SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Had you asked Yellowknifers John Bray and Chris Kondracki last year if their T-Spoon fishing lure would be the No. 1 selling lure in the biggest bait and tackle shop in the city, they probably wouldn't have said 'yes.'

T-Spoon lure inventor John Bray, left, and his business partner Chris Kondracki pose with a replica jackfish in front of a display of their product in Canadian Tire on June 18. - Thandiwe Vela/NNSL photo

In the first seven weeks since the original product hit Canadian Tire stores nationwide, 5,000 T-Spoon lures have been sold, said Kondracki, who is also the general manager of the department store's Yellowknife location, where 600 T-Spoons have been sold so far, outselling the hundreds of other makes they carry.

"We had no idea if we were going to sell two or 10,000," Kondracki said. "They're selling better than we thought."

The popularity of the T-Spoon lies in its simplicity and novelty, because this spoon lure, is actually a teaspoon.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Bonnie Acker said while shopping for bait and tackle in Canadian Tire over the weekend with her partner and fishing enthusiast Robert Foster. "It's funny because they call these spoon lures but this is an actual spoon.

"Maybe he'll make some at home now," she said, giving Foster a money-saving tip.

"It's just fantastic to watch people's reaction to the lure," Kondracki said, recounting his own surprise and amusement while watching a home-made fishing video of Bray last year, when he realized the veteran angler was using a regular old spoon out of his kitchen as a lure.

"He was catching tons and tons of big fish, so I zoomed in to see the lure and saw that John had been catching all these monster fish on a teaspoon," Kondracki exclaimed. He immediately started researching different types of lures and when he found nowhere to buy a teaspoon lure, he approached Bray, and their new business, Get The Net, was born.

With the slogan "If the fish ain't biting ... Spoon feed 'em," their T-Spoon hit the shelves of 20 Canadian Tire stores across the country in April.

The product has come a long way from being a utensil from Bray's kitchen drawer with a hole drilled into it.

"We didn't just think, let's get a teaspoon, put it in a package and sell it out of the back of a van," Kondracki said. "We wanted to start off right."

Using a manufacturer in China, made sure good-quality hooks, paints, and materials were used for the 22-gram, stainless steel lure, Kondracki said.

"We don't want them falling apart on the first catch."

For the packaging, they had to make sure they presented a "winner" product for the bosses at Canadian Tire, and wanted attractive packaging that represented the North, hence the Aurora Borealis design.

While the T-Spoon immediately caught Acker and Foster's eyes because it was "different and cool," Acker said they had no idea Bray, who is also the manager of Canadian Tire's sports department, was the inventor of the product when they purchased one over the weekend, knocking down conflict of interest concerns.

"They sell themselves," Bray said.

While customers were snapping up T-Spoons before the ice even melted, as novelty gifts and keepsakes, Kondracki said now that people are actually using the unique spoon lures, word is spreading about how great they work.

"People are catching big fish and seeing that it works," he said. "Now fishermen are the ones in the aisle getting them.

"As much as it is a novelty product, it really works."

Bray and Kondracki hope to expand their spoon lure business next fishing season with smaller sizes, weedless spoon lures, and additional colours to the current line of silver, red and white, and five of diamonds.

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