When Success Seems Fishy : Outspoken Creator of Trout-Like Lure Is Accused of Using Live Bait

It swims like a rainbow and stings like a bee.

--Slogan for AC Plug fishing lure Many of the country’s bass fishermen suspect that the world-record largemouth is in Castaic Lake waiting to be caught, but Allan Cole is sure of it. He says he almost caught it.

Many fishermen believe that Cole is a liar, a cheat and an all-round pain in the neck, but Bob Bloom, Cole’s fishing buddy from Lancaster, swears by the tale.

Bloom says he and Cole were fishing in the Ski Arm at Castaic a few weeks ago when the big one hit. Cole was trolling one of his homemade AC Plugs, a wooden, hand-painted, two-piece, jointed lure with a flippy rubber tail.

“It was about quitting time and all of a sudden I saw his pole bend and start to look like the plug was fouling on the bottom,” Bloom said. “We killed the boat (motor) and started to wind it in. It turned out to be a huge bass.”

Although he has caught many big fish, Cole in action is not Mr. Cool. Bloom says Cole was whooping and hollering and fought the fish like a man wrestling an alligator.

“His knees were knocking,” Bloom said. “When I saw that thing roll, I couldn’t believe it. It got up on its tail (and) had a head the size of a football.”

Bloom grabbed the net.

“Allan said, ‘Get it in the water,’ and I think that’s what spooked the fish,” Bloom said. “When I stuck the net in the water (the fish) got up and shook its head again and rolled over on its back. It got loose about 10 feet from the boat.”

One look at the enormous belly of the fish convinced Bloom that it was bigger than the largemouth Bob Crupi caught at Castaic two years ago. At 22.01 pounds, that one was only three ounces less than the record of 22 pounds 4 ounces, by George Perry at Georgia’s Montgomery Lake in 1932. Bloom thought Cole’s near-catch was at least 25 pounds.

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The story is more fuel for the controversy involving the Lancaster painting contractor and his lure these days. Cole is an aggressive self-promoter who likes to show off fish caught with his lure, by others or himself.

His most vocal critics have accused him of using live trout for bait--a serious violation of California Department of Fish and Game regulations. Little fish are irresistible hors d’oeuvres for big fish. But are observers seeing live trout or a lure that looks like a live trout?

“That’s why it catches big fish,” Cole says in exasperation. “ They think it’s a trout, too.”

Another low blow, Cole felt, was a recent report in another publication that he had “caught and kept a 12 3/4-pound largemouth” at Silverwood Lake. Bass fishermen feel as strongly as fly fishermen do about the conservation ethic of catch and release.

Said Cole: “I kept it because it was hurt . . . torn in the mouth.”

DFG Warden Martin Wall said he has been watching Cole.

“His name’s popped up a lot lately,” Wall said. “Constantly. We were getting many allegations, and I have to follow up on every report I get. I’ve sat on mountaintops with binoculars and watched him.”

Nothing.

“I’ve even checked his boat when he’s (in his camper) asleep at night, waiting for the lake to open. I’ve put an ear to the hull to listen for the aerator of a live-fish well.”

Nothing.

“I heard he had a trout tank in his camper,” Wall said.

So he received Cole’s permission to search it. Nothing.

Wall believes that Cole is clean--and not simply because he knows Cole’s brother Fred, who is a DFG warden in Stockton.

“They say he’s trolling live trout,” Wall said. “That’s not even possible. They’d drown. The only way you can fish with a live trout is to still-fish.”

Other experienced anglers agreed.

Crupi, an LAPD motorcycle patrolman, has been accused of not properly certifying his catch before he released it, so he is happy to have the heat diverted to Cole.

Part of Cole’s problem is his personality. A lifelong trout and striped bass angler, he made no friends among dedicated largemouth bass fishermen a few months ago when he boasted that he was going to catch the world-record largemouth.

“That man could not sell heaters to Eskimos,” says John Shaver, a guide and president of the Castaic Bassmasters club.

But Shaver also says that Cole’s AC Plug is “the greatest thing for big fish since treble hooks. I’ve used his lure for four or five weeks, and (after fishing) Castaic for three years, 150 times a year, I’ve never had so many big fish.”

Paul Sabesky said he has caught largemouths of 14 pounds 7 ounces, 13-8 and 12-0 within the last month using an AC Plug.

“These other bass fishermen are crybabies,” Sabesky said.

Cole’s plug isn’t meant to catch a lot of fish, simply big ones. It was on sale for $34.99 in an inconspicuous corner of Fred Hall’s Western Fishing Tackle and Boat Show at Long Beach last week.

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Said Dennis Bunker, a longtime saltwater angler and tackle store operator who now manufactures washers for fishing reels: “That’s the most fishable lure I’ve seen in 25 years. It has the action and the colors that fish like. You get a certain movement that they’ll go for. If I were a fish, I’d want to bite it.”

Bunker says the plug would be effective with yellowtail, wahoo and tuna. Jerry Rago of Bishop recently used an AC Plug to catch a 12-pound 10-ounce brown trout at Pleasant Valley Reservoir in the Eastern Sierra.

Cole says he has used it to catch 80 striped bass larger than 20 pounds, up to 38 1/2, and 10 largemouths larger than 10 pounds since Dec. 7, when he first started fishing for them. The 10th was caught Tuesday at Castaic, 11 pounds even

“I’m not even a bass fisherman,” he said.

It was Bassin’ magazine’s $1-million bounty for the record largemouth that got Cole interested last year. The offer has been dropped, but the fever remains. Don Iovino of Burbank was chastised by an outdoors writer for comments on his radio show deemed critical of Cole.

“Some guy called in and said they caught Allan Cole trolling trout,” Iovino said. “I don’t care. I don’t know the guy. What I was saying on my show was that I’m tired of these people going out there and poaching the lake, trolling with two rods, bringing in all these foreign trash fish to use for bait. There’s now carp, Mississippi minnows and all kinds of (junk). I don’t want to see our fishery get destroyed.”

Said another regular, Harry Jioras: “I had that type of mind set myself when I started. There were only two or three people in the country catching (big) fish, and I thought, ‘They’ve got to be using live trout because I can’t do it.’ But once I figured out how to do it, I started catching them.”

Jioras, a retired fireman, commutes to Castaic four days a week from Arcadia, 110 miles round trip. Recently he started marketing his own Original Hat Trick lure. It is similar to Cole’s, which has a patent pending, but Jioras says Bill Siemantel of Castaic had the first.

“Everybody copies everything,” Iovino said. “That’s the nature of the sport. The reason the big baits are working is the silhouette of the trout . . . anything that looks like a trout.”

Jioras, who has caught a 17-4 largemouth at Castaic, said that until the spring spawn is over, the bass probably will hit better on crawfish, a traditional live bait.

Jioras’ Hat Tricks are plastic. Cole makes his plugs on a lathe from one-inch dowels and paints them in various colors, with attracting sparkle.

“He had to start making a lot of them and I think he lost the quality control,” Jioras said. “The cut he was using on the face is critical. If it isn’t exactly right, it won’t ‘swim’ right.”

Bass pro Rich Tauber told Cole the hooks he was using were too dull. Cole switched to better ones.

One of the most respected Castaic regulars is Gary Harrison, a guide there for five years. He tries to stay out of the controversy.

“Everybody’s getting real serious--more so than normal,” Harrison said. “They’re looking for that (record) fish. Probably 90% of my clients are from out of state.”

Harrison will advise them to use crawfish.

“I have an AC, a Hat Trick, a Z-Plug . . . I’ve got them all. I’ve been bit on one of them: the Hat Trick. Once. Crawfish is the most productive for larger fish. No comparison. I’m good for only five minutes of throwing that eight-ounce (AC) plug. My arm gets tired. My neighbor has thrown his back out using it.”

Cole suggested there is a “conspiracy” to demean him and his plug.

“These guys are scared stiff of my plug,” he said.