ESTABLISHED: October 2013
FOUNDERS: Blaine “Crash” Garrett, Jeff “Leadfoot” Kipling, Reid “Red” Baker, Niles “Willie” Bailey, Aaron “Shiner” Creger 
LOCATION: Johnston
WEBSITE: www.mudbumusa.com

The Problem: 

Preparing the rigging needed to catch monster-sized catfish in Midwest rivers was time-consuming and frustrating for a group of friends who enjoyed hauling in the bottom feeders, which can weigh 50 to 60 pounds or more.

The Innovation: 

The partners pooled their resources and formed a company to develop the Hawg Lawg, a heavy-duty shore pole with a built-in 250-pound line that eliminates tangling and streamlines a time-consuming process. Along the way, they created a marketing brand, launched an accompanying line of clothing, and began producing a television program for an outdoor network to promote their products. 

How they did it: 

With no engineering or design education or expertise between them, the partners painstakingly prototyped various designs and materials until they developed a working product. The entire process took about seven years and nine generations of prototypes to develop a marketable product. The partners collectively invested about $50,000 in personal capital and endless hours of sweat equity into the project to produce a made-in-America product that carries a lifetime warranty. The poles are extruded by a Wisconsin facility, along with parts made by an Earlham plastics shop, and are assembled inside a converted two-car garage at the home of one of the partners. The business ships its T-shirts and other clothing line items from a fulfillment center in Des Moines. 

The Payoff: 

Mudbum LLC  has sold about 85 percent of its initial inventory of 1,500 Hawg Lawg poles in more than 20 states, and has penetrated 40 states with its clothing and accessories line. Its television show, “The Mudbum Boys,” is the second-most-watched show on Pursuit Channel and is also carried on Carbon TV, an Internet sports network. The company last year received a $100,000 economic development loan from the Iowa Economic Development Authority to help market its products. The company has attracted major equipment sponsors for boats and camping equipment for filming its shows, and is booked at five national sports fishing expos in the next year, including the International Convention of Allied Sportfishing Trades (ICAST), the world’s largest fishing show, in Orlando, Fla.

Catching the big ones: 
MudbuM brings innovative approach to fishing

Five country boys from Johnston who aren’t afraid of a lot of hard work have developed a better piece of specialized catfishing equipment, and through that journey have launched an outdoor fishing show that’s now in its second season on an online outdoor adventure site, Pursuit Channel. Their company, Mudbum LLC, has parlayed its popularity in its specialty fishing niche to a line of its branded outdoor clothing and accessories that have sold in about 40 states. 

One of the company’s founders, Jeff Kipling, introduced this style of angling to his fishing buddies and now business partners: Blaine Garrett, Reid Baker, Niles Bailey and Aaron Creger. 

“I grew up doing this with my dad and grandpa over in Illinois and carried that tradition over here with friends,” said Kipling.

The method of shore-based fishing can involve setting as many as 20 poles, each requiring a lengthy process of measuring out line and tying multiple knots per pole. 

“It was just a very inefficient and archaic system,” said Garrett, Mudbum’s president. “It took hours and hours to set them up and tear them down — it was a mess.” 

Working from Garrett’s garage, “it was prototyping and putting things together to get to a working product,” Kipling said. “We got to where we had the concept we wanted, then it got down to just refining the concept into a streamlined product you could take to the market.” 

“It took seven years and nine different (prototype ) generations and probably $50,000 in personal capital that we threw at this thing before we ever brought in anybody else from the outside,” Garrett said. 

At that point, Garrett contacted a longtime mentor and entrepreneur, Scot Lewton, for some advice on whether the invention could spawn a new company. 

“I looked at it and I said, ‘It’s revolutionary; you’ve got to produce this thing,’ ” recalled Lewton, who is now the sole outside investor in the company. Lewton, who co-founded a Des Moines company that developed the Intoxalock ignition interlock system, assisted the partners in obtaining a patent for the invention and last year helped them land a $100,000 economic development loan from the Iowa Department of Economic Development. 

The company’s biggest marketing tool — the web television show — came about through a chance meeting in a coffeeshop with a high school buddy Garrett hadn’t seen in years who happened to be a television producer.

With the intent of making a 10-minute introductory product video, they brought a camera crew onto the river with professional video equipment, and the venture quickly evolved into a video of the entire trip as a pilot episode for a fishing show. “We threw it to a couple of (online) networks and four months later we signed a deal,” Garrett said.

Now in its second season of episodes on the Pursuit Channel, the show has gained sponsorships for the company from some leading boating and outdoor equipment companies, among them Mercury Marine, Gator Trax, Eagle Claw, Golight and Lodge Manufacturing Co.

“It’s a lot more of a lifestyle show than just fishing,” Lewton said. “This is everything from camping and boats and trips that we take, so it’s really a lifestyle on the river. They take three boats and they look like the Clampetts going down the river because they have so much stuff for 10 days on the river. It’s really an experience — I’ve been with them once, and once was enough. I’m really more of a hotel and bar kind of guy.”

With the TV exposure, it was just a natural step to branch out to selling branded clothing and accessories, Kipling said. 

“At last count we have about 65 (product codes) on our product line, including their flagship Hawg Lawg pole, which they’ve sold more than 1,000 of in the past year. The twin-hook MudbuM logo appears on all the clothing, which even includes children’s and toddler’s gear.

“It’s been pretty good on the apparel side as well,” he said. “It’s kind of a catchy logo — we’re hoping it will catch on some day as good as UnderArmor.”

The partners originally considered selling their products on Amazon.com, but then discovered that a nearby company, Broken Arrow, operated a fulfillment center that ships product directly from Des Moines.

All of the five partners have kept their full-time day jobs, and between their regular work and MudbuM estimate they spend a minimum of 70 hours working each week.

“We’re all in trouble with our wives and girlfriends,” Kipling quipped.

The partners’ work ethic is a strong advantage for the company and a key to its success so far, Garrett said.

“We have this real unstoppable ‘we get it’ sacrifice mentality,” he said. “We just put a display in at a store in Kansas City. It would have cost $3,000 to have it made – so we made it ourselves for about $800. We’re not afraid of bootstrapping it and staying up til 2 a.m. to get something done.”