# Mt. Big Sky Lures



## Traptress (Sep 14, 2012)

Are there any former customers of Fuller Laugeman's Big Sky Lures?
Fuller bought his lure business in the 70's, from a man in Canada. He bought all his equipment, ingredients on hand, names of suppliers of lure ingredients, and the recipes, which he guarded. He was a trapper for the state of Mt. and according to him, was the last trapper with a permit to trap the Charles M. Russel Game Preserve in Central Mt. In the 80s he lost one of his legs to cancer, but was still an avid trapper, and I had the honor of being his employee for a few trapping seasons. I helped him set snares, traps, make lures, haul gear, and haul beaver. 
He had a spike connected to the bottom of his crutches and since he kept himself trim, he was able to get down to the river and creek beds. The ones he couldn't get to, I would go. 
He passed away in 2007 in his 80s. He use to sell drawings of his under ice beaver pole set, and if anyone is interested I'll draw it up and post it here. I don't think he'd mind a bit.


----------



## xdeano (Jan 14, 2005)

so what happened to the lure recipes? Did they go to the grave with him or does someone still have them sitting in a note book somewhere.

xdeano


----------



## Traptress (Sep 14, 2012)

He kept his recipes close at heart in his vest. I didn't write them down because he was trusting me to work with him. When he died his business was sold by his family to the Tefflon ( as in the FnG can't seem to make any charges stick ) Fur Buyer, Johnny the Jew Hughes, ( Fuller's name for him) who is now selling Fuller's lures. 
Glad to see someone comments on posts  . I was beginning to think a person has to be NODAK to get a response. oke:


----------



## xdeano (Jan 14, 2005)

No you dont have to be nodak. There are very few guys on this forum that know much if anything about lure making and how its not just throwing together a bunch of ingredients. Ive been apart of some very complicated and very good lures over the last several years. I was hoping that you had the recipes and were making them. Kind of trying to bring the buisness to the public again.

Id say if you remember the formula. Write them down. All you have to do is change 10% of the ingredents. Change the name and send it to yourself through the usps and start selling it. Legally they cant come after you.

Xdeano


----------



## Traptress (Sep 14, 2012)

Unfortunately I don't recall the specific recipes. I haven't really thought about the ingredients for years.
For his cat lures he used animal carcasses Bob cat minus the heads, and mice. He paid my son 10 cents a mouse. He'd grind up carcasses, sieve out the bone fragments, and store the sludge consistency, future lure in 55 gal drums to cure. Some of his favorite ingredients had been in his basement for years. When we were going to make a batch of lure I'd go down and scoop the mixture out of the oldest ingredients. A few of the plastic barrels had began to split, I can't imagine who they found to clean out that basement.
When we were going to make a batch of a specific lure, cat, I'd go into the basement and bring up some sludge, he's gather all the ingredients and we'd run it through the grinder to make sure it was well mixed. The glycerin would be mixed with the sludge as it went down the grinder. Then if the lure was too thick, he'd add more glycerine. It would go into five gallon containers, sealed and labeled as to let it ferment for a week or so. I'd open them and give them a stir and lightly close them. Once the lures were aged to his specifications, we'd pour it into gallon glass jugs, label them and put them on a shelf. There were a couple of times the jars exploded, but not too often. When we got low on jars of various sizes on the shelves, we'd pour. He was a great one for sending little gifts with his orders. Little knives, fridge magnets, pens, envelope openers, note books, calendars. He really enjoyed sending them.
He used lots of glycerin in all his lures, which keeps the lure from freezing. 
He used only beaver castors for his beaver lures, and mint and tree oils like sassafras , sweet smelling things, nothing dead as in carcasses .
He also used some sort of powder in his lures, even then I couldn't remember what it was called, but do know it begins with an A. It was an odd chemical name. It helped keep the lure stable. 
Again, its been a while, and my memories of the procedure are fading. Sorry.
He had an amazing variety of exotic oils, deer glands from Africa was one. He made sure to tell me about the perfume industry and how often animal scent glands are used in fine expensive colognes. 
Maybe something I mentioned about the lure making, will help someone. 
His favorite cat lure was called PACIFIC CALL. One day he caught me dabbing a bit behind my ear. LOL. The smell of his lures weren't offensive to me . Not like some lures that smell like liquefied road kill.
He did use skunk in one of his lures. He kept it in a jar, in a jar, we use long gloves and were so careful but still we reeked for a couple of days just from the aroma getting on us. 
I'm stuck in Florida, I sure miss the west. I miss the Musselshell Breaks. ( A good movie by the way). Making lures here at my daughter's is out of the question, she won't even let me brain tan hides. Ah yes, the west beckons.


----------



## xdeano (Jan 14, 2005)

Thanks for sharing.

Was the white powder that started with an "A", a preservative? I've used a pile of Sodium Benzoate which is a preservative and stops the aging process. It comes in a white powder or as small clumped powder. Another preservative is zink valerate which is a white powder too. Another one that could be used is Methyl paraben, but that's more of a anti microbe.

A lot of the good k9 and cat formulas have bobcat meat in them. I've also used some with mt. lion meat and it seems to work well also as a base.

I've got some beaver recipes that might make some people salivate and want to eat them. Others not so much.

The west is where it's at. Not as many people which is what i like.

xdeano


----------



## Traptress (Sep 14, 2012)

Yes, it must have been a preservative. I can't imagine what other purpose it might have had.


----------

