Spring 2019
page 48
they made that spread the word and made them must-haves for American anglers.
Life was a weekly staple in the U.S. then, and the story was initially supposed to run in an April 1962 edition. But it was shelved when more pressing news about the U.S.- U.S.S.R. “space race” popped up. A “shelved” story typically never got back in the lineup, so the excitement of being slated for America’s favorite periodical quickly turned to disappointment.
Luckily for Rapala and American anglers, the story was rescheduled for August 17, 1962. It was titled, “A Lure Fish Can’t Pass Up,” but that’s not what made it memorable.
Earlier that month Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her apartment, an apparent suicide. The August 17 issue of Life featured Monroe on the cover and a photo essay of her life inside. It quickly became the biggest-selling issue in Life’s history, and Rapala was along for the ride.
The exposure put the lures in great — perhaps unprecedented — demand. Tackle shop owners were getting $25 for a Floating Minnow (about $200 in today’s money) and some were renting the baits for $5 per day plus a $20 deposit.
Rapala was off and running in the U.S., where bass is king. According to officials at Rapala USA, Lauri Rapala visited the United States just once. In 1967, he and his son Risto fished gigantic Lake of the Woods on the Minnesota-Canada border. They fished for northern pike, musky and walleye — species not found in Finland.
They fished big Floating Minnows and bucktail jigs, and — since Lake of the Woods teems with largemouth and
Astlaifteu-esiozfeL, caausrtieirRoanpala
smallmouth bass — it seems likely that Rapala and his party would have connected with some members of the Micropterus clan.
You’d think he’d be curious about the fish that was making him so money in the U.S. You’d think he’d stumble across a largemouth or smallmouth or two when working his Floating Minnow in those unspoiled and underfished waters. You’d think he’d catch at least one bass!
But we have nothing to show that he did. No photos, no folklore, and no surviving members of that junket who can put Lauri Rapala in the same boat as a black bass. Every image of Rapala from that trip shows him holding a northern pike.
Lauri Rapala died of a heart attack in Finland on October 20, 1974.
When you consider all the bass that have been caught on Rapala’s original Floating Minnow, the Shad Rap, the DT series and the X-Rap, you’d assume that the company founder was a hardcore bass angler — probably born in the Deep South
with a casting rod in one hand and a sculling
paddle in the other … or maybe he was
raised on a clear, glacial lake in the Midwest,
where brown bass rule. But, of course, Lauri
Rapala was from Finland, and there’s no
evidence he caught even one bass. •
Never Caught a Bass Part 1 - Thomas Jefferson
Never Caught a Bass Part 2 - Spencer Fullerton
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