MONROE, N.C. — When Jeff Konopka was growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., he loved working with his hands.

“I’ve always enjoyed taking stuff apart, seeing how it worked,” Konopka said. “Anything like that, I was totally into.”

That led to a career in woodworking and cabinet making in Buffalo. When Konopka wasn’t on the job, he pursued and perfected his hobby of making hand-crafted fishing baits.

And that brings Konopka to where he is these days. After the economy soured first in Buffalo and then in the Charlotte area — where he has lived since 1998 — Konopka transformed himself from a woodworker to a nationally prominent, highly in-demand maker of custom-fishing baits.

It was a career move that Konopka, 51, was able to seamlessly make.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Jeez, I’ve got to do this,’ ” Konopka said recently in his small workshop above his garage on the outskirts of Monroe. “But I plunged right in, and it just kind of naturally happened.”

And happening it is.

Konopka said he has filled orders on his Jak’s Custom Baits website ( www.jakscustombaits.com ) from 48 states (all except for Hawaii and Alaska), Canada and Australia. Working from what he calls the “Worm Studio,” he’s already made about 90,000 baits this year, as many as he made in all of 2011.

He said he produces as many as between 600 baits each day and his income is now greater than his days as a cabinetmaker.

Konopka’s soft plastic baits come in more than 400 colors, but he uses two basics — green pumpkin and watermelon. There are also several pungent scents from which to choose, including garlic, shad, anise (black licorice), coffee, squid and craw.

“There’s a million different combos,” Konopka said. “I can tweak them any way you want.”

Konopka was making a good living for himself as a cabinet maker in Buffalo in the 1990s. But when the construction industry began to slow in upstate New York, Konopka and his wife Cheryl decided in 1998 to move to the Charlotte area, where there were no such economic problems at the time.