About Chaos Tackle
Chaos Tackle is a US musky tackle company built around the Medussa, a soft plastic swimbait with three free-swinging tails that runs on a straight retrieve and can also be ripped, twitched, jigged, or trolled. Sold in six sizes from the Micro to the Monster, it became a standard in Midwest musky boxes, and the soft-bait line grew around it: the Poseidon paddle-tail, a redesigned Shadillac, the Shum Shum glider, and Big Mama topwaters, alongside Esox Assault bucktails and Custom X cedar crankbaits and trolling rods under sister labels.
The rod side trades under the Assault Stick name and covers casting and trolling models at three price tiers. The flagship Assault Stick 20/20 is a telescopic musky rod Chaos markets as the first true high-quality telescopic rod on the market, with high-modulus blanks, Fuji K tangle-free SiC guides, and Fuji DPS reel seats, plus a Revolution reel seat upgrade on select builds. Below it sit the IM8 Assault Stick Original telescopic and one-piece casting rods, glass-and-graphite trolling and live-bait rods, and the entry-level Pursuit series. Family names carry across the tiers: Surgical Strike, Tactical Strike, SWAT, Shock & Awe, and Moab, a ladder that runs from 3/4 oz twitch baits to 30 oz rubber.
Ownership has changed hands more than once. Illinois angler Rick Albers, who had started Esox Assault Tackle around 2010, took over Chaos around 2012 and grew it through the decade. In early 2026 the brand was acquired by Fin Rage Tackle of Green Bay, Wisconsin, together with Musky Mayhem and Musky Innovations; operations are based in Little Suamico, north of Green Bay.
What Chaos Tackle is known for
The Medussa soft bait and the Assault Stick musky rod line. The Medussa's three-tail design established Chaos as a soft-plastics house first, and the rods followed the baits: every Assault Stick family is sized to a bait class, from the Surgical Strike for 3/4 to 4 oz twitch baits and topwaters up to the Moab for rubber to 30 oz. The telescopic Assault Stick 20/20 is the brand's signature hardware, a full-length musky stick that retracts well over a foot for rod lockers and truck beds. A pro staff of working guides, including Lee Tauchen, Spencer Berman, and Jeff Van Remortel, keeps the brand visible on Midwest musky water.