DATE: Thursday, October 2, 1997             TAG: 9710020504

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

TRIO CONCOCTS A BETTER BAIT: A MINNOW TO DYE FOR

``Kim, do you know how to dye a minnow?''

That simple question started what Harold Collins, Kim Senn and Ted Easler are calling the biggest development in fishing since the depth finder. Bigger than the pork rind frog, bigger than the weedless hook, bigger than the artificial worm even.

They've found a way to color live minnows.

``Everybody wants to emphasize that their lure looks like live bait,'' said Collins, fluorescent minnows squirming in each hand. ``These are live bait.''

This live bait shines underwater, like a roadside neon sign telling fish: ``Eat Here.''

Collins is the visionary of the group, a zealous fisherman who spilled chemicals in a bait aerator and came up with a bucketful of minnows dyed electric blue. An exterminator by trade, Collins worried for months before approaching Senn, a chemist, whose house he was spraying for bees.

``Kim,'' Collins said, ``do you know how to dye a minnow?''

Now Senn does - fluorescent pink, outrageous orange and a yellow he calls 14-karat gold.

The theory blends the best qualities of bait fishing with the lure of artificial rigs.

The minnows, stained through from organs to scales, are as lively as any bait and will live as long, the inventors said. The fish stand out like a hunter swathed in blaze orange.

``Nature has put on clothing that allows him to hide among the twigs and leaves,'' Easler said about the workaday minnow. ``The color takes that away from the minnow. He's like a flashlight in the water. He will be caught.''

Easler, a marketing specialist, said he caught 800 to 1,000 crappie on the bait this spring. Collins claims he catches about six times more fish with dyed minnows.

Those could be fish stories, of course, but the numbers have led the threesome to call themselves Magnet Inc. They call the dye Minnow Magic and the concoction already has its Hampton Roads supporters and detractors, even though it isn't yet on the market.

``I'd love to try it,'' said Carl Herring of Suffolk, former president of the Coastal Conservation Association, a federation of recreational fishermen. ``People already use goldfish for bait for largemouth bass, especially in dirty water.''

Bob Bois of Seaview, Va., a retired supervisor with the Virginia Marine Patrol, isn't so sure. ``If someone gave me some, I'd probably try it. But I think I'd be real hard to convince that this is a better way of catching fish.''

At the Bait Barn tackle shop in Virginia Beach, proprietor Steve McCarver is enthusiastic.

``All it would take is for one person to really outfish a buddy and you can bet the buddy would be in a store looking for some.

``But I'll have to admit it's about as weird as anything I've ever heard of.''

Producing Minnow Magic turned out to be a three-year project. Collins spent six months trying food coloring and Easter egg dyes and even ventured a colossal failure that involved gluing glitter onto the fish.

Making the dyes lasting and safe was the hardest part of the process, Senn said. A five-minute soak in the dye will stay on the minnows five hours and is biodegradable and nontoxic, he said.

Senn has perfected a trio of colors. His pink, orange and gold will be packaged together in a $30 unit.

The company's strongest backing may come from a competitor. Arkansas fish farmer Bill Bland Jr. said Minnow Magic is certain to draw the fish. Bland's father began selling a new minnow hybrid called the rosy red minnow in the early 1980s.

``Fish really home in on them because of their color,'' said Bland, who let out an appreciative whistle upon hearing about Minnow Magic.

``I guess we wouldn't have spent all those years trying to breed them red if we'd have thought of that.'' MEMO: Pilot Outdoors Editor Bob Hutchinson contributed to this report,

which first appeared in the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

SPARTANBURG HERALD-JOURNAL

The minnows, stained through from organs to scales, are as lively as

any bait and will live as long, the inventors say. The dye, Minnow

Magic, comes in orange, yellow and pink.

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