Clyde Folse Jr. has had a lot of success catching sac-a-lait throughout the years and now he is trying to turn that personal success into a business selling his own line of fishing lure enhancements.
About a decade ago, the 51-year-old Des Allemands native garnered a nickname from his son Caleb for his knowledge of the fish’s habits.
“We would go sac-a-lait fishing and I would tell him ‘son you need to cast over here by this grass or this stick.’ When he would cast he would catch a fish. One day he said ‘dad, you are like a sac-a-lait psychic,’” Folse said.
About three years ago, Folse took his sac-a-lait fishing game to a new level when he engineered a fishing trailer to stick on the end of his lures. Created by a rudimentary process of cutting rubber strips off another lure and using them as an add-on to other lures, Folse said the difference was astounding.
“People would have eight to 10 sac-a-lait and we would have 50. I would tell them the color tube jig I was using and would not tell them about these trailers,” he said.
Folse tried to keep the trick a secret at first, but was influenced by his son to get it out in the open.
That is how the Folse came about creating his “Crappie Psychic” brand of lures. He explained that instead of using the name “Sac-a-lait Psychic” he decided to go with crappie, which is what the fish is called outside of Louisiana.
“I’ve taken a lot of flak for not calling myself the ‘Sac -a-lait Psychic,’ but there are crappie throughout the country,” he said. “It is not just a Louisiana bait, it is a nationwide bait.”
For years Folse has dreamed of creating his own successful business.
“I graduated from Hahnville High School in 1981. I did a four-year tour in the Air Force and then came back home and got hired at Monsanto and have been trying to start my own businesses since then,” he said.
Now, 21 years later, Folse is still working at Monsanto and has yet to strike it rich with his own company, but not for lack of trying.
“This is my fourth company,” he said. “It is just my makeup, it is just who I am. I’ve always dreamed of having and running my own business and something has been nagging at me to get going. I lost both my mom and dad in their 50s and I am 51 already and that is weighing heavily on my mind.”
Folse has made his way through a catering company in which he and his wife cooked gourmet meals in customer’s homes, an airboat tour company and a dolphin boat company that never quite got off the ground.
But with “Crappie Psychic” Folse said he feels like he has finally hit on something big. Each bag comes with 13 trailers that are made personally by Folse and his family in their garage.
“It is a two-piece aluminum mold with an injector…we inject our molds,” he said. “My wife and daughter pull the baits off the runners.”
Folse said he thinks that type of integration into his family’s daily lives is what will someday help them make it big. For instance, Folse said Caleb has already figured out how to maximize the creation of the lures and the family is dreaming of opening their own store.
“My son has been wrapping his mind around our capacity levels and has figured out how we can make 100,000 a day and wants to work on how to make a million a day,” he said.
But first, just as any business does in the beginning, they have to get name recognition and get off the ground. Within three weeks of launching the company, Folse has already sold 800 bags to 20 bait and tackle shops across southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi. He is looking to expand across the region soon and then hopefully the nation.
“A lot of successful businesses start in a garage with a simple idea and a lot of successful businessmen fail numerous times before coming up with a successful business,” he said.
To find out more about “Crappie Psychic” lures go to www.crappiepsychic.com.
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