June 10, 2025
By In-Fisherman Staff
Lifetime fishing fanatic, Mark Fisher, talks about how fishing has changed over the years, and talks in detail about his career working at Rapala. The long line of Rapala lures all started with the Original Floater and Fisher offers some insight about the evolution of the brand and how it impacted the entire fishing community. He insists on remaining relevant as an angler by fishing as often as possible, and he talks about how the incoming generations can be active contributing members of the fishing industry. Mark is one of the best dudes in the business and a fine storyteller. Fascinating guy for sure.
Truncated transcript:
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:17.840: We're listening to In-Fisherman Storyline, North America's top voice in multi-species freshwater angling. Here is your host, Thomas Allen.
00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:29.920: Well, let's kick her off, Mark. Yeah. Mark Fisher, who is a Minnesota Hall of Fame inductee–you're part of any other–halls of fame?
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00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:53.440: National freshwater. You're kind of a legend, as I've been learning. I try to stay away from that stuff. No, it's all good. Mark Fisher has had an impact on the industry. I've known about him. We've been in some similar circles, but I don't think we spent a lot of time together. Never did. So we're going to kind of break each other in here today. And I want some stories.
00:00:53.440 --> 00:01:12.040: But I think you're widely known as, I guess, for a long time the face of Rapala or a longtime employee. I want to hear about that. But sure, I don't want to get the cart too far in front of the horse either. So let's start with your–I'm going to have your reach way back here–your first encounter with a fish.
00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:59.120: Can you remember that? With the fish. With the fish. The one that you remember the most, maybe. Yeah. You know, I think I honestly have to say the first true encounter was after getting the seed planted. Classic family Minnesota vacation. Go up to Alexandria. Go to Lake Ida. Two weeks. Got a resort. And we did that every year. It was just the coolest thing growing up. You knew it was ahead of you. Worked it in with Little League baseball schedules and that cool classic routine. And I fell in love immediately the first trip up.
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00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:31.320: And all we did was we dragged stuff around. We were trolling Rapalas, classic floaters. And doing pike–my dad loved catching pike. He was from Texas. My mom was up here, didn't spend much time in a boat. And did you have a boat early on? No. No, everybody back then in the '50s, a family was lucky if they had a five horse Johnson back in those days or Evinrude.
00:02:31.320 --> 00:02:48.400: And he just had that in the case, drew it in the trunk of your car. Little gallon of Cass, coffee can to bail the old cedar strip out. And really a small tackle box in the way you go. You rented a boat at the resort or something like that. That was the norm. That was the norm.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:03:17.920: Yeah, whether we fished around home in the Twin Cities area. Everybody had boats to rent. And yeah, so that was pretty much it. I don't think that's a thing as much anymore. You can sure rent the pontoon. Or I know that there's places here on Gull that rent out those wake boats and things like that. And I guess to me, that's a little bit scary because you have people that maybe don't have experience driving a great big boat that makes a big wave. True…
