Lure making: Wack’em and Stack’em makes baits the home and family way

To know Angelo Garcia and Wack’em and Stack’em Custom Baits, you need to know his father Tony, too.

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Tony Garcia demonstrating a weedless bait at the Tinley Park Fishing Show.

Dale Bowman

Probably should go back to Tony Garcia volunteering to go to Vietnam for the roots of his son Angelo’s Wack’em and Stack’em Custom Baits.

Tony sat jigging a weedless bait through brush in an aquarium at the Tinley Park Fishing Show last Saturday. I’m a sucker for baits that run under docks or jigs that work through brush without snagging.

He wore a beatific smile. Don’t let that fool you, he earned that smile. When he volunteered for Vietnam, he ended up in the Pleiku Valley.

I’m also a sucker for faithful readers and Tony is one. While jigging, he said, “You’re Dale Bowman. Then, it was time.”

Tony did his service, came back and soon started working as a machinist in Pilsen. He also came back with PTSD.

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Tony Garcia as a young serviceman.

Provided

Fishing was more than fishing and so is working with his son Angelo’s bait company.

“It helps him,” Angelo said. “He has PTSD pretty bad. Fishing is therapy for my dad. He really enjoys the sports shows.”

Jeremy Jakiel, one of Angelo’s guys, contacted me about Angelo and his baits.

“I just think military veterans are an important part of our society and get forgotten and look at the link between Angelo and his dad and I see the company having such good success now,” he messaged. “It’s just a cool story and awesome to watch. I got the privilege of picking up Angelo’s dad for most closer shows and him and I usually have good talks.”

Angelo grew up in Palos Heights and did football, wrestling and baseball at Stagg. He would play first and third as a semi-pro until he was 32.

“When I was younger and stealthier, I was a shortstop,” Angelo said. “But fishing has always had my heart.”

He fished the Lemont Quarries, Lake Sedgewick and Saganashkee Slough.

“I fished all the forest preserves forever,” Angelo said. “It made me a better fisherman.”

They would fish cheeseballs for rainbow trout near the old Meigs Field and fish salmon in the Chicago harbors.

“My dad gets all the credit,” Angelo said. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be doing this. You got to love doing this, because it not about the money, never the point of it at all. Share your knowledge and help the next generation.”

Tony worked hard, but he would take his family to Petenwell and Castle Rock areas in Wisconsin for two weeks.

“He ran things like a boot camp, so I am very disciplined,” Angelo said.

That discipline came in handy when he started making baits.

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Angelo Garcia explaining a bait at the Tinley Park Fishing Show.

Dale Bowman

Wack’em and Stack’em started on a small work bench in December, 2015 in Cedar Lake, Ind. Angelo was working at a steel mill and decided, ``I’m going to get a melting pot and pouring some jigs. And I’ll get my dad over and just for fun I’ll have him help. It was a way for he and me to be together. He is the one who started me in fishing.’’

Actually, the name would not come until one of Angelo Garcia’s co-workers, Harold Nordyke, had a great panfish outing in April of 2016 using the baits. The names was scrawled with black marker on a piece of cardboard and Wack’em and Stack’em Custom Baits was truly born.

“It was a cardboard we-will-work-for-food kind of sign,” Angelo said.

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The naming of Wack’em and Stack’em Custom Baits came after a good outing by Harold Nordyke in 2016.

Provided

A Cedar Lake bait shop was the first real customer. Over the years, the Tinley Park Fishing show became huge for them. The booth was stacked deep last Saturday.

“We started real small, local, word of mouth, then got a web site,” Angelo said. “Word of mouth and taking a lot of pride in our bait. We don’t send anything out that isn’t right.”

The word is spreading. At Tinley Park, I stopped by to see Jim ``The Crappie Professor’’ Kopjo and when he heard I was looking for Wack’em and Stack’em, he whipped out the special box that was made for him.

“Jim Kopjo has been good with us,” Angelo said.

He already has an extensive pro staff.

“A lot of these guys eat at my dinner table,” Angelo said. “The guys want to part of something bigger and want to help with the future, friends of friends out there fishing.”

The 1 1/2-inch black shad pattern Suicide Minnow and the 1-inch Stinger are the hottest baits. They found a niche market in lead with 1/100- to 1/64th-ounce jigs.

“I used to use Cubby and I burned through them,” Angelo said. “I analyzed the market and thought this is an area where we can do well.”

They bought out a Kentucky company and are now able to mass produce jigs.

“We’ve come quite a ways in a short period of time,” Angelo said.

More information is at wackemandstackemcustombaits.com.

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