by Stephen Flanagan Jackson

An admonition from the Forrest Gump School of Life says,”Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Well, the meticulous hands in this particular case are anything but idle. And not devils but “angels” toil here in Diriamba. Anywhere from 13 to 16 Nica ladies put in an honest day’s work five days a week to manually produce fishing tackle, which is sold in the US.In a joint, symbiotic venture between Delia Murillo of Nicaragua and John Pinto of Michigan, a fishing tackle business hums along, grossing approximately $90,000 year. It all starts in a small, simple house in the Mendes Barrio in Diriamba, about 40 miles south of Managua up in the hills of Carazo. Another four or five ladies work out of their homes in the cool hills to the southwest of Managua.
An avid fisherman, Pinto started the business in 1998 with Mrs. Murillo as one of his original nine workers. “I came to Nicaragua in 1995 on a tarpon fishing trip to the Atlantic coast,” remembers Pinto. “I spent two nights in Managua and thought it was a dynamic, moving place. I wanted to be part of it.”
Pinto scratched the itch. He opened a sales office for his export business, first in Granada and then in Managua in 1996, “more or less to force myself to keep coming to Nicaragua,” he says.
Then in 1998 the successful relationship with Mrs. Murillo and Pinto commenced with the manufacturing of artificial fishing bait or lures. Originally called Nica Flies, the new company is now officially named Nica Pesca S.A.
Murillo heads the company which is registered in Jinotepe and manufactures the cornucopia of decorative fish hooks out of the rented Diriamba location with 12 to 15 workers and four or five ladies working from their homes in El Crucero.
Pinto continues to live in Michigan and travels to Nicaragua every six weeks for 10 to 14 days and bunks in a Spartan bedroom in the Diriamba facility. “I am the only client of Nica Pesca and through my company in Michigan, B&C Manufacturing and Import, I do all the importing of the product made in Nicaragua,” says Pinto, explaining the unique set-up. “I take care of all the sales and marketing efforts. I buy from nobody else in Nicaragua,” he explains, “and Nica Pesca sells to nobody else anywhere.”
Exhibiting the precision and patience of Swiss watchmakers, these Nica ladies bring concentration and manual dexterity to the craft of fashioning an array of fishing lures as unique as the ladies themselves in their personalities and physical appearance. Some in their teens, most in their twenties, and a few in their thirties, these Nicas utilize a range of  raw materials – fishing wire made in China and shank hooks made in Korea and Auburn, New York.
They use basic tools like tweezers, needle-nose pliers, a small vice, and scissors to turn out upwards of one hundred lures an hour. Each lady sits in a plastic, crimson chair, working at her station on one of the wooden tables.
One lady may be manufacturing a pink feathered “Anglers Advantage” which, generically speaking, is a jig lure. Another works deftly across the table while chitchatting with her workstation neighbor. She is turning out, one-by-one, “Deep Cut Colorado Blades’ with brilliantly colored beads. These sparkling lures could pass for fancy earrings! But the dull-brass hook at the end of the string of eight or so beads reveals its true purpose… to nab the plentiful bass and walleye prowling the waters in and around Michigan. This item is ticketed for the Fishlander Sports Fishing Products Co. in Traverse City, Michigan.
Heizel García beams as she assembles tiny gold beads and a single gold-plated reflector on fishing line imported from the US. The end result is a product with a name as long as the fish it seeks to catch, and included in the small plastic packet is a veritable fishing manual.
Just for the record, Heizel’s pride bears the Snaggletooth Casting Harness trademark and carries information in English that says it is assembled in Nicaragua with US components and is a product of Riffle Fishing Tackle of Oak Harbor, Ohio, one of Pinto’s select wholesale customers. This lure features two vicous-looking hooks with a 22-inch leader and beaded knot loop. Recommendations included in the package advise, “Better match fishing conditions by changing lure weight, not lures!” More details are provided to the angler with a conclusion stating: “Cast, drift or troll – Now you are ready to fish! Good Luck!!”
Some disagreement may exist in certain quarters as to the world’s oldest profession, but the fishing lure industry can honestly boast that it dates back thousands if not millions of years to the caveman era when bone and then bronze was used to put fish on the “table.” Individuals toiled at the lure-making craft for years. Then came a milestone breakthrough when fishing lure manufacturing finally evolved into a business and an industry with the Hedou & Pluuerger Co. initiating the first commercial-scale manufacture of lures in – where else? – Michigan in the early 1900s.
The lure is a device based on deception… an intricate and inexpensive artificial combination of color, vibration, and movement that entices or captures the fish’s attention. The fish thinks prey… food! Once the fish is lured, it quickly and, usually fatally, gets hooked. Lures come in an encyclopedic spectrum of generic types. From the novice to the expert, the aficionados of fishing know – or per force learn – the purpose and function of each lure. Among those produced by the ladies of Nica Pesca are flies, monofilament fishing rigs, perch rigs, crawler harnesses, leaf work rigs, walleye snells, steelhead jigs, foam spiders, tied ants and gnats, and poppers.
Word has it that the experienced fisherman will never reveal his secrets – the best locations, the best times, or the best bait. But to hook ‘em and reel ‘em in, you can’t go wrong with these tiny products made right here in Nicaragua.
Pinto says, “I have been in the fishing tackle business all my life as a sales rep, distributor, retailer, exporter, and now as a manufacturer. I am also involved in sport fishing development and marketing. I have worked for several years in the Bahamas with the fishing industry.”
Pinto’s fishing counsel also extends obviously to Central America. He adds, “I have had meetings with the Tourism Institute (INTUR) in Managua and offered my expertise about the sport fishing potential in Nicaragua. I have many ideas about how Nicaragua can share in the millions of sport-fishing dollars currently going to places like Belize, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Cuba. All I need is for someone in INTUR to listen and take action.” Pinto and the ladies of Nicaragua labor on despite his frustrations with government bureaucracy.
“The times – other than fishing – I spend with my girls in Diriamba now are the best times of my life,” said the Michigan entrepreneur and fisherman. “I wish I had started this enterprise 20 years ago. “I love Nicaragua and never want to leave.”