Every lure built one at a time. None of them built to fail.

Every lure on this page started as a block of reclaimed cedar and a quiet afternoon at the bench. I build them one at a time, by hand, in Richmond, Massachusetts, right in the heart of the Berkshires. No factory. No production line. Just one maker, some old wood, and the patience it takes to get a bait to swim right.

These are handmade wooden fishing lures in the older sense of the word. Each body is hand carved from cedar, fitted with a hand-stamped stainless steel lip, and built around a single piece of through-wire, so there is no weak link between the line tie and the hooks. Then it gets painted and sealed by hand, checked, and sent out the door. Big fish are lazy, and they go after big, honest baits that move like something real. That is what I build these wood fishing lures to do.

You will find diving crankbaits, glide-style bodies, and topwater poppers here, sized from four inches up to eight and a half. They are made to catch largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and pike on the waters I actually fish, from Otis Reservoir to Onota Lake. What works here tends to work anywhere those fish swim.

If you have been looking for handmade fishing lures for sale and kept landing on mass-produced plastic dressed up to look like craft, this is the real thing. Every wooden fishing lure you buy from Lost Art Lures is handcrafted by one person, start to finish, and backed by the only quality control that matters: mine. I have never skimped, and I never will.

Cedar has been used for lures for over a hundred years for a reason. It floats high, it holds paint, and it lasts. These lures will outlive you. Buy one, fish it hard, and hand it down. A pretty lure has no stories, so go make some. Ships from the Berkshires, hand carved and ready to fish.

Frequently asked questions

Why cedar?

Cedar is light, buoyant, and tough, which is exactly what a wooden lure needs. It floats high, so the bait sits and moves the way I designed it to, it takes paint well, and it holds up season after season. I use reclaimed cedar, so every blank already has a little history in it before it ever touches the water. New does not mean better. Cedar has been catching fish for over a century, and it still does the job better than most of what gets sold as an upgrade.

How are your lures made?

Every lure is built by hand, by me, from start to finish. I shape each body from a cedar blank, fit a hand-stamped stainless steel lip, and run a single through-wire from the line tie to the tail, so there are no weak joints to fail on a big fish. Then I paint, seal, and finish each one by hand and check it before it ships. One person, one lure at a time. That is the whole operation.

What fish do these lures catch?

These are built for largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and pike, the fish I chase on Berkshires water like Otis Reservoir, Richmond Pond, and Onota Lake. The smaller crankbaits and poppers are right at home for bass, and the larger glide-style bodies get the attention of pike and the bigger, lazier fish that ignore small baits. If it swims in freshwater and eats other fish, these will work on it.