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He looks like he's been fishing all his life - with his gray beard, his longish hair and his fish stories, Clinton's Mike Brodrick can cast lines with the best of them. As a boy, he spent time on the banks of the Wachusett with his father and at 51, he still takes a week off every spring from his construction job to fish in the lakes of Maine. And now, Brodrick has added a new element to the sport he loves - making his own lures.

It started a few years ago, as Brodrick was looking through a catalogue of fishing supplies. After seeing some lures retailing for $6 and $7, he decided he could do just as well for far less money.

&quot;They cost so much, and I'm cheap,&quot; he said, laughing.

Brodrick fashioned himself a little work space in his basement. Using scrap metal and old copper, he traces an oval shape and cuts it manually because, he said, using an electric tool would heat up the metal too much and burn his fingers. Then he uses a hammer to make the lure concave, polishes it and uses an airbrush to add details.

&quot;It takes about half an hour,&quot; he said. &quot;Most of the time is letting the paint dry.&quot;

Brodrick's first lures, he said, looked awful.

&quot;I did them with spray paint and you can't do that,&quot; he said. &quot;The airbrush totally makes a difference. They look a lot better.&quot;

Once he had a bag full of lures, Brodrick set out to test them.

&quot;I'd sit out the front of the boat and throw them in on a line,&quot; he said. &quot;Then I'd say, 'Oh, this one's good' or 'this one won't work' or 'this doesn't wobble right.'&quot;

But Brodrick said he's been known to be wrong.

&quot;I threw one of them out and said, 'oh, that will never work' and I gave it to Pete [Columbo] because he liked the colors,&quot; he said. &quot;I didn't have a hook on it. Pete put a hook on it, and it's funny how it changes the way it bobbles. He says that when the fish aren't biting, he uses that one and catches something.&quot;

Brodrick packages his lures under the moniker &quot;Hacker Lures: Made in a American by an American&quot; and gives them away to his family and friends. Instead of selling them for profit, he wants to start a hacker board, he said, so fisherman can submit pictures of themselves and the fish they caught with his lures. Hacker Lures have been dropped in lakes and rivers as far away as Clinton, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and several of his construction coworkers have taken them to Florida when they fish over the winter.

&quot;I wouldn't mind having them all over,&quot; he said.

When Brodrick began giving his lures away, he said that whoever caught the first fish with any particular lure could name it. Columbo named his the Crying Clown, and Brodrick has a dozen lures, including that one, on display to be made upon request: The Urinator, The Agitator, The Eliminator, The Whiner, The Boner, Lil Jammie, The German Smelt, The Crybaby, Tattle Tale, Orange Blossom and Gary V.

The Whiner and the Urinator, he said, were named by one of his fishing buddies after a third buddy, a guy whom they said complains a lot and has to make frequent rest stops between Clinton and Maine on the annual fishing trip. Gary V. was a brand new lure they were trying out, and Brodrick said his friend - whom they call Gary V. - happened to call his cell phone when Brodrick had the lure in the water.

Brodrick claims to have no favorites.

&quot;My favorite ones are the ones that are my design,&quot; Brodrick said. &quot;I like it when you can make something and it works.&quot;

Brodrick took the name &quot;hacker&quot; from a fishing term used for someone who's not very good at the sport. Perhaps he needs to come up with a new name.

&quot;This year, I went up to Maine and I only fished with one pole,&quot; he said. &quot;The other guys had two and three poles. I only fished with the lures I made, and at the end of the week, I think I only lost by five fish.&quot;