This thing all started back in '99 as a gag gift for my son Tom. Seemed like every time we went bass fishing on Lake he'd catch the biggest fish of the trip, but it would alwqays be a pike. That's OK. Tom likes to catch pike. I wanted to give him a personalized spinnerbait that was obviously intended for pike. I went on the SOB Lures website, and looked at some of the wilder custom baits that Bill Dee had built for customers.

When I spied the "Greg's Parrot" I knew I'd pretty much found what I was looking for. I had Bill build me a couple of them with the blades inscribed "Tom's Toothy Critter Gitter". I made a mockup of a spinnerbait card for it, and shrink wrapped one of the baits as a gift for my son. He still has it hanging in his toolbox at work. But of course he needed the 2nd one to actually fish with. Gag gift or not, he knew it would catch pike.

I'm not sure he knew how much else it would catch. After all, it's not only bright and flashy, it's BIG. Althouth he's gotten a few "little" ones in 1/2 ounce, the real thing is a 1 ounce model -- The Toothy Critter Gitter is a mouthfull for a 15 pound northern pike, or for a musky. But that hasn't stopped it from catching chain pickerel. Mostly decent sized pickerel in the 4 to 6 pound range, but even the little guys seem prone to hit it. Other toothy critters, too, like bowfin and gar.

And non-toothy gamefish – specifically largemouth and smallmouth bass — hit it with abandon as well. In fact, unless we're flipping in the chestnut for largemouth, Tom's flipping stick is his spinnerbait rod and that means it's always got one of these things rigged up on it.

With the abundance of toothy critters – members of the esox family plus bowfin and gar — in Tom's home waters, these baits take a lot of abuse. All of those species are particularly hard on spinnerbait frames. Throwing the Critter Gitters as much as he does, Tom goes through a half-dozen or so a year. Bite-offs, and constant rebends take their toll. But this is the ONLY spinnerbait I've seen tied on any of his rods in at least 3 years. "If I can't catch fish on the Critter Gitter," Tom says, "odds are, I'm not going to catch any on any spinerbait." As much as he fishes, and as often as he throws one, it's amazing that he consumes only as many as that.