WINTER 2017
Spring 2019
A life-changing issue of “Life”
laboring on the farm where his mother worked as a maid. By his mid-teens he had taken up fishing as both a hobby and a way to put food on the table.
In 1925-26, Lauri served a year of compulsive military service in the Finnish army. When his uneventful tour of duty was over, he returned to live with his mother.
In 1927, Lauri met Elma Leppänen — two years his junior — and they were married a year later. His family dynamic had changed, but his lifestyle was the same. Lauri worked on the land of wealthy farmers while Elma served as a maid.
But Elma had some education. She could read and write, and she taught Lauri. They would have seven children together, and most would become involved in the family tackle business.
In the mid-1930s, Lauri decided that life as a tenant farmer was a dead-end. He went into the fishing business, selling his catch at the local market. Elma’s cousins enjoyed sportfishing with artificial baits and may have provided Lauri with his first look at commercially-made American fishing lures, probably Heddons. In 1936, Rapala carved his first successful minnow-imitation baits — forerunners of his Floating Minnow.
Over time, his reputation as a lure maker and the demand for his baits grew, first locally, then nationally. But it was a quirk of fate that pushed Rapala into the American spotlight almost overnight.
The Floating Minnow was getting some notice in the United States as early as 1960, but it was a Life magazine article on the Rapala family and the baits
Rapala Original Floater in Clown Pattern
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