Although steel mills put Ellwood City on the map, the little town on the Connoquenessing River is better known to anglers for its cottage industry of top quality muskie lures.

Dale Wiley, Todd Leopardi, Jim Mentzer, Rich Newman, Robert Rozzo and a few others live within miles of each other and have developed a widespread following for the crankbaits and jerkbaits they hand craft from wood in an era of mass-produced plastics.

"When I go to shows in Chicago and Minneapolis and tell people where I'm from, they say they've never seen so many good lures from such a small area," said Leopardi, the maker of Leo Lures. "I think it's that muskie fishing has always been so big around here."

Muskie guide Howard Wagner, who lives and runs a tackle shop in nearby Fombell, said the mills that produced the country's first seamless steel tubing two centuries ago influenced Ellwood City's muskie tradition.

"The mills kept the economy strong," he said. "The guys who worked there made good money and would go by the trainload up to Pigeon Lake in Ontario to fish for muskies. That's what got some of them started on producing lures."

As machinists, they had the skills and the tools to craft baits that would catch trophy fish.

"You're always going to get better quality in something made by hand than when it's mass produced," said Wiley, who has been making lures full-time for 32 years. "I've had opportunities to do mass production, but I'm not interested in cutting corners. My lures aren't throw-aways. They're built to be versatile, for casting or speed trolling. Mass-produced lures won't take the speed these will."

Wiley learned from his father's acquaintance Ed Latiano, Ellwood City's most revered lure maker, who died this year at age 96. Although Latiano worked in the mills, by the time he retired to craft lures full time, he had developed a reputation for superb reproductions of classics like the Heddon Vamp, as well as his own designs, like the Ready Eddy.

He also set the bar for proteges like Wiley and Leopardi, who developed their own styles, but have worked to maintain his standards.

"Around 1996, when he started cutting back some, he told me I should start making my own jerkbait," said Leopardi, who was then 24 and making mostly bucktail spinners. "He showed me how he designed his. He taught me a lot, like epoxying the front screw, since it gets so much wear and tear from being pulled on. He showed me how to weight my lures toward the head to give them a particular action."

One of Leopardi's top sellers is the Shayla Shad, which he named for his daughter and is the only lure he doesn't make on a lathe. "It's the only lure I make that is shaped like an actual fish, and the only size I make is 5 1/2 inches, which is perfect for June or July. You might want to go bigger in the fall."

Leopardi used a Shayla Shad to catch his biggest muskie, a 55-incher taken on Lake St. Clair, part of the Great Lakes system.

"I fished it in brown perch, which is a root beer and gold pattern. My friend Jim Walker of Saxonburg fished the same lure in sparkle and caught one on the same trip that was 54 1/2 inches," Leopardi said. "I'm not sure it's the colors that muskies like as much as the swimming action."

Lip and weight placement are key to how a lure runs, said Rozzo, whose 8-inch Double R Pikie Creek Chub nailed a 53-inch muskie on a Wagner-guided trip on Lake Arthur this year. He said there are at least 17 steps in the lure-making process, including one missing in bulk production: field-testing on local waters.

That is why serious muskie anglers are willing to pay $13 to $30 or more for one handmade jerkbait or plug.

"Those same guys also put money into good line and leader and lure retrievers," said Wiley, who specializes in cedar wood crankbaits with Lexan plastic lips. His bread and butter plug is the 8-inch Muskie King, although the 5 1/2-inch Muskie Killer helped put him on the map in 1983, when charter captains on Lake St. Clair started tearing up the fishery on them. "Guys who fish for muskies aren't going to risk the trophy of a lifetime on cheap stuff," he said. "They know you get what you pay for."

Muskie hunters consider some lures such an investment they send them to Rozzo for refurbishing.

"One of the oldest lures I ever reconditioned was a 15-inch Heddon surface lure from 1909 with two propellers," he said. "The same guy had me build him two replicas, which he turned around and sold on eBay."

Besides his own designs in 280 different paint patterns -- including the Prowler in 3 1/2 inches for spring and 6 inches for summer -- Rozzo fills requests for custom lures and colors.

"I did one in beige with black and gold netting and blue splotches I call, for lack of a better name, the Jersey Cow," he said. "Howard [Wagner] said it was one of the best cold-water baits he ever fished."

"Then again," Rozzo said, "the action of a lure matters as much or even more, because one color that's hard to beat with muskies is black."