After an artistic break while serving in the United States Military, (Thank you Chris and all who’ve served) Chris got back into to his passion for the arts. He did this by custom painting crankbaits in his New England basement. Combining his love for both fishing and the arts, the Bubonic Crankbait was born.
The Bubonic Bugz crankbait is a collaboration between the Catch Co. and underground lure artist Chris Grout. Like many hardcore artists, Chris started sharpening his skills at a young age, but as he got older priorities simply changed. Sometimes life gets in the way, you feel me?
On an EXTREMELY tight budget, Chris began to slowly grind it out day by day, painting custom cranks all from his teensy basement shop. Before he knew it, Chris had put together a small but passionate underground following of lure lovers across his social media platforms.
Here’s where Catch Co. comes in …… By happenstance, one day the Catch Co. CEO, Ross Gordon (also a fishing freak) was thumbin’ through Instagram and came across the Bubonic cranks. With an eye for innovation and genuine appreciation for Chris’ work, Ross reached out. He was hoping to figure out a way we could work together and get Chris’ artistic vision into the hands of more anglers. After years of back and forth, product innovation and development, we finally nailed down a crankbait with Chris, and they’re friggin’ sweet.
We’re beyond excited to roll out the new Bubonic collaboration with our first bait, the Bubonic Bugz Square Bill Crank.
The Bubonic Bugz is a floating, wide wobbling squarebill crankbait that dives between 2-4 feet. Available in nine of the sickest paint jobs available on the market today, the new Bubonic Bugz crankbait will be something neither the fish or your fishing buddies have ever seen before.
