LOCKING UP HIS LURE : A.C. PLUG INVENTOR GET PATENT, WANTS OUT OF CONTRACT.

Byline: Jim Matthews Special to the Daily News

The legacy of the A.C. Plug, arguably the most effective lure ever designed for catching huge largemouth bass, continues to grow.

In the past three weeks, the lure has been protected from imitators by the U.S. Patent office, while Allan Cole, the colorful lure's inventor, has canceled his contract with the Fred Arbogast Co. to make the popular bait.

Cole said he will get a court injunction against Arbogast to stop making and selling the lures because they have breached and voided the contract.

``The written contract was clearly breached. It's just as clear as can be,'' said Cole, a Lancaster house painter and nationally recognized trophy angler who revolutionized the bucketmouth fishing world with his garage-made versions of the plug. ``We've given them seven months over what is called for in the contract to try to address our concerns. They haven't, and I want out.''

In a recent memo to Arbogast, Cole maintains that the manufacturer has continued ``to make an inferior product, refused to correct it, and cannot make enough for the demand'' and hasn't properly compensated him.

The Akron, Ohio, company is refusing to acknowledge Cole's cancellation of the contract.

``I have not seen anything from a lawyer canceling the contract,'' said Dan Rushing, national sales manager of Arbogast. ``If there were ever any violations to the contract, any and all amends have been made. We are looking at doing some new things with the bait this year that we are very excited about it.

``We're making the lure and we'll continue to make it, unless we're informed otherwise.''

Rushing disputed claims about the lure being inferior to Cole's original versions but admitted recent changes to the lure - going to heavier wood and adding an insert between the painted wooden portion of the plug and the soft, plastic tail section to stop a paint ``bleeding'' problem in their A.C. Plugs, which are made in Guatemala.

Reactions to the changes have been mixed.

``Personally, from what I have seen, I like Allan's original plugs better,'' said Porter Hall, a Ventura angler who has taken the largest bass ever caught on an A.C. Plug, an 18.35-pound largemouth from Casitas Lake last year. ``They have a more erratic action. The Arbogast plugs are more mechanical. I think the Arbogast versions are OK, but I'd give Allan's an edge.'' Cole is seeking to get an injunction against Arbogast to stop selling A.C. Plugs and to turn over all lures currently made to Cole. He said he would also aggressively seek to enforce the patent - issued June 4 - on the dozens of commercial versions of the plug that have emerged throughout the country, a veritable cottage industry that grew from the news of the A.C. Plugs' catches of trophy largemouth bass across the nation.

``No one believed I'd get the patent,'' he said. ``There were times I didn't believe it myself during the last five years.''

But now that he has the patent, Cole will protect his invention, which, he said, ``is the most copied plug ever, or at least since Rapala came out with its first lure.''

``It's like a fly or itch on your back that you haven't been able to reach for a long time. Now you can swat it. Oh, it feels so good,'' he said.

The patent, number 5522170, protects Cole's hidden articulating joint and soft plastic tail and covers both lipped (diving) and regular versions.

Cole said the A.C. Plug legacy began in 1987, when one of Cole's brown trout fishing friends was using a large salmon lure for striped bass at Pyramid Lake. Anglers who witnessed a catch made on that lure immediately started carving their own versions of the big, straight Martin plug and painted them like rainbow trout. Cole said he and his son Eric began experimenting with a jointed version of the plug and added the tail soon afterward. This version of the A.C. Plug caught fish like no other lure, and Cole knew immediately it was something special. He caught an 18-pound striper on his first cast with the A.C. Plug.

``There's just never been another plug like this one. It just swims so beautifully,'' Cole said.

By 1991, the reputation of Cole's striped bass fishing prowess was renowned and anglers were following him around, accusing him of using live trout to catch the big fish. He had been keeping the plug mostly a secret. But in December 1992, Cole set the largemouth bass fishing world on its ear by catching a 15-pound largemouth bass at Lake Castaic and announcing that a world record largemouth would be caught on his lure.

While the record has alluded the A.C. Plug, the lure has caught more bass over 10 pounds in three years than most plugs have caught in their entire history. In one year, writer and fishing historian Bart Crabb documented 419 bass over 10 pounds from Southern California waters, 165 of which were on the A.C. Plug and another 113 on copycat versions of the lure.

When Arbogast made a deal in 1993 with Cole to make the lure and distribute it nationally, the plug became an overnight success in Texas, where it started racking up the big catches there. Striper anglers across the country fell in love with the lure, and muskie and pike fishermen found it had a special appeal with those toothy fish.

Arbogast has sold over 100,000 of the lures since it began working with Cole, and orders have far exceeded the company's ability to make the lure.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Allan Cole, inventor of the A.C. Plug, says t hat the lure's manufacturer has breached their contract. He was recently awarded a patent.

Special to the Daily News

(2--color) ``No one believed I'd get the patent. There were times I didn't believe it myself.''

Allan Cole of Lancaster, referring to his A.C. Plug fishing lure