Every once in awhile, a product transcends its intended purpose and serves a wild new function. A venerable fishing lure called “hoochy” (singular) or “hoochies” (plural) does just that.
On Halloween, hoochies take on a whole new life — or unlife — as a fantastic, spooky, glowing decoration or string of decorations or adornments to a costume.
A hoochy is a trolling skirt, and a very effective one. Fish just can’t resist biting it because of the lifelike shape and movement. It is so generally effective that if I were placed anywhere in the world and could fish with only one item of my choice, I just might go with the mighty hoochie. It is that effective. Locally we use it for catching halibut, white seabass, rockfish, lingcod and other tasty critters.
With that product knowledge explained — I thought you might want to know what the heck a hoochy is — let’s get back to Halloween.
Certain hoochies glow in the dark (the packages are so marked) and have a distinct ghost shape. They range in shape from a couple of inches long to nearly 5 inches, making them perfect for adding to costumes or hanging from fishing line around a window or a doorway that serves as an approach to a Halloween scare spot. Another technique is to tie up one main line with a dozen short lines hanging from it, each with its own hoochy, and you have a lineup of ghostly apparitions.
Glow hoochies absorb light and store it. With that stored light they glow for quite some time, which is useful when fishing deep, dark waters.
On Halloween, put them in a lighted room or in the sunshine for a little while to charge the glow. If your Halloween evening lasts longer than expected and the glow begins to fade, shine a flashlight up close on your hoochies for a minute to recharge them. They recharge quickly and easily.
I am finding that one of the fun aspects of owning a fishing tackle store is finding other interesting uses for products. For example, we get quite a number of crafts people in the store because our braided fishing lines and other fishing products serve a wide variety of needs. We carry glow hoochies at Hook, Line & Sinker at 4010 Calle Real in Santa Barbara, between Upper State Street and Highway 154.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help.
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