While at a recent NFLCC Tackle Meet in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I picked up a Chuck Woolery Moto Minnow for $2. I had known about Woolery’s participation in bass fishing and his line of mechanical signature lures, and have also periodically seen them selling on eBay for $15-$20 or more. Of course they struck me as gimmick lures, but they also appealed to the kid in me, and I’ve wanted to tie one onto the end of my fishing line and give it a toss. While $20 or more is too much for me to spend on what I considered to be a toy lure, $2 was perfect. So, when I got home from the vintage tackle event I examined the Moto Minnow more closely, did a little online digging and decided that this might be a fun story to share with readers of Bass Fishing Archives.
Chuck Woolery, born in 1941, was something of a renaissance man, achieving various levels of success in acting, radio and podcasting, writing, political activism, advertising jingles and even popular music with one Top 40 hit and several country music releases. But it is as a game show host that Woolery achieved his biggest and longest lasting fame and success. Starting as the original host of Wheel of Fortune, Woolery went on to host Love Connection and at least a half-dozen other game shows. Woolery passed away on November 23, 2024 at the age of 83.
Woolery was also a passionate bass angler. Growing up in Ashland, Kentucky, Woolery fished for muskie and bass with his father. “My dad loved to fish. I can still hear the gurgle of a black Arbogast Jitterbug coming through the water because he fished it so much. It was his favorite lure.” But he sidelined his fishing interest when he moved to Hollywood. After Love Connection went off the air, Woolery renewed his interest in fishing and connected with Elite Series Angler Mike O’Shea. “I decided to buy a bass boat, and I went and looked at one on Lake Castaic. It was owned by a guy named Mike O’Shea, who fished like no one I’d ever seen before. After 15 minutes, I realized that I didn’t know a thing about fishing. I ended up not buying the boat, but I asked Mike if he could teach me how to fish like he did.” Woolery enlisted O’Shea as a teacher and studied under the pro angler for three years. Woolery even released a popular bass fishing DVD with O’Shea, titled “Bass Fishing: The Basics.”
Woolery got turned onto the mechanical surface lure while fishing an especially weedy lake. He was unsuccessful in being able to effectively work a lure because of the weed growth. That is, until he said he reached into his tackle box for the weird motorized shad and made pinpoint casts into small pockets in the weeds. By twitching the lure and pulling the string, without actually retrieving it, he was able to activate the lure while it remained in place on the water. “It fluttered for another 10 seconds in a 3-foot pocket between the grass. Out of nowhere, something clobbered it. I tried again and caught another fish. I threw it again and caught another bass. I tried other lures to see what would happen and didn’t get a strike. I caught 50 bass on that lure that day.”
Woolery decided he wanted in, so he contacted the man who invented the lure, Frank Pearce, and set up a deal to buy the company in 2004. He also began a powerful marketing campaign to promote the MotoLure, including securing an hour-long spot on the QVC network to sell the lures (Moto Chug, Moto Minnow, Moto Frog) and talk fishing. “It was in November,” Woolery said. “Mostly women watch that channel, so we sold them as Christmas present items for the sportsmen in their lives. After that, Bass Pro Shop and other companies made orders. After 30 years in show business, all of a sudden, I was in the fishing business.” The show was a success, with more than $17,000 in sales per minute of airtime. Moto Lures eventually sold more than a million baits.The print ad below uses many of the same dramatic and perhaps exaggerated claims that lure companies have used since folks began selling fishing lures” “Pro anglers say lure offers unfair advantage to fishermen,” and “Will Catch More and Bigger Fish. 100% Money Back Guarantee, No Questions Asked.”
Moto Lures were a hot item for a while, but eventually the interest in them died down. I looked up Frank Pearce and, if I have the right Frank Pearce, I believe he is or was marketing a mechanical frog lure similar to the Moto Frog, called the 22-Five Mechanical Frog. Below is a video of Chuck Woolery presenting his Moto Lure line of lures. If you go to YouTube and read the comments under the video, you’ll see that several of them give positive reviews of the lure’s effectiveness.
A couple sources for quotes in this article:
https://www.houmatoday.com/story/news/2003/11/20/fishing-is-no-game-to-woolery/26814865007/ Nov. 20, 2003.
Austin American-Statesman. Austin, Texas. Sep. 26, 2010.
