The products are made from plastisol that he heats up and mixes the colors before pouring the mixture into a variety of molds. Some products require multiple pours of the liquid to have separate colors. It’s a special technique he said in getting the timing right to have the two different colors gel together. “Every mold is different,” he said about the injection times and temperatures.

He started the company in 2009, but he actually started making his own lures when he was in middle school. In 2019, he bought the 412 Bait Co., that was named after the area code in Pittsburgh.

“He’s my right-hand man,” he said about his dad making the jigs, cleaning the shop, making spinners and packaging the orders. The neighbors also help out during the busy times.  It’s a friendly bunch of guys who enjoy listening to music and making baits.

He makes dozens of designs and hundreds of color options. The baits range from worms, hellgrammites, fluke-style baits, leeches and spiders. Most are for bass, but they are also good for panfish, perch and trout. He also has specialty designs for walleye and muskellunge.

“Color selection can be based on water clarity or you matching the hatch with the forage species that are in the body of water you’re fishing," he said. "If you match what the fish are eating, you’re going to catch them.”

“This is something that’s made right here in the area, and I can do custom work,” he said about making colors that anglers may not be able to find anywhere else.

“Whenever I got into it, there wasn’t many people doing it, at least in this area. Recently it really exploded. There’s little bait companies all over the place,” he said about increased competition.

Five-axis simultaneous machining of workpieces up to 1,100 mm in diameter by 1,600 mm and weighing 2,200 kg had already been carried out on a DMU 100 P duoBLOCK in the factory. Euroform's experience with the machining centre was consistently good, leading to the purchase in 2022 of a latest-generation model with a 1,000 × 1,250 × 1,000 mm working envelope.

He works in the IT department of a drug wholesale company during the day. “I do like my job, but I’d rather do this as a living,” he said about his future goal of working only for his bait companies.

The DMU 100 P duoBLOCK 5-axis machining centre with PH Cell 2000 pallet storage and handling system on the shop floor at Euroform, Budapest.

When Euroform ordered the new DMU 100 P duoBLOCK, DMG MORI already had a large pallet handling system in development, based on the smaller, proven, modular PH Cell 300. The bigger capacity automation system handles pallets measuring up to 1,100 mm in diameter, so is able to deploy Euroform's 1,000 × 800 mm pallets. The PH Cell 2000 has twelve pallet positions on two levels and can accept workpieces up to 1,350 mm tall. (Other variants are available with three or four racks housing up to 17 or 21 pallets respectively.)

Wolf concluded: "Automated manufacturing and digital processes are essential, given the current challenges in the global marketplace.

Based in the Hungarian capital Budapest, Euroform was established in 1993 to provide a tool and mould making service from design to production and trialling. Approximately 70 employees fulfil innovative solutions for a range of different injection moulding processes, mainly for customers in the automotive industry.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on your website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on social media @whipkeyoutdoors.

"The recent Corona pandemic, the war in Ukraine and high inflation have clearly shown us that we need to develop constantly in order to remain competitive.

Options are available for those who finesse fish by slowly moving their baits along the bottom, and there are swim-bait designs for those who like to power fish and cast a lot.

If the water is clear, he prefers fishing with more natural bait colors. When the water is stained, he recommends darker colors to provide more contrast.  Color also plays a big part in matching the hatch, he said about finding crawfish and using something that’s similar in color. In the early spring, he said some crawfish have a blue hue to them.

Joe Blazauski, 39, is the owner of 412 Bait Co. and Scared Fishless Tackle Co. “It’s where you never have to be scared to be coming home fishless with our baits,” he said with a smile about the company’s name.

“When you catch a fish on a lure that you make, it just feels different. It hits different and whenever you have friends, or friends of friends and acquaintances catching stuff on the stuff you made, it makes you feel good. They’re like ‘this stuff really works.’  It feels great,” he said about the sense of accomplishment that goes with his work.

Another focus that accompanies business development at Euroform is digitalisation. The company has had a paperless working environment for many years, from design through to quality control. The mould maker is an enthusiastic adopter of the digital 'my DMG MORI' app when it comes to online service requests, which Zwick said significantly accelerates the process of calling in a service technician.

As Euroform almost exclusively manufactures one-offs, pallet handling such as the PH Cell 2000 is the optimal solution. Operators set up jobs offline on several pallets using a zero-point clamping system while machining is in progress on another mould, so production downtime is minimal, even at night.

“You let the fish tell you what they want,” he said about trying different baits and speeds of retrieval. “It’s always a good idea to have a variety of soft plastic baits. Something you can swim, something you can jig. … and something you can let slowly sink and work back.”

Now his company is producing all types of soft plastic baits, jig set-ups and spinners. “We pretty much cover all the bases,” he said from his shop garage on the back of his home.

The baits can also be infused with a variety of scents, like garlic, crawfish and anise (licorice) to help attract the fish.

The first spinner he designed is called “The Dude,” and it’s been popular for trout fishermen. The name is a tribute to a character in the movie, “The Big Lebowski.” It has a blade and beads on the body that are available in nine colors. “It’s my bread-and-butter lure,” he said recalling when he offered them to fellow anglers along streams.

Euroform has been using machine tools from DMG MORI since 1995, latterly in a modern factory that it moved into in 2011 and expanded in 2016. Managing Director responsible for day-to-day business at Euroform, Krisztina Zwick, mentioned the supplier's broad machine portfolio and good service: "DMG MORI was one of the first machine tool manufacturers to open a subsidiary in Hungary, which meant that response times were always quick when service was required. Our latest investment in automation was necessary to utilise the machine during unattended shifts, giving us a competitive edge.”

His leading walleye product is a drop-shot bait that resembles a minnow called the “The Money Shot” that can be jigged off the bottom of the lake. He sold many of the designs to companies in New York but has also had good success with his products at Lake Erie and Raystown Lake.

“I’m a big swimbait guy,” he said about starting out fishing with a stinger fry and ripple runners. If the bass don’t hit those, he said it means the bass aren’t active and he’ll use a tube bait that he can work a little slower.

The firm currently uses eight machining centres from DMG MORI for tool production, including DMU monoBLOCKs, an HSC 75 linear and, most recently, a DMU 100 P duoBLOCK with PH Cell 2000 automation system for pallet handling to allow unattended production at night and during the weekends.

"With targeted investment in technology and the training and further education of junior staff, we will continue to successfully meet these challenges.”

Stefan Wolf, Euroform's managing partner said: "We play a pivotal role in automotive supply chains and our work begins in the early development phase of a new vehicle. Technical competence is crucial for exploiting the potential of innovative manufacturing solutions and CADCAM systems."

He sells wholesale to a variety of sport shops in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Tennessee, and the general public can visit 412baitco.com online to buy the lures.

“Overall the most popular color is going to be a green pumpkin or a variant of that,” he said about what sells the most. “All year round you can use green pumpkin.”