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Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) => Tackle & Techniques => Topic started by: Scott Maybury on June 11, 2010, 09:41:24 AM
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Hey guys,
Just wanted to put a heads up without too much of a rant.
There was a post on here last year about these lures, made in Germany, which I had seen advertised on PLAT (but always out of stock)....anyway, they are a pretty blatant rip off of some well known designs by the looks of them, and I don't normally buy 'knock offs' but was keen to add some cheap-ish poppers to my arsenal and give them a go, so I ordered some for a mate and I.
In August 2009.
Delivery was supposed to be within 2 months as they were about to do their production run.
Anyway, after a lot of toing and froing (including a couple of requests to confirm the colours I wanted, which I did about 3 times) I got an email with pictures of finished lures in February, and told they were ready for delivery. There were a lot of excuses in between, sick workers because of a flu epidemic, much higer than usual orders etc etc, and I thought I was pretty understanding, considering I had already paid for these lures.
They still haven't come. I sent an email in May expressing in fairly strong terms my disappointment, and have not had a reply.
Pretty disappointing obviously. I guess it is possible this happens when you are dealing with overseas companies you don't really know, but they seemed pretty reputable and the guy I was corresponding with, Christian, seemd a very keen fisho and nice bloke in correspondence. I can honestly say in all my dealings with fishermen, including overseas, I have never been dudded and totally did not expect it, in an industry/fraternity that is known for co-operation, helpfulness etc
Just wanted to post this as something for other people to consider before dealing with this manufacturer
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Hi Scott,
that's bad news...
We ordered with him last january as well and received our lures in perfect order, no complains here.
Since our trip fell through they were never used so if you are interested send me a PM.
I hope he get's in touch with you and sorts you out or gives a refund.
Good luck !
Serge.
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These lures are not made in Germany it is China.
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Steve - you know this as a fact?
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Owatatsumi poppers are just a re branded popper from Singapore.
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The poppers are not made in china for sure. The owner/manufacturer happen to be a close friend of mine and I have heard from him with regards to the German guy, Christian, who was distributing the poppers in Europe. He is currently back at the factory with limited Internet access. I will relay to him about this and to come out and clarify the issues surrounding that Christian.
I am very sure, all orders originating back to him is fulfilled. That could not be said of the German guy.
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Chris, I think we would all be interested in some clarity around the origin of these lures. Christian Seidl was on the forum some time back claiming these lures were manufactured in Germany by his company. If that is not the case, we will take a dim view on this.
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Chris, I think we would all be interested in some clarity around the origin of these lures. Christian Seidl was on the forum some time back claiming these lures were manufactured in Germany by his company. If that is not the case, we will take a dim view on this.
I cant wait for the response to this, I have brought these poppers from Christian Seidl myself, unfortunately these poppers are not made in Germany as Christian states they are, I doubt these poppers can be brought from him now after all the problems I have had when buying these in the past from him. It was very interesting when I found out who makes Owatatsumi poppers.
I haven't tested these myself but I did hear of some guys that used them and they said they were a very good popper for the price.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter where they are made does it as long as they swim.
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Hi Guys,
As much as i could, im trying to contact my pal as this is a very bad rep cause by Christian to the poppers. Christian was never the owner or the manufacturer of the poppers as far as i know. There seems to be an issue with Christian but i believe my pal have moved on with it.
Nevertheless, the poppers are still in production and a tackle shop in Singapore is the sole distributor of it. They do make online orders if interested. Meanwhile, i believe a new proto of the poppers are in the pipeline and after seeing the blanks of it, i am very excited.
Scott, since my pal have not have access to this post, let me apologize on his behalf for the non delivery of the poppers from that German guy. Im sure that guy have nothing to do with the integrity of the company producing the poppers. Drop me a pm, and i see what i can do about rectifying it. I believe what ever happened behind the scene with that Christian should not have any bearing on the anglers who is interested in the Owas poppers.
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It would be great to hear how these poppers swim from someone, I have a few sitting here and they are a nice looking popper with a great colour range for us fussy fisherman to decide from. I will take one down the road to the lake tomorrow in fact and see how it goes.
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Steve - you know this as a fact?
Aren't these poppers used to be called " Evolution " poppers from PR-Lab.com ?
Jon .
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Hi Jon,
It's not used to be. THis is another line of poppers that were produce on an OEM basis. The evolutions are the flagship models of PR Labs. Those were another complete line of models.
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I spoke with manufacture of these lures at China fish. There was maybe 4 manufactures with similar styles, even a Japanese company purchase the bodies take to Japan paint and sell under Japanese brand. These lures are not balanced and do not swim very well as manufactures do not understand about lure balance. Last week I received email from a company and they have added weight to there lure after our discussions I await samples. Images of some of the latest releases.
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Before this gets any further, i have to say, Owatatsumi poppers are certainly not made in China. Steve, which ever manufacturer you spoke to, is certainly not the manufacturers of Owas and Pr Labs. Have you seen the Owas in person yet?
I may not have as much water time as you guys here, i may not have as much Carpenters, orion or hammerheads as you guys here. But im sure i can tell the difference between a balanced popper with those that are made with no respect to the weight distribution. All the owas i owned swim the way it's supposed to be, pop the way its suppose to be. If you have seen the way the Pr Labs poppers are done, are you telling me the manufacturer does not understand how to balance a lure. Steve, thats a very generalizing comment.
I would say, the paint work on the poppers are almost second to none. They are as good as any other premium poppers. Just that the name is not as well known. Im sure, if i use an Owa popper in places like New Cal or in the Coral sea, i could catch as much Gts as any other premium brands. Besides, the poppers was tested in Maldives and New Cal before launched.
I shall not comment as much, but im very sure, Owa poppers are not made in China with no QC and research. Just because a brand name is not well known or endorse by some big time popping angler, does not mean that it's another copy made from China and used just because its cheap.
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Maybe the China made ones are copies of Owa poppers?
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Maybe the China made ones are copies of Owa poppers?
;D ;D ;D
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I have certainly seen pics of them hanging out of fish mouths so I am guessing they can work ok
I was hoping to take them to Fiji last Jan but they never showed up them was hoping to get them for bugatti for the end of august but I am guessing they will never come
Chris will maybe shoot you a PM would be interested to at least get an idea of the story and where mine and my mates money has gone...obviously pretty embarassing for me where I took money off a mate to buy him some too
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Scott, please do. I will see what I can do. We certainly dun wish one bad egg action and risk the name of a brand. Drop me a pm with ur mailing address and I see if I can get a couple off my own collection for u to have a go at them in Bugatti.
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Hi guys,
first of all, apologies for all the fuss caused, and for not using caps in my texts.
i'm daric, founder and ceo of predator research laboratories or pr-labs in short. owa poppers are produced for christian based on an oem basis. we are only responsible for producing these poppers for him and in no way are we related to any sales of these poppers to the public. we will not be supplying him with anymore poppers with reasons that i would prefer not to publicly announce. i'm here to clarify not prosecute. owa is a label that we helped created for him and will no longer be in existence once his holding stock runs out. we will not be restricting him if he wishes to continue to use this label by sourcing for other manufacturers to produce for him, but kindly take note that we are no longer affiliated with him or this label.
steve, owas are not produced in china and they certainly do not have the balancing problems that you mentioned in your posts. each and every piece of popper that we produce have their centre of gravity determined before the hole for the swivel is drilled, and we, unlike most of the china manufacturers, field test our products before we start to sell them. have you fished with these lures personally and are you 100% sure that the lures you claim that are not well balanced are the oem poppers produced by us? if not, i would appreciate that you could verify your claims that the poppers produced by us have the problems that you mentioned in one of your post. it may not be rocket science but i can definitely assure you that building and fine tuning the performance of a well balanced popper is not a straight forward matter of simply adding more weight. if our products are not performing as they should, then i believe that one of your countryman owning an online store wouldn't have gone through the trouble of buying and sending our Evolution series to several china manufacturers to try to have them duplicated. to date, there are no china manufacturers that i know of that are capable of producing poppers with decent performance. one of the statements that you said is true though; they don't understand about lure balance.
andrew, thanks for your kind assistance with regards to my request sometime back. you should know what i'm referring to.
chris, thanks for standing up for our products.
scott, they are replicas of carpenter's seafrog. knock offs they are, but i can assure you that the quality and performance are not compromised because they are economically priced. there are many anglers out there with pockets of varying depths and we are well capable of producing tip top finishing like those found on the premium japanese labels, and when our customers are ready to fork out 100 usd for a lure, we have no qualms about producing lures of such calibre. some of the japs lures like craftbaits have really high quality in terms of finishing, while the most of them are over priced, hyped up by propaganda. i'm sorry for your plight with regards to your encounter with christian. in good will, i will send you some Evolution poppers to cover some of your losses. please email me your full mailing address including your tel numbers to [email protected] for shipping purposes. it's gonna take at least a month for me to process the poppers that i'm sending to you, but rest assure that you will receive them from me.
staying at your disposal,
asher daric loy
founder
predator research laboratories
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Daric, welcome to the forum and for what is a balanced response. I agree with you that while some of the companies like Craftbait are exemplary in their finishing, it should not be assumed that all Japanese lures fall into this category nor that performance will necessarily be proportional to price.
Based on your advice, it now appears that Christian has been somewhat cavalier with the truth in terms of where the Owas are manufactured. Perhaps he might be kind enough to provide the forum with an explanation for that.
Guys, we'd like this thread to continue but there have been some aspects emerging in some of the discussion that we do not encourage here on GTPopping. I have already corresponded directly by PM with members on this topic.
Happy for discussion to continue but please, let's keep it all nice and civil.
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Daric
Well I guess the PR Labs and other lures that were on display at China fish are copies of yours as yours are copies of others.
I have tried the genuine PR Labs with little success ended up giving them away they came from Gavin Koh over a year ago.
Would you mind informing from where the body's of you lures do come from ?
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brandon, thank you for your warm welcome. i agree totally to your statements regard jap products. i'm a fan of well built products myself regardless of the cost and would like to take this opportunity to pay homeage to all manufacturers producing original designs as I understand first hand the time, effort and cost involved in bringing a product from concept to the shelves in the retail stores.
steve, only the oem popper that we produce are replicas of other labels. our evolution series are all original designs. despite the fact that many manufacturers and tackle shops around the globe from taiwan, singapore, malaysia, china, thailand, australia and even japan have tried to replicate our evolution models, we are still the only company in the world that produces poppers with detailed profiles that serves both form and function. i can post the site of one of the china manufacturer that tried to duplicate our evo series for you guys to take a look at how successful their attempts were. with regards to your question, all the bodies of our poppers regardless of evo or the oem are produced in our own factory.
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So where is the factory located that makes the oem bodies for you ?
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steve, the evo together with the oem chassis are produced in my production plant that I had set up personally and it's not located in china. the boys from lpb and the chief editor of modern fishing have had a go at our evo poppers and they've landed some respectable fishes with them, so i'm sure that the lures my staff sent you a year ago are performing as they were intended to. i'm sure that you are an accomplished angler in your own rights. perhaps the fishing conditions were not ideal when you used them. i would gladly fish along side with you using our lures while u use the labels that you are you are carrying to compare the real time performance on water. I would also like to close all discussions of the where abouts of my plant as i'm here to clarify my company's relationship with christian.
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I think this thread is pretty close to it's " use by" date. Daric has made his position clear so let's leave it at that. This thread was started by Scott to warn other members about a problem he had encountered. It has nothing to do with the origin of the Owa poppers.
Let us also recognise that Daric has offered to compensate Scott where he has absolutely no obligation to do so.