So, Im at a Sportmans Warehouse, persuing the aisle for things I know I dont need, and I see a new lure I just had to have only to take a picture of! If only... because it's a total knockoff of one of Silver Hordes tried and true best lures for Coho and Chinook: The Coho Killer.



WTF? Does this company have no shame? They might have well used one of those cloning machines from Star trek, I mean this thing is exactly like the Silver Horde lure except for a slightly different name. Arent there laws against this?

I'm throwing mine away after taking this picture, and I put a permanent VOODOO HEX on any and all of these lures on principle alone, because it's pretty low to knock off and copy another mans product like this.

Kelly M. and Silver Horde have supported

EVERY.

SINGLE.

DERBY.

Salmon for Soldiers!

and countless other local and regional programs with their lure sales.

Hey Sportmans folks. LAME!

Private label agreement?

Hey Riley,

I saw this also. Totally bull from a big dog Utah corporation.

Made in the USA from 1963 gets the screws from Sportmans Warehouse.

Kelly and Silver Horde gives everything to the PSA clubs and all the derbies for years. Now they maybe forced to lay off USA workers as a
huge ripoff is upon them.

It is just ethics and business morals ......I hope we can support the Pacific Northwest factories...

Spud
FISTHTALE 2

NO , there is not a Private Label issue.

Silver Horde got whacked!!!!

Bass TURDS! Dirty bass TURDS!

This may or may not be perfectly legal. To the extent the design of their lures are functional, they would have a hard time claiming trade dress protection. If they have a patent, that's a different story.

If they need a good intellectual property attorney, I do know a guy...

They will never see a dime of my money again. How these people sleep at night is beyond me. The names are a slap in the face. Silver Hordes Coho killer and King Fisher spoon are Sportsman's Coho fisher and King Killer. The paint patterns are even exact rip offs. Hope to see them out of business again Real Soon. Just say no and never again to Sportsman's' POS scum of the earth.

Is there any chance that silver horde is packaging and selling them under sportsmans name?


It would be a dick move if not. Especially since sportsmans is main retailer of silver horde...

Mebbe?

If so, I take it back.

It's what's happening in the retail world..sell said product..If sells well..repackage and sell under there own label. .classic trader joes! A friend also just saw his version of a salt tied fly known thru out the PNW as his creation sold under a local emporium store under their label..lame! No patent no protection. .

I can assure you 1000% Silver Horde just got wind of the this rip-off.

They are steaming mad and discusted with the lack of morality of it all.

Silver Horde spends months of time and money testing products to release to the recreational angler. Made here in the PNW since the 60's.
Then they give away thousands of dollars to support the PSA anglers and all the derbies.

A Utah company then packs up their samples and sends them overseas to save a buck.

Sounds like the same tactics of another schitty manufacturer who's name rhymes with Brad's....Oops, I mean Rads....

For sure, this sucks, but I find myself wondering why this particular instance of big business lying, cheating, and stealing to increase profits is so much more despicable than what they do every day, in every vertical.

For my part, I'll still buy the original. I make lots of questionable (more expensive) purchasing decisions with the sole intent of supporting small to medium-sized businesses. The ability to start (and maintain) one's own enterprise was what once made this the Land of Opportunity, and besides bringing manufacturing home, it's the only hope for the future of our middle class.

Didn't someone also produce a really poor knock off Silver Horde's highly successful Ace Hi Fly?

Ouch.Good luck,

SZ

Being retired and a third generation Northwesterner (grandfather had the gall to be born in Astoria) I have had gear handed down to me as well as having collected stuff at various yard sales to add to a limited and haphazard collection of fishing tackle.

With that background I will offer that most current tackle is a permutation of earlier versions. If it works better it earns a place; if not, it goes away with no more than a whimper.

But this is a pretty egregious effort to duplicate existing successful design(s)/color(s) and name(s) and by doing so steps on a well established local small business which deserves our support.

There are plenty of other retail outlets selling Silver Horde and, in fact, virtually everything else Sportsman's Warehouse sells. Looks like it is time for me to make another stop at SH in Lynnwood.

The only thing that surprises me about this is that someone would be surprised by it.

Every single successful lure gets ripped off eventually. There are entire companies devoted to producing and selling knockoffs.

Brad's and Danielson come to mind immediately, and Luhr Jensen, too, but there are plenty more.

The only way to "trademark" your stuff is to get your branding so good that no one will buy the knockoffs...very, very few lures ever can get patented, and all will be ripped off by someone if they are any good.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd,

Unfortunately you are right on.

It is just a sad case for such a great Northwest company. Could Silver Horde lay off some workers and move production out of the USA.
No doubt they could......However 1000% they will not !

What Todd said!

When we were kids the only good spinners were Mepps as they held the patent on the clevis/blade design. That's why Rooster Tails and whatnot didn't use a clevis.

Then the patent expired around the late 70's (??) which is right about the time Blue Fox took that design and improved on it.

rvrfshr then improved on that.

Carry on...

There is a difference between different designs, or improvements/changes to existing ideas...that's where a lot of the innovation comes from...and just straight up ripping off something that's already there, and successful.

Orkie Drifter, anyone? A bit reminiscent of the Okie Drifter, eh? You can always tell the serious ripoffs by the name...they usually rip that off, too, and make a name that's similar to the original one. The intent is that you might not know the difference between the original and the ripoff when they have a similar name, too.


The Luhr Jensen "Lucky Knight"...it may or may not bear a resemblance to a different lure that may or may not have "Nite" in the name:


Just to be fair to Luhr Jensen, in addition to their massive inventory of totally ripped off lures, they, too, get their stuff ripped off by other companies.

There are at least a dozen knockoffs of the Kwikfish out there...but I'd say it's a pretty fair bet that a Kwikfish is just a knockoff of the original Flatfish.

Brad's Wiggler? Really?



Looks an awful lot like a Storm's Wiggle Wart to me...but Storm probably ripped someone else off to make theirs, too

The Kastmaster is a venerable casting lure...how about the "Cast Champ", again from Luhr Jensen?


The J-Plug looks a lot like a Tomic, The Shyster is exactly the same as a Rooster Tail...about five companies have made a lure exactly like a Rapala.

These are only the "mainstream" ripoff companies...there are literally dozens of off brands that you can only buy at KMart or Wal-Mart that are all ripoffs of everything, too.

The lure that started this thread...the knockoff of the Coho Killer...there are a couple other spoons out there right now that are exactly like that, too...that's not the only one.

The best way to protest this kind of stuff is to not buy the direct ripoffs!

Fish on...

Todd

Whoever decided on the colors for those Orkie Drifters must have been blind or had never seen the real thing.

LOL

Did you see the new knockoff of Leland's beach popper, too?

Fish on...

Todd

Unfortunately........yes I did.

Lol. Perfect.

Douchebag move for sure. Not buying is the only way to stop them, If they are anything like the chinese coyotes they will disintegrate the first time you use them.Todd is right been going on since there was tackle to buy, SH didnt invent them just perfected some killer paint schemes. Otto's made em in the 50's & 60's, even a heavy casting model(gold one in pic) Martin and luhr Jensen as cohoe killers and coho kings and metric's respectively after that . Luhr Jensen was the king of rip offs,the list there was endless.



washington spoon and bait catalog from 1960

Todd is right about patents, it is extremely difficult to get one on a fishing lure if not impossible.

Several years ago I was in Islamorada, Florida and went to see a tackle shop that had the hot new leadhead jig.

When I saw the display, the leadhead was a knock-off of a one ounce Sebastes jig that they had dressed with bucktail. Obviously they had leadheads that they had a mold made from an original Sebastes jig.

Since I was the designer of the entire line of Sebastes jigs from 1/4 to 32 ounces and had hand carved the prototypes, there was no question in my mind about a rip-off. A small company like Sebastes couldn't afford litigation so it wasn't worth pursuing.

Actually the original jigheads we sold were from standard molds of traditional leadheads we purchased before I designed the custom leadheads.

I wish I still had those molds, but I sold my half of the business to my partner Fred Vander Werrf and he eventually sold the company to another party who ran it for a few years before he passed away.

Anyway, ifyou knowit is a rip-off,refrain from buying it and tell your buddies.

Thanks Sky-Guy.

Silver Horde owns those original dies for the Kohoe killers but uses a new die for production.

You are correct...many moons ago, Silver Horde bought the tools and started manufacturing the lures. Then they upgraded to tools to the current production die. Note the word "bought" also known as
"purchased".

Thanks for all your support on this. Kelly can't say too much right now
but really loves the support of the fishing community.......

There is zero chance that Silver Horde allowed SW to repackage their products... just look at the quality of that POS in the Sportsman's Warehouse package... that IS NOT SILVER HORDE QUALITY!!!

I don't know what you're talking about... that is a vision hook if I ever saw one



Seriously, it was a Dick move by sportsmen's...

The Morrisons have been so nice to me over the last few years. I have gone into their shop more times than I can count and they refer to me by name and talk to me about things all the time. Marilyn is a sweetheart and Kelly is awesome to talk to about local fishing tips and always has suggestions for me. I cant say enough good words about the family and their products.

I have, and will never purchase or support Sportsman's warehouse. I'm a Silver Horde supporter all the way!

I was in the shop yesterday when Kelly was talking to a few people about this. I was really bummed out to hear about whats going on. Their products have been under attack lately. With another local lure manufacturer (who shall remain nameless) and now SW. It's a shame really.

I talked to a couple of Silver Horde employees today. They are so appreciative of the reaction of the anglers to keep them employed.
They asked me to say THANK YOU for your support....

add me to the group of anglers that will not spend a penny at SW, and I'll talk to others about it. SW was marginal in my book to begin with for other reasons, this makes it real easy to spend my money elsewhere.

Not saying LJ didn't copy lures, but they bought out a whole bunch of companies (ie. Maxwell, Eddie Pope, Glen Evans, Abe & Al, Tony Accetta, etc.) and then produced them with the LJ label.

Patents are only good for 17years, I believe, and copywrites are good forever. So if it is not copywrited, too bad. They Zenith Electronics used to protect themselves was they copywrite the Schematics for their circuits. I think the paint patterns for their (SH's) lures could be copywrited.

Copyright does not last forever, but does last for a very long time (currently life of the author + 70 years in most cases). Trademarks can last forever, in theory. However, there are limitations on what can be protected by copyrights and trademark rights that would make it difficult to protect lure designs and paint patterns in most case (but maybe not all cases).

Maybe I should do an IP Law for Tackle Companies presentation...probably get some nice swag out of it.

As MPM mentioned earlier, trade dress covers "look and feel" but is extended often to places of business (the use of the color green and lay-out of a Starbucks for example) rather than products though it is possible to do so. Design patents can extend some protection where there is a combination of utility and design (boat hulls and the treads of shoes are common examples). Otherwise unattainable trademarks can extend to colors, shapes and designs but only if they have attained secondary meaning through continued use. This concludes your intellectual property primer.

The simple truth of the matter is that enforcing intellectual property is iffy in result except the guarantee of legal fees. I will say I did manage to score an HDS-7 out of a client once though...

Looks like its not just Sportsmans Warehouse. I would guess that now our friends overseas have made the dies they will be everywhere.

http://www.overstockbait.com/O-BAIT-35-Coho-Killer-Flutter-Spoon-UV-and-Glow-p/uvg_ck.htm

This happens all of the time! With almost every lure manufacturer. There are so many examples of this its crazy.

VERY TRUE....

Brad's is the worst offender

+1