Our Story

I am a fisherman, first and foremost.   I have been fishing since I was 3 years old.   My dad is a huge fisherman, as was my grandpa Jim before him.     I live in the Detroit area (Troy) and spend as much time as possible fishing Lake Erie, the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair.     

I am and always will be a "walleye guy" when it comes right down to it.   That said, I enjoy chasing smallies on Lake St. Clair, or up North on our vacations.   I have been known to chase largemouths at times, either here in MI, or down in FLA where my parents now live.    While I don't target muskies that often, I do enjoy catching a few every year by accident.     I also enjoy the occasional inshore salt-water trip when I get the chance to do so.   

When it comes to walleyes, my real passion is jigging for them in the Detroit River.   I make my own jigs and harnesses, however, I decided not to chase that part of the business.   

I would say that I ended up in the lure making business by accident.    Last January I bought some blanks and painted up a few for myself.      I tried them on Lake St. Clair and they worked great!    I posted pictures of them on MI Sportsman's Forum and guys started asking me to make some for them.   The next thing I know, I had more orders than I could keep track of manually, so I decided to make the company official and open the webstore.     Thanks for coming on this journey with me.    See you on the water!     

Note:  People have asked me how I came up with the name "Slimshady Customs".    It's actually quite simple.   My last name is Schlimgen, so most of my life people called me "Slim" or "Slim-Jim".    However, at some point my wife started calling me "Slimshady" and it stuck.   I decided to use that as my "handle" on the sportsman's forums, and the rest is history.