Meandering

Legendary Lures - Mepps & Rapala

Mon, February 06, 2012

The Gapen Fishie is a tough act to follow but this pair is among the first lures I learned about when it came to bass fishing.  So, I guess it’s only logical that they’re next.  And they share the same blog entry because for me, these two lures will always belong in the same sentence.  According to Dad that sentence went something like this when describing the way he had previously tackled the pursuit of largemouth bass: “All we ever needed was a Mepps and a Rapala.”  (Several years later, a couple of his boys would begin to make bass fishing a bit more complicated and expensive, but those stories are yet to come.)

Coincidentally, as I was putting this posting together, my latest issue of Bassmaster showed up featuring an article on inline spinners.  I’m sure Dad could have written that Bassmaster article but while the folks at the magazine needed four-pages, Dad taught me all I needed to know nearly thirty years ago with one sentence, “First thing in the spring, tie on a Mepps, cast it out and crank it in.”  Same goes for my Rapala education as he offered up, “Toss the Rapala, let the ripples die down, give it a twitch, repeat if necessary.”  The family photo album and the stories handed down certainly support these basic fishing approaches.

Nothing complicated here as far as the lures go either, as The Mepps usually referred to a squirrel tail #3 in line spinner and The Rapala was typically a gold or silver #11 floating minnow.  I still toss a Mepps around and it has produced my first bass of the year a couple times in the last several years (2005 and 2007).  The only difference these days is that I’m more likely to be tossing a larger #5 model in either the rainbow/white or black/orange patterns while prowling the banks of the local strip pits in the early spring.

The Rapala floating minnow, on the other hand, has given way to other jerkbaits or minnow imitations in my tacklebox.  In fact, I’m almost ashamed to reveal that my fishing log indicates my last bass on a Rapala floating minnow came in May of 2006.  However, I do frequently use their DT Series crankbaits with success as Rapala manufacturing has significantly increased the variety (and price) of their product line since those days in the 80’s.

With the continuous flood of new ideas and models hitting the market it can be easy to forget this pair of “classics” when you are on the water and I’m certainly guilty.  But there’s a reason why they are considered “classics” as my brother, Brent, and I discovered one late October day back in 2002 at a place we called Emstrom’s Pond.  He busted out a Mepps #4 (white) and it caught fish when nothing else would.  I followed his lead and scored a 4-4 on my # 5 (rainbow/white).  This fish still stands as the Mepps record, although a few of the bass in Dad or Uncle Dick’s old photos were likely larger, we’ll never know for sure.

So, if you’re like me and have a few of these tucked away somewhere playing second fiddle to a new generation of lures, why not dust them off this year and see what happens.  Talk to you later.  Troy

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