From here it all started...
TUMEfishing originated at the beginning of the millennium, when I got the first fishing rod and one lure. My first reaction was: What am I doing with this? After some time wondering about that package, I was somewhat awakened, and of course I had to test it with my father.
Our first fishing trip was made to my grandparent’s summer house, where we had spent, and we still spend there a lot of time. The trip on the lake was not very long, but even more memorable. The first fish what I got was a four kilos pike.
And you know what happens when a 7-year-old boy gets that size of fish.
The fishing fly bite me so hard that I haven’t recovered from it yet today.
We got a couple of smaller pike on the trip as well as the last fish of the evening (which we still did not recognize), just under three kilograms zander. For our happiness our cottage neighbor was fishing beside us and he asked that have we caught any fishes. We lifted the zander that we just caught on the boat and showed it. That's when our cottage neighbor said that you had a beautiful zander. For a moment, me and my father looked at each other without saying anything, knowing that this was not the last zander what we will get.
Tuomas in backyard with his first zander.
Home waters wasn't enough for young fisherman. The picture of 5,7kg seatrout.
Fishingtrip in Norway gave us many different species.
Manufacturing of the first lures started soon
This was followed by a quick timetable. The first lures what I made I carved out of pine. I didn’t have any idea what kind of color fishing lure should be, but I had somewhere seen the red-white lure, so I painted all my lures with white and red in different patterns.
And, of course, I needed to go and see how them swim.
So, the next day we headed to the grandma’s house. Grandma a little wondered when I had a mini rod and a lure box with me. However, I did not let the grandma’s wonder upset me and I said, that we need to get water on the bathtub that I can test these lures what I just made.
After a small adjustment, they began to remain under the surface, so they then had to get in the right environment.
In the first trip, I got a fish speech I did not recognize. After a small study, the fish proved to be an ide (leucicus idus), which is a very strong fighter at the other end of the line.
This is the first fishing lure what I have made.
Trout lure prototypes. All of these lures have caught many big fishes. Now these lures are in Hall-Of-Fame.
This started the development, which aims to make the world's best lure
However, the initial enthusiasm was quickly frozen due to lack of space. However, I was not discouraged but noticed a newspaper announcement of the fly-tying course. The enthusiasm for this species quickly broke out. There are hundreds of salmon flies that show up in small nymphs at a tied school table. I tied lots of flies at my schooldesk all the way into spectacular salmon flies to the small nymphs.
However, after a couple of years, I was so interested again making lures that I needed to find a workspace where I can make those. The workspace was found in my parents ’’slightly’’ reorganized garage, which is still the place where I make lures.
The knife began to swing at a dense pace, and I made lures from birch, aspen and alder. However, these were moderately hard-to-work trees, so the next step was heading to the wood center for searching wood that is a little bit easier to work with. From there, I grabbed a piece of a balsa wood, which was easy to work on for a ten-year-old. Then I made lures with a wide variety of shapes and sizes, focusing mainly on river fishing, while the first ones were aimed at trolling.
After a few years of river fishing, my mind was thinking all about those fish what we caught in trolling. We started to develop a lure that would catch fish all summer, regardless of the weather. We tested dozens of different shapes and quite quickly the grains began to stand out from the chaff. We had a slightly different method at our disposal, where we always exchanged a lure when it caught a fish. If the lure didn’t catch a fish in the three fishing trips, it was left out of the calculations. After a while we wound a few lures that were better than others, we started to make a little more accurate comparison. In addition to the mutual comparison, we went to the store for buying another manufacturers lure to see how our lure is performing compared to them.
One of our models was above the test.
There was an incredible feeling when the fish were sticking to it time after time, even if it was swimming with the lures from famous brands.
And then we knew that we have to get more of this model.
From this lure we have develop our trolling lure.
First salmon from Teno river. It took a fly which was tied by me.
In 2010, the lure which won all the tests left to the woodturner. Since that, we have concentrated on the development of this lure model. In addition to our own vision, we wanted other anglers experience to help develop this model, so we gave them to our friends to test. The feedback was good, and we got some valuable tips on how our lure would become even more fishable.
Today, our lures swims all over Skandinavia and on the other side of the world including North America, Australia and South Africa.
Tight lines,
Tuomas Tolonen
This is where we are now (2022)