Chapter 3

The Mepps Story

The fact that the world headquarters of one of the most successful fishing lure companies of all time can be found right downtown in the small Wisconsin community of Antigo has always intrigued me. I had heard bits and pieces of the fascinating decades-old story of Sheldons', Inc., owners of the Mepps brand of French spinner, but I wanted to know more. Curious, I ventured to the rather inconspicuous Mepps building on Antigo's north side. The sign on Highway 45 that states “Squirrel Tails Wanted” is the only tip-off to the company's location.

I found company president J. M. “Mike” Sheldon in his office. The room had changed little since his late father and company founder A. L. “Todd” Sheldon occupied it. The trophy fish adorning the walls and the full-body mounts of brown and polar bears were testament to Todd Sheldon's love of fishing and hunting. The senior Sheldon, who passed away in 1995 at age eighty-one, was able to combine his love of the outdoors with his considerable business talents to create a fishing lure empire.

When Todd Sheldon graduated from Antigo High School in 1931, he had no idea that his life would one day be devoted to a fishing lure. At that moment, adventure was on his mind as he threw in a few dollars with four friends to buy an ancient Model T, the vehicle that would take the boys across a 1930s American west.

Upon his return, Sheldon found his hometown immersed in the greatest economic collapse the country had ever seen. Small towns in northern Wisconsin held little promise for the young men of the Great Depression. In 1935, as did thousands of other young men, he was fortunate to find employment with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Sheldon worked at Camp Elcho, about twenty miles north of Antigo. The CCC boys at the camp spent long days working on white pine blister rust control, and in return they received a little hard cash.1

As the country pulled itself out of the Great Depression and into World War II, Sheldon found himself working for the war effort at a factory in Milwaukee. After the war he returned to Antigo to pursue a dream he had of owning a sporting goods store. In 1948 he opened Sheldon's Sport Shop on Superior Street in downtown Antigo. At about this same time Sheldon was introduced to the little spinner that was destined to change his life.

“After the war most soldiers brought home a few French spinners,” explained Mike Sheldon. “A man named Frank Velak had given some to Dad after he returned from Europe.” Apparently the elder Sheldon put them in his tackle box and proceeded to forget about them for two years. The story might have ended there if fate had not intervened in the form of a bad day's fishing. The “rest of the story” has been retold countless times and is now the cornerstone of Mepps lore.

According to the story, Todd was having a bad day fishing on the Wolf River in 1951, and after rummaging in his tackle box to find something that might work, he found one of the Mepps given to him by Velak, and he tied it on. To his amazement he began pulling in fat trout. He was immediately sold on the lure.

The Mepps “aglia” spinner was the invention of Frenchman Andre Muelnart, who registered his design in 1938. Mepps was the French acronym for the name of Muelnart's lure-making factory, translated as the “Manufacturer of Precision Equipment for Sport Fishing.” Another Frenchman, Ferdinand Helias, was a silent partner.

Sheldon began selling the lures at his sport shop. Velak supplied the spinners through an unusual arrangement, another important piece of Mepps lore. Velak received his lures from a French woman he had met during the war in exchange for supplying her with American nylons. The arrangement worked for several years, until the demand for Mepps spinners began to outpace the woman's need for nylons.

In the early 1960s the Mepps owners in France replaced Velak with George Boehm, who formed a supplier-distributor partnership with Sheldon. By this time the potential for Mepps sales in the United States was becoming clear—sport fishing was becoming big business, and anglers were spending more and more money on fishing tackle. In a self-serving move to gain complete control over U.S. Mepps sales, Boehm pulled a dirty trick and convinced the Mepps owners to oust Sheldon from the company. However, Sheldon had previously acquired exclusive rights to sell the French spinner in the United States. The tables turned on Boehm as he discovered he had no legal outlet for Mepps sales in the United States. Todd Sheldon's business genius triumphed, and he later bought out Boehm.

Several years later, the aging owners of Mepps, Muelnart and Helias, decided to sell their interests in the company to Sheldon, and in 1973 Sheldons', Inc., became the sole owner of Mepps.

“Mepps is still a French operation,” said Mike Sheldon. “Most of the manufacturing still occurs in France. Most of the assembly of the spinner components, packaging, and shipping take place in Antigo.”

Though the lure is French, Todd Sheldon was responsible for an American “stamp” on Muelnart's spinner: the addition of squirrel or buck tail. Sheldon was fishing on the Wolf when he ran into a young boy who had caught some very nice trout on a lure adorned with squirrel tail hair. Sheldon immediately began to experiment with adding dressing of animal hair to Mepps spinners. The results were incredibly successful, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“We still use natural squirrel or buck tail today,” said Mike Sheldon. “We have tried other types of animal hair, such as fox, coyote, and skunk, as well as synthetic material, but nothing works as well.” Sheldon added, “But squirrel tails are getting harder to come by, because not as many people are out hunting squirrels.”

Sheldons' has raised the price they pay for squirrel tails, from ten cents in 1970 to around twenty cents today. “We could pay more, but we don't want people to hunt squirrels just to sell the tail,” said Sheldon.

Through the years Todd Sheldon continued to test new ideas and designs as he fished all over the world, particularly in northern Canada and Alaska. He fished familiar waters close to home as well. “We had a cottage on Post Lake,” said Mike Sheldon, “and Dad fished there frequently. He also liked to fish the Menominee Indian Reservation.”

In his later years, Todd Sheldon still went into the office every day he was able, and he remained involved in company operations. When a friend invited him to play a little golf, Sheldon replied, “Golf is for old men!”

Since Todd Sheldon's death the company has maintained the strong focus he established, but some changes have taken place.

“We decided to stop advertising and instead utilize company representatives to promote the product,” said Mike Sheldon. “We came to realize that working with real fishermen is the best way to make Mepps known.”

Already a household name within any home of someone who fishes, the Mepps spinner needs little promotion. Since the first few spinners sold by Todd Sheldon at the sports store in the 1950s, Sheldons', Inc., has sold more than 350 million fishing lures. There are few tackle boxes in America that don't contain at least one Mepps spinner. In 1984 Todd Sheldon was inducted into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame at Hayward as a “Legendary Angler” for his business genius and commitment to the sport of fishing.