James Heddon is widely acknowledged as the creator of the first topwater fishing lure in the late 1890s. Initially a beekeeper and the world's largest producer of honey, he also had a career in politics and newspaper publishing. But he made fishing history and changed the lives of anglers forever by creating that first fishing lure. As the story goes, his first lure invention was a frog, hand-carved using wood from a broom handle - an idea spawned by watching a bass vigorously strike a piece of wood he threw in the pond after he had been whittling on it. He then thought to add gang hooks and a bottle top at the front and handmade more of these fishing lures to give away to friends.
Little did he know that fishing lure history was being made as he cast that first "plug" onto the still waters of the Dowagiac, Michigan mill pond. The ripples made by this first plug as it hit the water have touched the lives of generations of anglers. By 1902, Heddon and two of his sons founded The Heddon Company, where the first artificial lures were manufactured and sold.
Present day versions of many of Heddon's early fishing lure creations are still being produced and sold around the world. Many more of the earlier models are perhaps the most collected and popular antique lures sought after by collectors everywhere. He would not have believed that his early creations would spawn such an avid following of antique lure and fishing tackle collectors.
As the oldest fishing tackle company in continuous operation, Heddon transformed the way people fish. James Heddon and his sons took anglers away from cane poles and bobbers with their early lures, rods and reels. These developments allowed them to cast farther, to get their plugs out into more productive water, to catch more fish and have more fun doing it.