When Harvey Naslund returned for a third stint as tournament director for WON BASS, Mike Folkestad was still fishing and breaking records, in this instance with a record limit at Havasu.
Don Lee grew up in Southern California and was an outdoorsman from the beginning, fishing bass with his dad on Lake Henshaw during the WWII years and working the deck of a sportboat out of Newport Beach’s Port Orange in the early 1950s for $50 a week plus tips. “It was all silk and braided lines when I started fishing, but we caught lots of bass,” said Lee. “I was working on the Alalunga when they busted all the boats on the West Coast in ‘51 because they had slot machines. You weren’t supposed to use them until you got past 3 miles and out of state waters, but of course everybody starting playing them once we left the dock. I was 17. They took us all into Santa Ana, booked us and let us go. That’s was the first and only time I was in jail and I don’t want to go again.”
When Lee got out of the service he started out in a management program at a grocery chain. “The owner was a jerk,” said Lee. “On my lunch hour I went into a local tackle store and asked them who they bought their tackle from. They said Munson’s. I went to Munson’s, applied for a job and started working for $300 a month on the G.I. Bill.” After a year on the road for Munson’s, Lee landed a job repping for Stan Phillips and Associates. “In his day he was one of the biggest rep firms in the country,” said Lee. “Their top sales guy was Wild Bill Donovan, the WWII CIA guy. He knew everyone, including all the Mafia guys in Chicago. That’s the man I learned from. We had High Standard, the biggest pistol line in the ‘50s. They made
Harvey Naslund poses for a photo with Forrest Wood and the rest of the Ranger Bass Boats family.
all the Sears long guns and eventually came out with their own line, including the first 9-shot 22s. “We had Sunset Line and Twine, which is still in Petaluma where they do a lot of para- chutes,” Don added. “The new monos were out and they came out with first colored line in mono. They called it Coral King‚ it was pink and it was made for them by DuPont. The line was a sensation, it was unreal the way it sold out. But the second batch was bad, and of course that killed it overnight.” Lee watched companies come and go and often move into other areas than fishing and hunting. “The first fiberglass rods were coming out,” said Lee. “Herb Jenks was running Silaflex out of Costa Mesa. They got out of fishing when they invented the first fiberglass pole-vaulting poles, the Sky Pole. Imagine coming up with something every high school in America needed.” And the fishing industry always has its overnight sensations. “Do you remember the Whirlaway? How about the Popeil Pocket Fisherman?” asked Don. “The Whirlaway in its time was as big as the Popeil. It was just a short rod with a sort of enclosed spinning reel on the end. We sold millions of them. It was just like the Banjo Minnow is right now.” In 1970 Lee teamed up with Bill Keay and they formed Don Lee and Associates, representing a wide line of fishing and hunting products. “Bill Keay was one of the nicest guys in the industry,” noted Lee. “He passed away just a couple months ago at the age of 89. We had everything from Hoppe’s gun cleaning products to Cordell Lures.” In the fall of 1975, when Don Lee attended the final Western Bass event of the season at Clear Lake, Don Lee and Associates represented Hydra-Sports boats. One person who almost didn’t attend the Clear Lake tournament was angler Mike Folkestad. “I get the list of pros signed up for the final tournament of the season, and Mike Folkestad’s not on it,” recalled Harvey Naslund. “Mike and I go back to 1972. I fished my first team tournament with Mike. So I call him up and he said, ‘Harvey, my dad and I are going deer hunting.’” Scheduling fall tournaments in Northern California has always been a problem for
14 SILVER EAGLES _ July 2011