Unique bobber a no-brainer

Frank Moff is hoping that the next 12 months are, finally, going to be his year.

In 1995, Moff, a Latrobe resident then self-employed as a carpet installer, created a product called "The Bobber With a Brain." It is a slip bobber that, through the use of a magnet and ball, automatically adjusts itself to keep baits just off the bottom, no matter the depth of the lake or river.

"It's fishing from the bottom up rather than the top down," Moff said. "You can't do that with another bobber. This is the only one in the world that lets you do that."

He was optimistic then that the bobber would hook fishermen. But there were problems from the start.

Someone tried to steal the design. The invention company he paid to market the product went bankrupt. A local Wal-Mart told him he could sell the bobber in its store, then abruptly kicked him and several other small manufacturers out. Investors came and went.

Now, it's 11 years and almost $180,000 dollars later. Moff is semiretired now, and carries his bobbers and bobbers parts around in the back of a slightly worn minivan with a creaky door. But he still believes.

Sales of the bobber on his Web site -- www.bobberwithabrain.com -- to anglers as far away as Wisconsin, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and Sweden have him convinced that the bobber will sell if only he can get it into a big retailer like Cabela's, Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Shops.

"I think that within the next five years, we're going to be selling two to three million of these a year, that's what I think," Moff said.

He's not the only believer. Greg Garrison of Norvelt once saw Moff demonstrate his product in a store. He then tried it for himself, fishing for pike, crappies and catfish at High Point Lake and walleyes and bass at Lake Arthur.

He caught fish at each stop. He was so impressed that he sought Moff out and invested in the bobber himself. He's convinced someone is eventually going to see what he's seen and buy bobbers in bulk.

"When I get out to fish, that's the article of choice I use because it gets results," Garrison said of the Bobber With a Brain. "It's a pretty clever setup he has there. It's a product that works."

Moff has had talks with the country's bigger retailers in the past. Several times, he said, they've come close to stocking the bobber, only to back away.

He and his investors believe they've got the right combination of product and packaging now, though. That's why they've already made arrangements with Life's Work of Western Pennsylvania to produce 200,000 or more bobbers in Pittsburgh and Belle Vernon when that big order comes in.

That should happen no later than next July, Moff said, after he and his investors spend time at the ICAST show, the world's biggest fishing tackle trade show, in Las Vegas. He expects to come away from that event with a big-name distributor that will put his product in front of fishermen everywhere once and for all.

"I think it's going to pay off now," Moff said.