Bob Schneider has been fishing since he was three years old...

His father would tie a rope around Bob's waist, tie the other end around his own waist, and together they would stalk the bass lurking in the waters near Barnagat City. New Jersey In those days Bob would toss a Bill Upperman Bucktail lure as far as his little arms could throw it, hoping for a striped bass or yellow tail in the Jersey surf.

When the Schneider's moved to Belle Meade Island in Biscayne Bay off of Miami, Bob started whittling his own lures out of mop-handles and broom-sticks. The wooden lures, which Bob painted in bright red and white, proved irresistible to jack and snook in the canal behind his house. Back in those days, Bob remembers the huge schools of finger mullet that would fill the canals. Large jack cravelle, snook and tarpon would charge the schools and drive the mullet right up on the banks. Bob would grab one. run a hook through it. tie the other end to a palm tree and go to school. More often than not. Bob would return from classes to be rewarded by a twenty-five pound jack waiting for him on the other end of the line. When the mullet schools left, Bob's red and wood lures would hit the water.

Bob was in the Navy in 1956 when the Soviet Union launched a little basketball-sited satellite called "Sputnik". Once a day the little spacecraft would pass over Bob and his ship-mates holding-position in the Pacific Ocean. Their job was to listen for the primitive beeps coming from Sputnik. and try to make sense of it.

And then it happened.....

Bob looked over the side one morning to see the ocean boiling with tuna. Leaping. splashing. frolicking tuna. It was really too much for Bob to bear. Gangway!!!Down to the Damage Control Office to scrounge some wood ... then on to the shop to start the magic that would change the soft pine into a good lure, and change a battleship into a sportfisher.

Bob shredded a couple of Navy work shirts to make multi-colored skirts for the lures, then painted the lure-heads with red-lead anti-fouling paint to complete the process. Schneider's make-shift lures proved irresistible to the tuna, and very quickly Bob and his ship-mates were hauling in 35-40 pounders hand-over-fist.

Bob's best lures sustained a lot of damage from the voracious tuna. Back at Pearl Harbor, Bob looked for some of the recently introduced fiberglass resin, hoping a coat or two might protect his lures from the mounting damage. Bob mixed-up a dixie-cup of the new resin, and brushed it on the lures. Since the cure times were so long, the resin just ran off the lures before it could harden. Disappointed, Bob went about cleaning up the shop. By the time he was finished, the resin in the half filled dixie-cup had hardened. Bob tore the paper off of the solid piece of fiber-glass and realized at once what he had in his hand. Rushing to the drill-press, he bore a hole through the conic-shaped lure-head, then on to the grinder to grind a neck-groove to secure a skirt ... and there it was the world's first fiberglass lure.

Many years of sophisticated trial and error.....

Over many years of sophisticated trial and error, Bob refined his techniques as better resins and insert material became available. Every component of Schneider Lures has a very specific purpose. and has evolved from many experiments and test. For example, the space-age prism-papers which are suspended in some of the Schneider Lures is designed to mimic the flashy, scale-patterns of bait-fishes as the sun bounces off the thousands of reflective surfaces. Really a dramatic improvement on nature, these materials diffuse even subdued light to produce a dazzling moire of rainbow colors as the lure streaks through the water. Others produce a distinctive pearlescent sheen typical of mullet or bone-fish running through the sea near the surface. The actual mullet or bonefish has virtually an identical presentation to a gamefish on the prowl. Yet another, specially machined material, simulates a herringbone texture which produces a startling iridescent color. Another amplifies subdued sunlight by use of a highly polished mirror-sur-face. The combinations are nearly endless, and no one has the variety or seductive displays available on the Schneider Lures. As Bob puts it, "You wouldn't expect anyone else in the world to have this variety of materials, because it takes an innovative type of designer who uses the best materials available anywhere on earth."