History of Mepps Fishing Lures

the original mep spinner the egg leah was invented by andre mule NART in 1938 so that's when our history began for my family it began in the 1950s when GI started returning from World War two and they were bringing a couple of fishing related items with them mostly map spinners and Mitchell fishing rails my dad had a retail sporting goods store and an eagle and had a friend or two that brought him some items from France he hadn't seen lures like that previously and wasn't impressed with how they looked and and since he hadn't fished with a lure like that before I really couldn't imagine what it would look like in the water but all two or three years after that he was out fishing the Wolf River and wasn't doing any good so he started digging around in his tackle box and he saw that old map spinner and took it out and started to fish and he caught a limited trout with the map spinner and so uh he was pretty much sold on it at that point and made arrangements to start selling him in his sport shop the two fellas that owned the company in France were in their 70s and they decided they wanted to get out of the business and so we bought the company in France in 1972 where all the manufacturing was done we manufacture a lot of our parts in France yet we use a very rigorous manufacturing process because we machine all of our components we don't pour them we don't cast on we don't press them or anything like that we use machine components because that gives the lure the best balance and the best performance as well as the most consistency from one item to the next that's very important for the lures fish catching ability and it all goes into how the fisherman fishes with the lure and he knows if he loses one the next one he puts on is going to fish the exact same way our traditional product lines the components are made in France they're sent over here where we do all of the painting the tail tying assembly by hand and the packaging our newer product lines that we've come up with since my grandfather bought the company those components are made here in Wisconsin we've maintained our business here in Wisconsin it gives us a better handle on maintaining our quality offshore manufacturers can change your quality without your knowledge and when you do find out it's when you've got thousands of them out there in the fisherman's hands and they start to complain and of course that's pretty late in the game and you've got a problem at that point the people who fish our products could take a lot of pride in the fact that they are hand-painted hand assembled right here in the United States that's a big deal to a lot of people one thing I can take a lot of pride in is saying that I'm an American and all the people that are working here have a good job because we're keeping the lures that we're making all the work here in the United States most fishing lure manufacturers cannot say that it's a family atmosphere it's a family-owned company they treat their employees extremely well and it shows in our product so but when the Bona product goes out the door there's a lot of pride and part of that is it's an exceptional place to work and it shows it just shows through the quality every step of the way along the line our main product that we make is the mep spinner we do make some spoons and variations of spinners but what we're really known for is the original map spinner these are old map spinners that were manufactured basically in the 1950s and then over here are the same spinners really that are manufactured today in our factory and you can see there's a little bit of difference in them but mainly its colors we've added a strike attractor in modern times and a little bit of paint but really the whole lure is pretty much the same as it was back in the 1950s as far as how do you fish with a map spinner basically you just cast it out and retrieve it at a slow steady retrieve it's an easy lure to fish with and that's part of the beauty of a map spinner you don't have to be an expert or anything like that to fish with it and kind of as a testament to that we get letters and photographs from people that sometimes catch a trophy fish of a lifetime the first time they go fishing a couple of my more memorable fishing experiences were just uh local experiences and they're illustrated here on the wall behind me there's a bass up above the lily pads which was a six pound bass and I was with my dad when he caught that probably fifty years ago and I remember the exact spot and how I netted it for him and we were so excited because it was such a big bass the other one is the bass mounted on the wood by the lily pads and that was a fish that I caught some years ago but that was a seven pound bass which is huge for northern Wisconsin and in that particular instance I was fishing with a new MEPS lure and had a fish and I was fighting it it jumped out of the water and it was a small northern and of course it went back in the water and once it was back in the water it started to fight really hard and I thought wow that's amazing that little northern would fight that much and then when I brought it up by the canoe it was this seven pound bass and I found that really unique that you could hook a small northern and somehow it turned into a seven pound bass when it was under the water and there was no break in the fight the first few times fishing that I can remember involved a stick and a rope not even monofilament or anything like that it was a rope and we use live bait of course and caught a few fish one of my favorite fishing stories for when working with MEPS was fortunate enough to go on a fishing adventure up in Alaska and I caught a to me at a trophy arctic char it encompasses not just the catching fish it's the the whole experience it's getting ready it's the catching of the fish and it's just a whole experience there is not one thing you can say is put my thumb on it and say this is what the best part is it's when you do the whole fishing experience and if you don't catch a fish it's you still have a good time there's a lot of pride when you work with kids and show them how it's done you know what it takes to catch fish and you're exposing them to something that they may not have been exposed to in the past it can put a smile on everybody's face you know the kids and you know me alike it's like they get to use it and you know we built it and look at the fun they're having you know it's a sure really a great experience I'd like to encourage everybody to take a kid fishing not only our kids the future of the fishing industry they're the future of the entire country so if you've got any desire at all to spend some time with your kid or any kid in general and give them a worthwhile experience take them fishing and use a meps lure fishing is still I believe the most popular outdoor sport pastime and there's a reason for that it's a lot of fun brings a lot of good things to the family or your friends that you're with and it's generally an enjoyable experience we're still part of that and probably one of the best known manufacturers of fishing lures in the United States if you want to learn more about map spinners and get an idea of what to use how to use it you can visit our website at MEPs calm you you

Channel: Sportsman Channel

Views: 63,690

Rating: 4.9412627 out of 5

Keywords: Fishing Lure (Sports Equipment), Fishing (TV Genre), Sportsman Channel, Mepps, Squirrel Tail Fly, Fly Fishing (Industry), Squirrel Tail, Antigo (City/Town/Village), Wisconsin (US State), Aglia, Mepps Lures

Id: m1OgeivLlgs

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 18 2015