Appanage Fishing

Appanage Fishing is proof that the best lures are born on the water, not in a boardroom. Don Habeger started this Juneau-based tackle company after decades of fishing Southeast Alaska, and his Scent Striker lineup has been earning loyal followers among serious salmon and halibut anglers ever since.

It takes a brave individual to try and break into the tackle-manufacturing world that is full of countless options and established behemoth manufacturers with deep pockets and large marketing budgets. It also takes a special individual with an inquiring mind, innovative drive, and a fisherman’s mentality to attempt to design and manufacture your own lures.

Don Habeger is both of these things.

He’s got a quiet confidence that his lures work, but he’s also humble and seeking input anglers on how to make his designs better. He also has an unfailing toughness which has allowed him to deal with having his home and lure-production facility flooded the last three years in Juneau. I recognize and applaud individuals who have the fortitude to face and conquer any problems that get thrown at them. I feel like this trait is one of the most important characteristics of successful business owners.

After 10 years of running his own tackle manufacturing company, Don isn’t showing signs of slowing down. He continues to invent new products and think critically on how to make better tackle. I applaud his efforts and look forward to catching fish on Appanage Fishing tackle for many years to come

From Shipping Lanes to Salmon Runs

Fish Alaska magazine: Tell us about yourself and how you decided to start your business.

Appanage Fishing: A 25-year early career in international shipping cemented a love affair with the marine environment. Unfortunately, if you’re in shipping in Alaska, summers are consumed by port activities, and fishing takes a back seat to career.  In 2009, corporate downsizing due to Alaska’s Great Recession ended the shipping career, resulting in summertime freedom. Having fewer resources and more time, I built a 21-foot Alaska-bulkhead style runabout for fishing.

Three things happened that led to the invention of Scent Striker and an Alaska-made fishing lure start-up. 1) A political argument between shipping companies (I represented one) and commercial fishermen led to a profound statement that stuck with me. A commercial fisherman said, “Salmon smell two parts per billion!” 2) In 2013, the boat was completed, and passionate fishing resumed. 3) A mechanism to hold scent longer and placed on a fishing line in combination with any set-up was needed, not found in any brick-and-mortar or e-commerce store, and was garage-invented by 2016. Appanage Fishing was formed that same year.

The Product Lines

Fish Alaska magazine: What products do you make?

Appanage Fishing: Our line of Scent Striker lures includes gear for salmon and halibut. Three types exist: scent-holding balls, rotating bullet heads, and fish attractant. Scent-holding fiber balls for salmon are called Original. Originals are smaller and slide on your line and underneath a skirt for better bait presentation. Fobs are untrimmed balls about an inch in diameter that hold more fish attractant and are for bottomfish species such as halibut, lingcod, and rockfish. The scent-ball line is for quick gear deployment and ease of getting a scent trail where you need it most—at your hook. DBS is our fish attractant and stands for Dinner Bell Smell. The idea behind this attractant is smell imprinting.

Research shows that salmon find their birth stream through odors, so DBS is a blend of ingredients that mimic the food types associated with the early hatchery life of salmon fry. You and I remember mom’s good cooking through an odor, why not salmon? Vortaks is our rotating bullet head designed to transfer water-flow energy to rotational skirt action and flash. Rotational energy is transferred directly to the skirt, resulting in increased skirt action without spinner-blade line twist. Vortaks comes in a four-piece set for the salmon angler who wants to add their own skirt, or as a Skirted Vortaks lure with an attached skirt. Our Skirted Vortaks lures come in Mylar or silicone-rubber skirt materials, offering bait-profile options. Mylar is more like a herring profile, and silicone-rubber skirts thin out more like a needle fish. Three new lure designs are in various stages of development.

Fish Alaska magazine: How do you invent new products?

Appanage Fishing: The best answer to this question is, I fish! The more practical answer is that when you’re fishing, you notice small stuff. For example, after applying a fresh coat of fish attractant on a squid skirt, a sheen appears as soon as it’s put in the water, and after pulling it into the boat 10 minutes later, you can’t find any evidence that you applied scent. So, you tell yourself there has got to be a better solution. This is how Scent Striker Originals got their start. The odd thing is that you never know when a thought on how to solve a fishing problem strikes. Many times, it’s in the early hours of the morning when the house is completely quiet and suddenly you think of another part of the solution to a fishing problem.

I now carry my “idea book” so that when inspiration strikes, the idea and maybe a few sketches are captured. Without this step, we lose many a good thought that might be the next best salmon lure. The idea book was the foundation for a new design we just received a patent on. The idea was roughed out into a prototype a few summers back and caught fish. Last summer, the idea was further refined and performed even better. A few more prototype tweaks were made over the winter, and the 2026 fishing season will determine if we’ve hit the sweet spot and add it to our gear lineup.

Rising to Meet Challenges

RisinFish Alaska magazine: What are some of the challenges of operating your business?

Appanage Fishing: Scent Striker is very much like the new kid on the block, and that presents the many challenges of proving yourself. Interrupting or changing an angler’s thought process about their tried-and-true baits and lures means a scrappy little fight now and then to show your product can perform. Scrappy little fights are not physical as when we were kids, but include generating correct advertising to get noticed, getting gear into the hands of the right influencer so they become an advocate, ensuring product quality matches your advertising bravado, or a host of other things like getting raw products shipped to Alaska on time and at a price point that doesn’t exclude you from the marketplace.

The above are just a few of the direct-business competition challenges all startups face. You add to that other life challenges like having your house flooded by the Mendenhall River (Juneau, Alaska) for the last three years in a row, and you have a few more challenges to tackle. Start-ups like ours must control costs to remain viable, so we operate in a dedicated production space in the garage – yup, I’ve rebuilt our production table the last three years now. We hope the 2026 Suicide Basin jökulhlaup season doesn’t make it four in a row.

Honest Scales and Hard-Won Trust

Fish Alaska magazine: What are the core values of your business?

Appanage Fishing: Scent Striker’s core values are steeped in two Judeo-Christian principles: honest scales and let your yes be yes. This translates into honest business practices and if we promise something, then we do it. What this means to our customers is claims about our products are based on experience and facts. Experience means we fish our products long before they become available to the customer. One example of this is our Original’s durability claim. This was tested over two and half seasons, by fishing the same setup of double Octopus-style hooks, two- or three Originals (can’t remember exact number), a few plastic spacer beads, and a Brad’s Super Bait Cut Plug (Vortaks was not yet invented).

The rig was freshwater cleaned and air dried each time, but otherwise never changed. Oddly, a silver swam away with the rig two and half years into the experiment when the eye-ring of the flasher broke. The Originals maintained their ability to hold fish attractant and held up after many salmon bites – hence we say they last bite after bite. Facts recognize that our target species live in a hidden environment. We can’t see much below the surface, and if electronics are used to do so, there are limits on data and its interpretation. However, our customers can expect we do our best to interpret data as accurately as possible without fish-tale hyperbole.

An Appanage Fish Story

Fish Alaska magazine: Tell us a story of someone using your product to catch fish.

Appanage Fishing: My two new favorites are one from Juneau and one from Anchorage. My business partner (wife) was in a conversation with a local hospital nurse during some testing procedures. During a lull in the testing, the conversation somehow turned to fishing. The nurse was telling my wife that they had picked up 24 kings in our local hatchery-designated salmon area during the spring fishery. Further, a locally purchased “white spinner” was key to the fishing success. Very interested in this story, my wife asked about the spinner. She learned that the nurse picked up two of our Vortaks rotating bullet head packages at our booth during the Juneau Marine Festival and fished them with a white squid skirt attached.

This testimonial came last fall when an Anchorage resident placed several large orders for DBS, Originals, and Skirted Vortaks. In time, emails were exchanged, and it was revealed that fall and winter were being used to pre-tie next year’s salmon rigs. My favorite quotes are: “I just spent a week this past fall on the outside of Vancouver Island fishing for kings, silvers, lings and halibut. The fishing was fantastic and the lures really worked. The fish were hitting so hard that we used up everything I had pre-tied.”

“I’ve always used small herring fillets as an attractant with my salmon lures and tried them side by side with your small Scent Strikers and they worked just as well or better than the herring. So, this has kind of changed the way I present “goodies” to the fishies!! Less mess and more hits!”

Our Anchorage customer first picked up our products at the Great Alaska Sportsman’s Show in March 2025, gave them a try, and had great success!

Check out more Alaskan businesses featured on our Alaska Focus blog.