Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The Legend of the Little Bully

Little Scotty Multer, a crewmember on a B29 Super Fortress during World War 2 was a guy who liked to kid around. He was always pulling pranks on the other members of the crew, pretending that the bomb-bay doors were jammed followed by a cherry bomb..that sort of stuff.

He wasn't well liked among his fellow crew members at first but along with his shenanigans Multer also proved to be a problem solver. He was always coming up with a new gadget to help make some task less tedious or something of that nature. So, in time, the crew warmed up top the sawed-off silly s.o.b. and they began to hang out together. Multer was an avid fisherman and never failed to find a moment to cast a line during liberty. He wasn't the best fisherman but he was enthusiastic, never catching much but never giving up. It would drive him crazy how the damned fish were so wily, always just out of reach, He used to say, "These damned fish are like the damned Japs! You go after one and another one pops up in his place!" He could be an angry little man.

As the war continued and he flew more missions, Multer was beginning to feel his luck wearing out. He was haunted by the thought of being shot down and the runs to Tokyo were hair-raising and dangerous missions to say the least. You can imagine the relief when the war came to a screeching halt after the United States pulled out the Atom Bomb. The Little Boy and the Fat Man were dropped and the missions were ended. Multer went home to his fiancé, Bridget and began raising his family. He had no idea that the events in Nagasaki and Hiroshima would not only have saved his life but would also make him a very rich man as well.

You see, avid gadget-maker that he was, Multer used the example of the Atom Bomb to make himself a lure to fight those wily fish that he'd been after for so long. He got himself some lead and some hooks and fashioned the now infamous "Little Bully" into a lure that would change the face of fishing in postwar America. No longer did a fisherman need skill and technique to snag a trophy bass or trout, he could use brute force! If you had a strong enough pole, you could launch one of these babies into a serene lake and you'd be sure to either hook a fish or knock one out. The brightly painted grenades were flying like tree-rats above lakes the country over and Multer had a foothold in the lure business.

The returning veterans were having a ball bombing the bass and downing beer. Life was good in America again. Eventually, though.. the lures became less popular among aficionados of the angling persuasion and the brute force that was a release to the returning vets gave way to subtlety and technique once again. Every once in a while though, you'll run across someone who's got a Little Bully hiding in their tackle-box and LOOK OUT!!

4 comments:

  1. I love that story and if that lure comes available as the page suggests, I will have one in my box! Thanks

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  2. Uncle Tedddy used to swear by those suckers... He sure was hard to sit with at the dinner table tho after a Little Bully caught hold of his upper lip on a wicked back cast. I made my self mighty scarce when Auntie Bertha served up creamed corn.......UUUUG! the memory still haunts me.

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  3. Fishing is a tough business. It can scar a man's body as well as his soul! -Gill

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