On September 3, 2007, Bob Rickard passed away at his home in St. Charles, Missouri. For years, Rickard courageously and patiently battled a host of health issues that might have broken the spirit of most men, but throughout he remained upbeat. People who called on Bob to encourage him invariably were uplifted by his positive, light-hearted attitude. His love for family, friends and fishing was apparent to all. The ingenuity that produced Bob's truly unique spinnerbait design and his commitment to go an extra mile for his customers are woven into the fabric of the company he founded. He remains an example of how to bless people and handle adversity. Bob Rickard will be fondly remembered and sorely missed by his co-workers, vendors, customers and friends whose lives he enriched.

 

Secret Weapon was conceived on clear-flowing Missouri streams and took form on the workbench of this skilled mechanical engineer and ardent angler. Over a span of thirty-five years, Rickard handcrafted a number of innovative baits, testing and perfecting them on the lakes and rivers of America's heartland.

 

A law student who became a self-taught mechanical engineer, Rickard was Production Manager for Comet Tool and Die Company, manufacturer of precision components for the aircraft, aerospace and defense industries. At McDonnell Aircraft his engineering team assisted on projects that included the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle and the lunar landing module. To make the most of his few free hours he kept rods rigged and gear packed for short trips down the small streams and rivers of southeast Missouri.

 

One characteristic of all spinnerbaits at the time was that the twirling blade "helicoptered" the bait upward. At rapid retrieves it rose to the surface. Bob wanted to be able to keep his lure deeper and he found opportunity to tackle this engineering problem as he recuperated from open-heart surgery in 1992. Unable to exert himself to even bend even a spinnerbait frame, he used lightweight stainless steel wire to fashion in-line spinners that he used to replace the split ring and swivel-mounted blades. The results in his first test tank (his bathtub) were promising and when he was finally able to return to the river, he was amazed to learn that his redesign achieved not only greater range of depth and speed, but a long list of other advantages as well.

 

Rickard had long preferred using in-line spinners for their ability to attract more species of fish, but he acknowledged the superiority of the safety-pin style for fishing around brush, lay-downs and vegetation. By marrying the two using his patented, no-tool, quick-change universal spinner blade attachment, he introduced the first true innovation in spinnerbaits since the original came out forty-seven years earlier. Coincidentally, St. Louis — the birthplace of the original safety-pin spinnerbait design — was the city of its rebirth as the Secret Weapon Spinnerbait, too.

 

While fishing from a canoe, another advantage of his design became immediately apparent to Rickard; by swapping blades, he could drastically reduce the number of lures he needed to carry without sacrificing versatility. With a few heads and a handful of blade attachments, he could assemble the perfect spinnerbait for virtually any situation in seconds, without tools.

 

Even more exciting, though, was his discovery that the free-floating, inline blade assembly produced better vibration and rotated at even slower speeds than swivel-mounted blades. That resulted in more hits, plus he was getting more solid hookups because the blade attachments simply swung out of the way on the strike rather than blocking the hook as convention spinnerbait frames often do. For many years, only family and fishing buddies experienced firsthand the effectiveness of his lures.

After a term as part owner of Manchester Machine and Manufacturing in St. Louis, Rickard built a successful audio and video equipment business. He devoted himself after retirement to the outdoor pursuits he loves and to refinement and perfection of the lure that is earning a place in anglers' tackle boxes around the world.

 

Convinced that no other lures came close to matching his own design, in 2001 Rickard began market-testing the commercial potential of his spinnerbait designs. He proved them through rigorous field-testing by experienced guides and tournament anglers from across the United States, identified the patterns that produced best in every region and then introduced them to the retail market a year later.

 

Several heart attacks and failing health curtailed Rickard's level of activity during the last decade, but he delighted in seeing the lures he designed earn the confidence of anglers everywhere and in passing on his experience, insights, fishing lore to others.

Why Secret Weapon® Spinnerbaits are the Best Available

 

1. Secret Weapon Spinnerbaits combine the best, time-tested features of in-line spinners and first-generation safety-pin style spinnerbaits so popular in the United States and Canada. Secret Weapon Spinnerbaits' easy-casting, snag-resistant safety-pin style can be fished through the brush and weeds where predators lie in ambush. The unique "sound" created by free-floating, in-line, clevis-mounted blades of the Secret Weapon Spinnerbait draws more strikes from pressured fish that have learned to ignore other spinnerbaits, and they attract far more species of fish than conventional spinnerbaits, too.

 

2. Secret Weapon is a better "slow-roller" because the free-floating blades start spinning easier than the frame-mounted blades on conventional spinnerbaits, and the blades continue to rotate at slower speeds than is possible with swivel-mounted blades.

 

3. A multi-blade Secret Weapon Spinnerbait will maintain depth at faster retrieves than conventional multi-blade spinnerbaits of the same weight because Secret Weapon doesn't employ a downward-facing front blade that lifts the lure back up like a helicopter blade.

 

4. Multi-blade Secret Weapon Spinnerbaits have much less tendency to roll over at high speeds because (a) all blades are positioned higher, and (b) free-floating blade assemblies allow more freedom of movement so the rotating blade doesn't torque the lure to one side.

 

5. Multi-blade Secret Weapons are far superior "drop" baits than multi-blade conventional lures because Secret Weapon's all the blades to rotate while the lure is sinking, and not just the rear blade as with conventional, first-generation spinnerbaits.

 

6. Secret Weapon Spinnerbaits give more solid hook-ups because the upper arm doesn't cover and obstruct the hook, as happens with most conventional spinnerbaits. Secret Weapon's free-floating blades simply fold out of the way during a strike. And when fish zero in on the flashing blades and attack from the side, striking the blades knocks the entire bait sideways. With Secret Weapon Spinnerbaits, just the free-floating blades are knocked aside, leaving the lure body and hook in the best position for the hookup.

 

7. Secret Weapon is much more versatile than conventional spinnerbaits because the exclusive quick-change blade attachments permit much more flexibility in lure configuration and a far higher variety of presentations than do conventional spinnerbaits. All this is done without the use of bulky, high-friction, frame-mounted swivels or any special tools.

 

8. Secret Weapon Spinnerbaits are extremely economical to own. Their fully interchangeable quick-change blade attachments enable you to quickly and easily create an almost unlimited selection of blade configurations. Just a few Secret Weapon Lures and a handful of blades replace a whole tacklebox of spinnerbaits! Quality, versatility, and performance make them the best value in spinnerbaits today.

 

Bob Rickard
Inventor, Secret Weapon Lures