Remembering Cotton Cordell

A real person was behind all those great lures

Carl Richey “Cotton” Cordell, the designer and manufacturer responsible for such classic fishing lures as the Red Fin, the Gay Blade, the Hot Spot and the Big O, died Tuesday in Hot Springs. He was 86.
Carl Richey “Cotton” Cordell, the designer and manufacturer responsible for such classic fishing lures as the Red Fin, the Gay Blade, the Hot Spot and the Big O, died Tuesday in Hot Springs. He was 86.

Carl Richey "Cotton" Cordell, one of the biggest names in fishing, died Tuesday in Hot Springs.

His obituary listed some of his life's highlights and honors, such as enshrinement in the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame and Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. At one time he owned the largest lure company in America, but that's only part of this extraordinary man's story.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo

Carl “Cotton” Cordell not only designed fishing lures, but was also an old-school angler who had no use for electronics or gadgets commonly used by current professional fisherman. “I guarantee you that Cotton would tell a lot of those guys that they have lace on their underwear,” said Bobby Dennis, chief designer for Luck-EStrike Lures.

Ordinarily, a newspaper article refers to a person by last name only after the first reference, but an exception can be made in this case. Cotton Cordell is an eponymous name in fishing. It is a brand, an institution.

Cotton Cordell also was a real person.

"The sad thing is that a lot of people don't know that there really was a person named Cotton Cordell," said Bobby Dennis of Cassville, Mo. "They don't know that there really were real, live people named Jim Bagley, or Jack Smithwick or Bill Norman. To most people, those are just names on a carton. They don't know the stories behind them."

Dennis, the chief lure designer for Luck-E-Strike Lures, knew Cotton Cordell well as an employee, a friend and a protege. He went to work for Cordell in 1972 as a shipping clerk and worked his way up until Cordell sold the rights to his brand to EBSCO, which later became Plastics Research and Development Company of Fort Smith. PRADCO, the General Motors of the lure industry, acquired and continues to produce famous brands like Smithwick, Rebel, Bomber and, of course, Cotton Cordell.

Mike Cordell, Cotton's son, said his father said the sale was inevitable.

"He always said it was a nice little lure company that got completely out of hand," Mike Cordell said.

In other words, the company got too big and too successful for Cotton Cordell to run the it the way he wanted. Dennis said that Cotton Cordell was a formidable businessman, but he treasured the personal side of the business. He enjoyed cultivating relationships with anglers, distributors, retailers and the media. The demands of being an industry mogul took the the fun out of it.

"He knew how to do everything in the business, but he balanced that with his family and his church," Dennis said.

Church and family defined the "real" Cotton Cordell, Mike Cordell said. Living in Hot Springs gave him the freedom to be himself.

"To be so well-known, he was a pretty private person," Mike said. "I feel like he changed the world, but he never acknowledged that. He was so humble."

Cotton Cordell was so well-known around Hot Springs that there was no such thing as a private moment in public.

"I've got three daughters," Mike said. "Every time they went out to eat with him, they called it traveling with a rock star.

"I joined the company in 1972. Going to shows and doing business stuff around country, I came to realize just how well known he was. But to me, he was just a great dad."

In his new book, The Fish That Changed America, Steve Price devoted a chapter to Cotton Cordell. It starts with the roster of lures that Cotton Cordell introduced to the fishing public: Red Fin, Hot Spot, Gay Blade, Boy Howdy, Crazy Shad, Sonic, Twin Spin, Near Nuthin, Vibra King, Vibra Queen and, of course, the Big O.

"He may have designed and created more lures than anyone in history," Price wrote. "It easily numbers in the hundreds and perhaps thousands."

Cotton Cordell also produced a successful line of fiberglass fishing boats called Going Jessie. He built rods, and he built gears for Abu Garcia reels.

"Man, where do you start with the influence he had?" Dennis asked. "The first thing he taught me was how to do everything in the business. Cotton was one of the few who could whittle a prototype, take it to a mold-maker and have a mold made, design all the colors, paint it, design all the packaging and then sell it. And at the same time deal with the media and all that."

On his first day as shipping clerk, Cotton Cordell visited Dennis. He called him David and did so for a year until Mike Cordell overheard it and corrected him.

"He was so apologetic," Dennis said. "He said, 'Why didn't you say something sooner?' I was so intimidated by him. I didn't believe it was my place to correct Cotton Cordell."

On that first day, Dennis said that Cotton Cordell looked around Dennis's work space and said, "If this was my room, it would be the cleanest room in the whole factory. He'd go to someone running a mold machine and say the same thing."

Dennis said Cotton Cordell taught him how to sell and how to shake it off when a retailer or distributor chewed him out.

"He taught me not to take it personal," Dennis said.

Cordell said he was trying to get the best deal he could.

Like most creative types, Cotton Cordell was quirky. Dennis said that Cotton Cordell never unbuttoned a dress shirt before taking it off. He always pulled it off like a T-shirt with the buttons still fastened.

" 'Why should I unbutton it?' he'd ask. 'That just wastes time,' " Dennis said.

Most people eat a hamburger head-on. Not Cotton Cordell.

"He'd eat it around the edges," Dennis said. "He'd just keep turning it and turning it until it was gone."

Success brought Cotton Cordell wealth and influential friends, but he always stayed close to his childhood friends.

"They weren't just ordinary people," Dennis said. "They all had names like Nickle Bill and Teapot Cloud. It was fascinating to hear how they got their names, and they just went on and on with each other."

There was no room for that kind of coziness in the world of big business. When the Cotton Cordell brand got too big for the human touch, Cotton Cordell lost interest, Dennis said.

"In a lot of ways he outlived the time that he loved," Dennis said. "He hated the coldness of the computer world. The reason he sold to PRADCO is because he couldn't do everything anymore."

Ironically, Cotton Cordell was an innovator who adapted well to the rapid pace of developments in the fishing industry. That, Dennis said, is why Cotton Cordell thrived while other talented lure makers faltered.

"The really cool thing is that he developed lures that changed with the equipment," Dennis said. "Think about it. A crankbait wouldn't do anything with a two-to-one reel. High-speed reels came along, and he developed products to go along with them."

He also was ahead of his time in marketing.

"He'd say, 'If I pay freight on a thousand lures but not less, would that make them buy a thousand?'" Dennis said. "Or, 'If I let them pay me over three months, will that help me make a sale?'"

In case you're wondering, Cotton Cordell also was also a phenomenal fisherman. Mike Cordell said bass fishing was Cotton's passion. Dennis said he was an old-school angler who fished by wits and intuition. He had no use for electronics and all the other toys that modern tournament anglers believe they require.

"I guarantee you that Cotton would tell a lot of those guys that they have lace on their underwear," Dennis said. "He was the last of the old, pure fishing people."

Sports on 01/11/2015

Upcoming Events