Fred Arbogast

Anyone who has ever caught a bass on a spinnerbait, buzzbait or skirted jig owes a special thanks to Fred Arbogast, one of the most creative innovators of fishing lures in the history of sportfishing. In 1934, the young luremaker was looking for an alternative to labor-intensive feather and hair dressings for his bass baits. Having worked for Goodyear and B.F. Goodrich in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, since high school, he hit upon the idea of rubber skirts for lures.

He called his creation the Hula Skirt, and he used it on his Hawaiian Wiggler (a precursor to the buzzbait), Hula Popper and Hula Dancer. His skirt design led to the use of rubber and other materials to make pliable skirts for a multitude of lures popular today. By the time of his sudden, premature death in 1947, at the age of 53, Arbogast had designed nearly a dozen deadly bass baits, including a perennial favorite, the Jitterbug.

Arbogast’s contributions to fishing extend far beyond lure design and manufacturing. He won his first distance casting competition at 22 years old, and within a few years he began to dominate national bait casting competitions. He held world casting records in both accuracy and distance categories, earning at least eight national championship titles in the National Association of Scientific Angling Clubs. In 1925 he hurled a half-ounce weight 293 feet — just shy of a football field in length.

He was a tireless promoter and educator of bass fishing, presenting seminars and trick-casting demonstrations in his area of the Midwest. He was a dedicated conservationist, as well. As a leading member of the Izaak Walton League and his county’s Fish and Game Protective Association, Arbogast campaigned to curtail water pollution and to protect fisheries from overharvest.

Arbogast Lure Co. continued to thrive long after its founder’s death. It became part of PRADCO Outdoor Brands in 1997.