REMEMBERING WHEN: My father’s ‘Swedish Pimple’

By Keith Schell

Since time immemorial, fishermen worldwide have embarked on a personal quest to discover the ‘Holy Grail’ of fishing lures. The one lure that, when attached to a fishing line, would attract a multitude of fish, leading them to their doom and ultimately, to your frying pan, or, if you finally caught the ‘big one’ of your dreams, to the taxidermist.

There is much heated debate amongst anglers about which lure is best. A friend of mine swears by two particular lures, the ‘Mepps Spinner’ and the ‘Hula Popper’. When he was a kid, he witnessed a lot of fish being caught with those two particular lures. His brother-in-law always seemed to do well with the ‘Mepps Spinner’, and a summer tourist who rented a local cabin always seemed to bring back a large string of fish from his days on the lake, courtesy of the ‘Hula Popper’. To the childhood recollections of my friend, those two particular lures back then always seemed to be ‘fish magnets’.

Many fishermen believe they have found their own personal Holy Grail of fishing lures, and my angler Father was certainly no different.

Dad loved to go ice fishing during the winter months and enjoyed experimenting with the different lures he kept in his tackle box that were intended to catch the fish that were lurking under his hut during the time he spent on the ice.

And as far as he was concerned, after performing a number of different angling experiments in his hut throughout the winters he spent on the ice, the lure he finally settled on as his personal Holy Grail of ice fishing was the ‘Swedish Pimple’.

The ‘Swedish Pimple’ fishing lure was created more than 50 years ago by three brothers each of two fishing families of Gladstone, Michigan, USA and was based on other successful ice fishing lures of the time. The reflective brass body, varied coloured designs, and unique movements of the lure made it irresistible to fish as it was jigged under the ice or in the open water.

Named by Field and Stream magazine as one of the 50 greatest fishing lures of all time, the ‘Swedish Pimple’ name came from the Swedish word ‘pimpla’, meaning ‘to jig’. The lure was so successful that the Nyberg brothers formed the Bay de Noc Lure Company to manufacture ‘Pimples’ and other successful lures back in 1955.

Starting out as a group of six fishing friends who had trouble finding a steady supply of fishing lures for their passion, the three brothers each of the Nyberg and Apelgren families finally started making their own fishing lures by copying the popular Swedish designs of the time. When the Nyberg brothers finally received a registered trademark for their own ‘Swedish Pimple’ design in 1957, their lure became an instant hit. The lure is still hand-made to this day and currently sells 500,000 a year throughout the Midwestern USA, Canada, and all around the world.

The ‘Swedish Pimple’ fishing lure became a personal favourite of my Father, not only because it got results and caught fish, but also because the name always brought a little smirk to Dad’s face every time he said it. And I have no doubt that he was not the only angler out there who was amused by the name.

But silly names aside, the lure always seemed to get results. To my recollection, Dad rarely came home empty-handed from ice fishing, and he usually attributed his angling success to the lure with the silliest name in his tackle box:

The ‘Swedish Pimple’.