In just about every aspect of our lives, we reveal our fascination with things that are new. When we talk to a friend on the phone, we ask so, what’s new with you? When we walk into a tackle shop, it’s also very easy to get overly occupied with the new in a company’s lineup of products.

Even when we go fishing, it can be tempting to give most of the water time to new lures. But does this tendency cost us fish? It’s the basis of an in-depth interview done recently with Ron Weber, founder and chairman of Normark, the man who went to Finland and formed a long-standing personal and business relationship with the Rapala family to import the now-famous artificial lures bearing that family’s now-famous name.

Ron Weber is the kind of guy who fishes a lot, and thinks a lot about it, and has a legendary instinct for understanding what anglers want and need. Lately, even as the Rapala line has flourished expanding to include new lures like the

Risto Rap, Husky Jerk, Skitter Pop, and others the fatherly side of Ron has become concerned that anglers might be drifting away from a time when equipment and commonly-used methods helped them mine the subtle prowess of the staples including the original floating Rapala and the Count Down.

What follows is a fascinating slice of fishing history and insight that can help you catch more fish this year, and in the years to come, from a man who doesn’t often sit down for extended interviews but who has a strong sense of the big picture when it comes to choosing and using lures.

Q: You’ve said that there’s nothing wrong with being curious about what’s new, and that it’s a good idea to at least sample the new lures being offered by tackle manufacturers. But you’ve also said that you’re concerned about a trend you see in many anglers, the tendency to become too focused on what’s new to the exclusion of lures that aren’t new, but still deserve a big spot in our tackle boxes.

How much do the anglers of today miss out if they key mainly or exclusively on what’s new as they make their tackle purchases, and decide what to put on once they get on the water?

Ron Weber: They’re missing out very significantly. I make an analogy between various fishing lures and golf clubs. The average fisherman doesn’t really research and understand totally what the new lures coming out are, what the intent of the new lures is. In a golf club, it would become obvious if somebody brings out a new wedge and you buy that new wedge, you don’t throw your driver away and just hit all your shots with the wedge.

But fishermen have a tendency to do that. In fact, I had a friend of mine come up to me a few years ago and he said: well, I see you brought out a new Rapala.

I suppose it’s the new and improved model, so I’ll have to throw all my old ones away.

And I said, no, not at all, and explained to him what the purpose of the new lure was, and how it fit into an overall scheme when it came to building a collection of lures for different situations.

This year (1999), we’re introducing a new lure called the Skitter Pop. You

Wouldn’t throw away your original Rapala for a Skitter Pop, even if you’re fishing surface. A lot of people fish the original Rapala on the surface. They are two different presentations.

The Skitter Pop is a lure that works better in a faster presentation. It spits water. It’s like baitfish working the surface. It’s more aggressive.

You fish the original Floater in a less aggressive manner. I’ve actually let the boat drift along slowly, after casting it out along a weedbed, and giving absolutely no action to that original floater, and just float down the weedbed with the thing just floating along, with a little breeze, and all of a sudden,

Whoomp, a fish grabs it.

So you see, those are two different presentations. Still, people will say now that they have the Skitter Pop I don’t need my original floater for fishing on the surface any more. That’s not true.

You have to know what you’re trying to accomplish. Another good example is we bring out a new crankbait. This crankbait maybe runs at 4 feet. Are you going to assume that this bait takes the place of a crankbait that runs at 12 feet?

They’re two different applications, and that, I think, is the most important thing. To understand what is new is not something that should take the place of everything else in your tackle box.

The closest thing to an all-purpose lure that’s out there is the original Rapala. But most of these new lures are niche lures, used for special presentations, and a lot of them have other things they’re good at.

One of the reasons the original Rapala is so great is that it can be used in so many different ways.

Q: But you’ve surely noticed the hoopla surrounding new lures, where the new so-and-so becomes hot and gets a lot of press, and the word spreads, and people catch fish like crazy on that lure for a season or so. And then, it’s on to something else. Besides the obvious factor that a lot of catches come on a certain lure because a lot of people are using it, do you think there’s anything to the age-old theory that fish might become conditioned to avoid a certain lure, where they were incredibly vulnerable to it when it’s first introduced?

Ron Weber: I think there can be some of the effect in a short-term context. I think if you’re fishing over a school of fish, and you put the same lure over ‘em hour after hour, they lose interest in it. But if you come back a week later it’s a whole new ballgame again. I don’t think they have long term memory as such. I think they have short-term conditioning, though. And as a result, a lure, if you keep on hammering away with them I’ve seen it with flies, too you take a couple fish out of a school, and they kind of turn off. Then you change patterns and they hit the new pattern. Sometimes, they’ll hit that same pattern all day, and other times they become spooky about it.

Or, if everybody on the lake is coming out with the same lure, day after day, and using it, I think the fish start turning off on it, but I don’t think a fish says oh, gee, I saw that six months ago and that’s an artificial lure, I’m not going to hit that.

Q: So there might be something, however slight and short-term the effect, to the conditioning theory. But still, the original floating Rapala is the top selling lure in the Rapala line after all these years, and its effectiveness doesn’t seem to drop off despite how widely it’s used. Is there a contradiction there?

Or is there something about the original Rapala action that is so lifelike it’s immune to the conditioning factor?

Ron Weber: I think that’s another factor. We’re talking about fish getting turned off on lures. I think that a lure that excites them into a territorial response, or an anger response or something, that that can be effective for a short period of time. But anything that looks like their natural food, that kind of quietly comes along and looks like a slightly injured minnow, I don’t think they develop much negative reaction to that.

Q: So, if you could put it into your own words, what is it about the original floating Rapala that makes it so appealing to fish?

Ron Weber: Well, we could say the positive and the negative about it. If fish are turned off and not feeding, it’s probably not a very effective lure. But if fish are feeding, then it’s a very effective lure. That’s why some lures will out-fish the original Rapala on occasion, like a popper or a buzzbait, because there are times the fish are semi-dormant, and something that can kind of wake them up, or give them a territorial response or an anger response, can prove to be more effective. But let’s face it: what fish do best, and what they do most of the time, is feed. And so that’s why the Rapala is so effective, because it looks just like their natural forage.