Our Story
3 Brothers Baits story starts with a love of fishing. The boys grew up fishing farm ponds and wading creeks around our family's farms in central Kentucky. What took fishing from love to passion was their first taste of tournament fishing! Will, Jack Henry and John-Scott decided to use their passion to help others. They organized a mission trip, Fishin' on a Mission, to help the village kids of a lake side community in the Dominican Republic. Covid put a halt on their travel plans but not on their desire to help. They made the decision to pack some tackle boxes and send them to the kids in the DR. They made swim bait heads, egg sinkers, bullet weights, ned heads...and packed them in a nice tackle box. The boxes were shipped to the DR with the help of Score International. The boys enjoyed making the lures and weights so much they began making lures for their own use. Will then took the idea and ran. Using 3 Brothers Baits as his high school senior year co-op project.
With the help of his brothers, Will developed a line of terminal tackle, blade baits, and jigs. They soon added some soft plastics. They have since developed their own custom products and are featured in many top retailers coast to coast.
As business grew, the boys started looking for ways to increase production. They found a listing on Facebook Marketplace for a spin cast machine. They traveled to Michigan and ended up purchasing the equipment, molds, and inventory of Lifted Jigs. Creating Lifted Lures from this purchase opened many doors with contacts and interest from major online retailers.
Seeing the value of increasing the production of lead baits, the boys started researching how to increase production of their soft plastic lures. This lead them to finding Bait Junkys in GA. After agreeing to purchase a soft plastic injection machine. Leanard, the owner of Bait Junkys, commented that he had a company they might be interested in....Cabin Creek Bait Company. The boys purchased Cabin Creek and this further opened doors to major retailers and subscription services. They have added sku's to move Cabin Creek forward like the Salty Spider Finesse Buzz, Salty Spider Underspinner, and Salty Spider Spinner.
The addition of Lifted Lures and Cabin Creek to the 3 Brothers Baits brand of products, sparked the boys into developing Rough Thumb Fishing Mfg, the manufacturing arm of the 3 Brothers Brands.
Seeing the boys willingness to work and find solutions to their business growth, a friend in the industry put them in contact with Paul "Buddy" Banks. The boys visited Buddy in his garage and found many similarities in their story. They made an agreement to purchase Silver Buddy and carry on the legacy it had become. Although there is nothing to improve on a legendary lure like Silver Buddy, they have innovated the brand by adding the L'il Buddy and Flutter Buddy.
Hearing of the boys success, their distribution partner put them into contact with Tom Taylor and Greg Cullen of Fishing Complete. The boys initially were not interested because they had plenty to do, but after researching the Fishing Complete brand of products, it put all the puzzle pieces together. With brands like O-Wacky Tool, Case Plastics, Zipper Worm Company, and Lunch Money Lures, Fishing Complete along with Rough Thumb Fishing Mfg put together a comprehensive tackle manufacturing and distribution platform.
The Lord contiues to bless the business that started in a corner of our farm shop, then to our garage, third to our barn, and has grown into a stand alone building at 503 East Main Street in Stanford KY. The building houses all manufacturing processes and has a showroom for product viewing. The business has grown from a few basic lead baits to a complete line of fishing tackle.
The boys strive to build high quality products, with the best components, that the casual fisherman can afford. Come by the show room for a visit or we'll see you on the water!