MOST serious lure anglers will at one time or another open their tackle trays to be faced with a plethora of unused lures; you could keep them in the tackle box where they are taking up space, or you could send them to Gene Ward of Geneo Kustoms in Highland Park on the Gold Coast for a complete makeover.
Coming from a 15 year professional spray painting background, Gene honed his skills painting everything from cars and boats all the way to funeral caskets and quickly established himself at home in one of Queensland’s most respected automotive repair shops.
But in 2011 things changed when Gene was made redundant when the automotive repair industry stalled. With everything up in the air and not knowing what direction to go in things were starting to look grim – enter Atomic pro angler Aaron Sharp. Sharpie provided Gene with all the tools he needed to add lure painting to his already impressive painting resume, without the help and guidance of this gentleman of tournament fishing, Geneo Kustoms may never have been born.
Much has changed in such a short amount of time, Gene has excelled at lure painting and is constantly breaking through the boundaries of stalwart colours and creating patterns and colour designs that would make even Pablo Picasso a jealous man, but most of all Gene prides himself on his work.
2013 is set to be a big year for GK with Gene now collaborating with EJ TODD to produce amazing new colours for the Maria Lure range. Gene strips back each Maria till it’s a raw lure with no hooks or split rings and no colour, he then sprays a new fish catching design onto the lure, re-attaches the terminal components and re boxes each lure back into the original package but with a Geneo Kustoms sticker proudly displayed on the box.
To find out more about this talented artist find him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/geneo.customs or email him directly at gene.ward@hotmail.com.
Alternatively if you’re looking for the GK Maria range, head into your local Maria stockist and ask to see the range.
