August 2014
Fisheretto (Brown’s Fisheretto)
Sam J. Brown (Brown Brothers)
Osakis, MN
1917
My youngest niece, Katariina, will be celebrating her first birthday with a party in the town of Osakis, MN this month. So, in honor of that event, August’s “Lure Of The Month” features a lure that was made by a family out of their home in Osakis, Minnesota: The Fisheretto.
In 1910, a large family in the small town of Osakis, MN bought a huge eight-year-old house for their mother and their large family. This family owned and operated the mercantile in town.
Right next to town was beautiful Lake Osakis, teaming with lots of game fish and it was known for its Large-Mouthed Bass. One of the nine children, Samuel Brown, had an idea for several fishing lures and began making and using them on the local lakes.
In 1917, Sam applied for a patent for a new lure he designed which he called the Fisheretto. He received this patent in 1920. This wooden bait was sold in a plain yellow box (pictured above) that called this lure “The Ideal Fish-Lure”. The box also stated it was “Considered by many Expert Fisherman the most effective Bass-Lure on the Market” and “As a Surface Bait the FISHERETTO is practically snagless”. This early box is extremely rare to find nowadays, and I am very fortunate to own it.
Sam began selling the Fisheretto under his name and it was available in many colors. He painted these lures with house paint obtained from the family owned mercantile in town and they were manufactured by hand in the basement of the large house. These lures were sold locally to fisherman and may have only been available to purchase in the mercantile. Sam switched to a new yellow box in the early 1920s that featured a picture of the wood glass-eyed lure on the outside of the box. His family also began helping make and paint the lures, so he now called his company “Brown Brothers” and the Fisheretto became known as the “Brown’s Fisheretto”.
Then, tough times came. First of all, Sam Brown passed away in 1925. Then the depression hit and even small towns like Osakis were struck hard. The mercantile closed its doors and went out of business. The remaining brothers focused more on the lures for income and they did more travel and promotion and began to sell them in nearby Alexandria, MN. The main brother that took over the head of the operation appears to have been Ed, but others may have helped equally as much.
Around this time, the style of the Fisheretto changed and they were no longer made with glass eyes, but instead used metal “tack” eyes or painted eyes. Also, the body style changed on the Fisheretto to a concave body design. The brothers also began selling a few other lures such as a wounded minnow, a diving “bug”, and some ice spearing decoys.
When all these changes exactly took place is confusing as the image on the box and ads continued to show the original lure design with the round body and glass eyes. An example of the newer style of lure and the last box they sold the lure in is below this article. Note the box states it was made in Alexandria, MN on its side and it still has the picture of the glass-eyed round-bodied lure on it.
The brothers names (including Sam) in no particular order were Sam, Mike, Ed, John, Tom, and Bill. The three daughters may have also had a part in making these lures, and they were Anne, Hannah, and Kathryn. I have even heard reports from people who claim to have painted these lures for the Brown Brothers out of the state of MN in order to expand sales. I am not sure if these reports are true or not.
Unfortunately, the new “indestructible” plastic lures appearing on the market in the 30s and 40s and tough times for lure makers during WWII had a great impact on this “crude folk art” lure, so productions ceased sometime in the mid to late 1940s.
If you visit Osakis, the large home is still there and it is now called “Just Like Grandma’s”. It is now part of a gift shop, bed and breakfast, dining area and tea room. The basement where the lures were made is now a quilt shop. If you happen to visit, do what I did, and have your wife check out the quilts while you wander around and picture what the basement would have looked like in the 1920s. You can almost smell the paint from the drying lures in the air….
I have a large collection of Fisheretto and Brown Brothers lures, but am always looking to add to them. If you have some you would like to sell, I may be interested…especially if you have one of the original boxes.
