.

“I come home (from work) at 4 o’clock, and I’ll stay out here to 11 o’clock building baits,” Likar said.

Eventually, they hope it evolves into a full-time job – though they definitely put in full-time hours.

In addition to hand crafting all of the baits, Likar and Marsula also travel to outdoors shows and make trips across the country, stopping at bait and tackle shops in an attempt to market their wares.

That hometown approach seems to be working.

They also have been very involved locally in a number of charity events, most notably a fishing tournament they held last September at Mingo Creek Park to benefit the Wounded Warriors. That even raised $1,850 for the Wounded Warriors, and Whip Em will hold another such event this September to again benefit that organization and Pink Fishing, which benefits breast cancer awareness.

“We’re going to hopefully make it bigger,” Likar said. “It will be Sept. 8 at Ten Mile County Park again. We raised $1,850 for Wounded Warriors. We’d like to get double that and split it between the organizations. Pink Fishing is a great organization too.

“We’re just starting out, but we know we’ve got to give back to the community and try to help. That’s what we live by.”

When you’re doing something you love, that’s a great mantra to have.

To find out more about Whip Em Baits, visit WhipEmBaits.com.

Outdoors editor F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com