Dan Root has been making hand-made lures and decoys for the last 15 years. His lures can be used year-round, but his decoys are particularly helpful during ice fishing season.
When he isn’t sharing his love of chess and his artistic talents with the local elementary schools, he enjoys creating functional, detailed spearing lures and decoys at home in his workshop.
Root is famous locally for his wood and aluminum decoys, which always sport a vibrant array of hand-painted patterns and colors.
“Once in a while you lift them up, and then they make a circle. If they’re weighted correctly, a northern will come in and look at it, and then you spear the northern. I surely can’t tell you these will catch more fish than what you are using now, but if the point was to only catch fish, you wouldn’t be using a line and tackle. As an old timer from Ely, Minnesota once told me, ‘When we fished for food as a kid, we only took dynamite to the lake!’”
