Cotton Cordell

When Cotton Cordell was just a kid, his father owned a boat landing on Lake Catherine, in Hot Springs, where he cut his teeth on fishing, guiding, and lure designing.

After World War II, he discovered that, by purchasing survival kits from B52's, he would get a knife, a razor, twine, bandages, and a bucktail jig, made with white-tail deer hair. It was the jig that caught his attention. 

When war survival kits became scarce, he learned to improvise by using hair from his English Setter. "Dog hair will catch just as many fish as deer hair. But before it was over, I had the baldest English Setter in the world". Quite an inauspicious beginning for sure and one that led to him forming his own lure company when the demand for his jig heads outgrew his ability to make them in the bathroom of his small bait and tackle shop.

When he sold Cordell Lures in 1980, he had designed baits that are still produced by the millions and have become household names: the Gay Blade; the Boy Howdy; the Red Fin and the Crazy Shad. The plastic version of the crankbait "the Big O" and, of course, the famous Hot Spot, a lure that is probably in more tackle boxes than any one bait ever produced! The Hot Spot was designed while he was sitting in a deer stand. Had a deer not come along and interrupted this inventor, the "Hot Spot" would probably have never been invented, as the prototype, that he was carving out of a piece of pine bark, was laid down so he could shoot a small three-point buck.

When he went back later that evening, to retrieve his carving knife, he realized what an outstanding design he had come up with, by looking at the unfinished product. The "Hot Spot" was later improved upon, when it was discovered, by accident, that when the rattles that were glued inside the bait for weight, broke loose, the sound of these rattles attracted even more fish than the original version.

Once a fishing lure designer, always a fishing lure designer. His office is literally scattered with dozens of wood carvings of prototype lures and hand shaved plastic molds that will one day help everyone catch more fish.

He was elected into the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in 1987, and into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame a few years later. He is a past Board of Directors Member of the Ouachita Baptist University and an Honorary Member of the National Fishing Lure Collectors Club.