Jesse Dicker has been an avid fisherman all his life, so he has used a lot of lures in his quest to land the big one.
However, maintaining a large supply of lures can be challenging.
“I used to spend a lot of money in fishing gear and fishing lures,” said Dicker of Lincoln. “And having a son that loses two, three, four lures every time you go fishing, I just got to thinking about designing my own lures.”
Dicker was joking about his son Bryce, who recently turned 14 and has carried on the family fishing tradition.
“My family is extremely outdoorsy and very old school,” said Dicker, the operator of Dream Chaser Lures, which launched in 2020. “My father passed it on to me and now I’m passing it on to my son and just keep it going, generation by generation.”
Designing and crafting fishing lures was only a hobby initially for Dicker, who started out making trout spoons. These days, though, it’s grown into a business that he hopes will be full-time someday.
“Now I’m doing jerk baits and flatfish and bass poppers and striper poppers and eventually I’m looking to cover the whole board,” he said.
With the productive striped bass fishing during the last two summers, those top-water lures have become increasingly popular among anglers.
Most importantly, after he found that he was catching more fish with his own lures than with those he had bought in stores, he found other anglers wanted them, too.
Co-workers and friends started asking about buying some of his lures and word of mouth created enough interest that Dicker saw some potential and began making more.
“Next thing I know, I made a Facebook page for the lures and I’m taking orders,” he said.
Dicker said the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic likely had a positive impact on the timing of his enterprise.
“That’s when everybody had all that time off and was getting all that free government money, so everybody was out fishing,” he said with a laugh.
Thus was born Dicker’s dream of eventually turning his lure making operation into a full-time gig. He hasn’t given up his regular job yet, but the momentum of the business continues to build each year.
“I honestly was nervous and skeptical and, I’m not gonna lie, a little scared getting into it,” Dicker said. “And then after a couple of years it took right off and I’m in a dozen stores around the state of Maine.”
When fishing season wanes in the fall, Dicker transitions into another outdoors-related business. He also sells Nature’s Natural Moonshine, a deer urine product used as an attractant by hunters.
This is his seventh year collecting and selling that product, which is used on mock scrapes to bring in deer.
“It’s 100 percent natural wild Maine deer pee. That’s why it works so good,” Dicker said.
Once winter sets in, Dicker turns his focus back to fishing and starts re-stocking his supply of lures so that he can have enough lures on hand. With his brand now a more well-known commodity, anglers start calling in the spring to grab their favorites.
He admits it has been challenging convincing some sporting goods stores and tackle shops to agree to sell Dream Chaser Lures. However, Dicker said when they start to sell consistently, managers are eager to order more.
In one case, the success of the lures led to Dicker getting his own display.
He has long since lost count of how many different styles, colors and patterns of lures he offers. Some of them are similar to tried-and-true lures, while many are his original creations.
Dicker said making successful lures comes down to an important consideration.
“If you want to catch fish, you have to think like the fish and when you think like the fish and you’re catching fish, you’re catching people,” he said.
His brother B.J., who owns Vinyl Destination in Lincoln, makes all of the logo decals, stickers and packaging decals for Dream Chaser Lures.
Dicker hopes to launch a website for the lures sometime next spring to increase the visibility of the company and hopefully boost sales further.
But the success of Dream Chaser Lures has come at a bit of cost, Dicker said. Balancing the lure and deer urine operations with a full-time job and Bryce’s school activities, he doesn’t have nearly as much time to go fishing.
“Now if I can get out once a week, I’m lucky,” he said, noting that if he can achieve his dream of making lures for a living, it will have been worth the sacrifice.