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Alluring Lures

Amma Bamas more
popular than ever

AMMA, W.Va. — The little Roane County town of Amma may be a mere speck on the map, but some of the nation's most knowledgeable muskellunge anglers revere its name.

In a tidy workshop in the basement of his Amma home, a fisherman named Bill Looney creates the Amma Bama lures that have put the town on the muskie-fishing map. Nearly three decades worth of work have seen Looney's creations acquire almost a cult-like following among die-hard muskie hunters, a following that allows him to ask -- and receive -- $25 to $35 for each lure he makes.

"I don't seem to have any trouble selling them," Looney deadpans.

Where Amma Bamas are concerned, the laws of supply and demand definitely rule. Demand is berserk; supply remains low.

"I only produce about 300 lures a year," says Looney, a pipefitter by trade and a lure maker in his spare time. "I'd like to make more, but I have to work for a living."

Looney began making Amma Bamas in 1973 with no inkling that he might ever sell them.

"I was doing a lot of muskie fishing back then, and there weren't many muskie lures available on the commercial market," he says. "Most of us used Creek Chub Pikie Minnows or Pflueger Mustang lures, and we used them to death. We were always looking for something different."

Inspiration came when Looney and fishing partner Bill Crane noticed that a new Pflueger Mustang wasn't working quite right.

"We looked at it closely, and we found ‘made in Japan' stamped where ‘made in the USA used to be stamped,'" Looney recalls. "We said, ‘By golly, we can make our own lures.' "

When the Bagley Bait Co. came out with its immensely successful Balsa B series of wooden diving lures for bass, Looney and Crane sought to duplicate the concept in sizes large enough to attract trophy muskies. The prototypes they developed became the basis for Looney's Amma Bamas and Crane's Crane Baits.

Looney's lures didn't earn their distinctive nickname until nearly 10 years after he started making them. Another of Looney's fishing partners, Jim Duckworth of Wood County, came up with the name "Whammy Bammy."

"I told him I lived in a town named Amma, so he said, ‘Let's go with that and call it an Amma Bama.' "

During the first few years after he started making lures, Looney mainly produced them for himself and a select circle of friends. The close-mouthed nature of hardcore muskie fishermen kept word of the lures' effectiveness from leaking very far.

"Guys would lie," Looney says. "They'd catch a big fish on a 'Bama, but would tell everyone else they caught it on something else."

Gradually, however, the word spread -- and getting one's hands on an Amma Bama became a goal for knowledgeable muskellunge aficionados from West Virginia to Minnesota and points beyond.

Looney discovered just how valuable the lures had become in 1989, when he traveled to Madison, Wis., to exhibit his lures at a sports show.

"I took 300 'Bamas up there with me," he recalls. "As soon as the doors opened, a fellow came up to me and said, ‘I can't believe you're here, and I can't believe you're selling those lures for $20.' I told him I was sorry, but that's my price.

"He said, ‘No, you don't understand. When you can find them for sale around here, they go for $28. He laid a $100 bill on the table and bought five, right there on the spot. By 1:30 the next day, I'd sold all I had and took home orders that took me six months to fill."

Looney attributes the Amma Bama's success to two factors: its durability and its action in the water.

"I want these lures to last a long, long time," he says. "I'd like to be able to sell you a lure, have you use it for years, and then to hand it down to your son or daughter so they could fish with it."

Less durable muskie lures have hooks or eyelets that can pull out of the lure's body when a really big fish is on the line. That simply can't happen with one of Looney's creations.

"Each 8-inch lure is made of a single piece of solid basswood, and it has a 16- inch piece of heavy-gauge stainless steel wire running through it from front to back. A big fish might chew away some of the basswood, but it'll never pull the hooks or the eyelet out because they're part of that wire."

The 'Bama's action -- Looney calls it "the wiggle" -- took 20 prototypes to perfect. Each lure receives a precise amount of lead weighting to ensure neutral buoyancy and just the right amount of baitfish-mimicking shimmy.

"A friend of mine, Jim Wetzel, once demonstrated one of my lures at a muskie symposium somewhere in the Midwest," Looney recalls. "They did the demonstration in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. By the time he finished, he had people crowding the edge of the pool to get a better view."

The Amma Bama's success has spawned imitators and knockoffs -- so many, in fact, that Looney was forced to copyright the trade name "The Original Amma Bama" for his own creations. Currently, he's working with a lawyer to ensure that wholesalers who purchase his lures don't jack up the retail price beyond his suggested $35 for an 8-inch lure, $30 for a 6-incher and $25 for a 4-incher.

"I found out that a banker in Chicago bought 20 'Bamas and sold them on Ebay for $90 to $115 each," he says. "I don't mind them being sold on Ebay, but I want to be the one selling them."

Much as Looney would like to see each lure catch muskies as intended, he's resigned to the inevitability that one-third of them will never get wet.

"They end up in the hands of collectors," he says. "I guess that's a compliment, but I'd really like to see people fishing with them."

But even being fished with is no guarantee that a 'Bama won't end up under lock and key.

"I was told that one fisherman kept one of my lures locked in a box on his boat," Looney says. "He'd get the lure out to fish with it, but as soon as he finished, it went back into the box. And when he docked the boat, he took the box home with him."

Such is the lure of the lure named for that tiny West Virginia town.

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