FLORIDA FISHING TACKLE MANUFACTURING COMPANY HISTORY 

Florida Fishing Tackle Mfg Co (Barracuda Brand) was founded by Jack Reynolds and first offered stock in his new company in 1928. They started out making bamboo rods and then made fishing lures from the early 1930's up until the 1970's. He incorporated the company in 1933. The beautiful graphics on the Barracuda box was copyrighted in 1934. This long period of manufacture gave us a wide range of lure designs and level of quality. The earliest Barracuda lures were high quality and had glass eyes. Later versions had painted eyes. Perhaps the most interesting of the Barracuda lures was the one named "Torpecuda". The first version of the lure had glass eyes and a feather for a dorsal fin. Florida Fishing Tackle Mfg Co lures are considered to be one of the great Tampa Bay area lure makers.

Around 1942, Jack Reynolds entered into a agreement with Porter Dalton to make the Dalton Special. Dalton had already received a patent for his "Dalton Special" on September 19, 1939. The first Dalton Specials are marked with "Tampa, Fla.", and were first made in 1942. They started marketing them with "St. Pete, Fla.", in 1950.  Lastly, in 1958 they started marking them with "Clearwater, Fla." The lure was made for a long time and is still popular today.