From Jim Yelton of Yeljim Fishing Lures:

Thank you I Cast 2013 for a huge success.  The show was amazing and a bit intimidating for a first timer.  Everything at the show was first class top notch all the way.  I met a lot of very nice people at the show that I probably would not have had the chance to meet otherwise.  A special thanks goes out to all the pros and long time heroes that had signed my tackle box.  It is my honor to have finally met these guys.  A very special thank you goes to Monte Spencer.  We will be open for business October 2, 2013.

How it all started Hello from Jim Yelton, owner of Yeljim Fishing Lures. This will be the start of my website, and a little bit about me and how Yeljim Fishing Lures has come about.   As a young boy my mother and father owned a very small farm outside of Bellefontaine, Ohio.  On this farm is where my father made a living buying and selling hay and straw to take care of his family with seven children in the family (6 boys and a girl).  Their wasn't a lot of extra  money for anything, although we did not grow up  with much money we had the best parents a child could ask for. On this family farm we had everything we needed to survive as a family.  We grew our own gardens and we raised cows and pigs for meat.  It was on this family farm that had something very near and dear to my heart.  This farm had a good size creek that ran through the middle of it.  This is where my love for fishing began.

I would grab a pitch fork and go out behind the barn to the manure pile.  This is where I would dig my red worms and it was off to the creek.  The fish in the creek were not very big mainly small bluegill, bass,  and creek chubs.  This was still enough to keep my interest seven days a week.  Yes, I fished that creek everyday when I was young.

The only big fish adventures was on Saturday mornings waiting on the Infisherman to come on tv.  Even though I never have met Al Linder or Doug Stange.  I would watch these two guys catch muskies, and pike, walleyes, big large mouth, and small mouth on tv.  After the show was over it was back to the creek where I would sit and wonder what it would be like to catch fish like that i mean these two guys were in a different part of the country every week. How lucky could they be?

As I was growing up like I said in the beginning of this story we did not have a lot of money, but some how or another my father would find enough money to take my mom out to dinner and shopping.  This was a big deal, because it would only happen every couple months.  They would get us kids a babysitter and go.  This was a big deal for me because the next morning I would go downstairs and look on the dining room table to see if there was any new hooks, sinkers, or bobbers and if I was extremely lucky there would be a new Rapala.  If I found a new Rapala laying on the table it would be like finding the winning mega millions ticket today. If I went fishing and lost a Rapala it was like loosing a tooth, I still feel that way today. Even if I go fishing today and I see a Rapala hanging in a tree that another fisherman has lost I would do everything I could to retrieve that Rapala.  I will climb a tree or swim across a pond to get one.  I don't know if it is because it is free or its because I feel that Lauri Rapala is one of the greatest lure designers that has ever lived.

Between Al Linder, Doug Stange, Jimmy Huston, Bill Dance, Lauri Rapala watching these guys on t.v. and reading about them in magazines this has been very instrumental in my wanting to make lures.  I think the best feeling you can have as a lure maker would be is someone sending you a picture of a fish of a lifetime they caught on a lure you made. Although I am a very small company just starting out.  I feel that my lures will be competitive with anything in the industry. I am now forty three years old and the family farm is still the family farm.  The creek still flows through it and it still holds my fondest memories of fishing. Yeljim Fishing Lures is open for business.                    

Jim Yelton