Voices from the Past: Fred Rinehart

Yesterday I profiled the life of Fred Rinehart, inventor of the Rinehart Jinx lure. As mentioned, for a brief time Rinehart served as an outdoor writer in 1937 for his local Newark Advocate newspaper. Here is one of his pieces on musky fishing in the local Muskingum River. While he will never be mistaken for Will Dilg or Dixie Caroll, I found the article charming.

Anglers Are Missing Best Part of Fishing Season;
Big Fellows Hitting in Muskingum
by Fred Rinehart

LOCAL anglers who have stored the fishing tackle back for storage are missing part of the best fishing of the year.

Fish, especially of the large game fish, feed heavily in the fall, in preparation for the dormant period of winter.

Those who have not fished the Muskingum river have a treat in store for them when they hook into a musky or pike. Many anglers are not aware of the fact that the lordly musky inhabit waters close to home; within 45 minutes' drive from Newark you will be in musky territory.

Only three rivers in Ohio can boast of having musky in their waters: The Grand river, east of Cleveland, and the Maumee river, southwest of Toledo, and the Muskingum river and drainage. Of these three, the Muskingum is the most noted, and produces the most and heaviest fish. Musky and pike live in harmony with each other, and the angler has the chance of hooking either of these two grand fish. Hooking and landing either of these fish is a thrill never to be forgotten.


The majority of the musky and pike are caught close to the falls of the dam, in or near the swift water. The pike is the more savage striker of the two, usually taking the bait with a savage rush, while the musky is a more slow-action fish. The fight is entirely different, as the pike will immediately bore for the bottom of the stream, while the musky will break water in a savage leap and roll. Wire leaders should be used, as either fish will cut a line quickly. Sometimes either will lay on the bottom after a short fight. Keep them moving. By taping your pole lightly at butt end will cause them to start moving. They will soon tire and can be landed easily.

The musky is a noted trick fighter, as after two or three savage rushes, will change tactics, such as rolling quickly and twisting the line about itself. Whenever a musky starts this, pull as hard as your tackle will endure. I have hooked and seen musky stand on their head and bore in the sand to loosen a bait. This trick usually works to the musky's advantage, and anglers agree this is their best trick. With the heavy weight of their bodies and head down, the angler's tackle, unless of the strongest material, will fail to make his majesty yield until it is too late.

Another trick is to rub and bore against a rock to loosen the lure. This can be overcome by using some pressure on the rod. On the strike it is well to set the hooks hard, as the musky's mouth is of a hard bony structure, and unless hard hook setting is done, the hooks will fail to penetrate deep enough to secure a good hold. Don't endeavor to "horse" a large fish; as the saying is, "it can't be done." A fish of from 10 to 35 pounds weight has tremendous pull. Simply hold a fairly tight line and let him make the runs. It is useless to tell an angler not to become excited, because no angler can land a fish without more or less of a nerve disorder.

Muskys will be found usually on or close to a bar, out in the river. The food they consume is around these bars and consists of shad, suckers, carp, and practically all minnows large enough to make a mouthful. A 15-pound musky can consume a large fish, as I have personally known of a four-pound carp taken from the stomach of a 36” musky. Plugs of four and five inches, or larger, are most commonly used, also spoons and bucktail, but plugs account for most musky in the Muskingum River. Natural pike finish or golden shiner are the two most noted lures, and account for the most musky strikes. The musky prefers a slow moving bait unless the water is very clear.

Lines of 18,, 24 and 30 pound test are suitable for muskys. Break about two foot off twice a day off the casting end. This part receives the most abuse and wear and will be the first to break. Examine your line carefully at intervals, as sometimes a stone cut will cause a line to fray and become weak, perhaps to cause the angler to lose a good fish.

Speaking of musky bait, several anglers prefer to use live bait, a large sucker bait six or seven inches making the best live bait. Select the edge of a bar where the water starts from shallow bar to deeper water. Do not use float and leave plenty of space between sinker and minnow, this, allows the minnow plenty of freedom and swim about. Hook minnow through both lips of mouth with fairly large hook of good quality. When the strike is made, allow your fish to make his run and stop; they will sometimes take from five minutes up to an hour in time, but when this is finished the fish will again start moving, let go 10 or 15 foot run and if the musky does not stop in this distance it is almost a surety that he has swallowed the minnow. Take all the slack up in the line and give a quick, hard jerk to set the hook, and your thrill will start.

If you wish to preserve the head for mounting, wash the head clean and using brush, wash the head completely with formaldehyde full strength and allow it to thoroughly dry, then give a couple of coats of rod varnish. Some firms supply glass eyes, this makes a neat, attractive head, and in years to come, becomes a remembrance of the thrill battle.

The weather and fall scenery are grand and beautiful along the Muskingum valley, so you anglers can still have fishing even if the weather be cool. Give the muskys a trial. When you hook one you will have that never to be forgotten thrill that many anglers travel thousands of miles for.

-- Dr. Todd

Beyond the Jinx: The Life of Fred Rinehart

Beyond the Jinx:
The Life of Fred Rinehart
by Dr. Todd E.A. Larson
© 2008

The publication of Doug Carpenter’s seminal work on the Rinehart Company gave collectors a tremendous amount of information on this popular tackle firm. Pretty much everything that could be said about the colors, variations, and styles of lures made by this company in all its incarnations are covered in incredible depth, and of course the color photos make this book an absolute must-have for anyone interested in lures from this era (to read my original review of this book click here).

There are some episodes in the life of Fred Rinehart, however, worth remembering that help to fill out his life story. Fred Elmus Rinehart was born in 1904 near Newark, Ohio and grew up as an avid outdoorsman; he enjoyed hunting as much as he did fishing. In fact, by the mid-1930s Rinehart had established himself as one of the leading outdoorsman in Licking County.

It is at this time that he first came to the attention of the local sporting community. While an employee at the local tire plant, Rinehart moonlighted as an outdoor writer for The Newark Advocate. Throughout 1937, Rinehart contributed outdoor articles primarily on hunting and hunting issues, but several also on fishing. He was a decent if unspectacular writer, and as his columns coincided with his patent application for the Rinehart water beetle fly rod bug, it is likely he gave up his writing gig as the demands of his fledgling tackle company began to take up his time. Perhaps the most interesting article he penned was on the subject of musky fishing in the Muskingum River, and a photo accompanying this article showed Fred holding two muskellunge—a 10 and 21 1/2 pounder. This picture was used a decade later in Rinehart Jinx literature. Tomorrow in The Voices of the Past column I will reproduce Rinehart’s 1937 musky article.


Fred was a talented man who had several careers. One aspect of his life that has been overlooked is that, for a period in the middle of World War II, Rinehart operated a restaurant in Newark known as The Hut. Advertisements for this apparently short-lived venture disappear by 1944, but we know that it formally opened on 26 June 1942 and had apparently been in business for a short time prior to this date. It was located at 386 East Main Street in Newark and was managed by Vera Thompson. The explanation for why he would engage in this kind of work has everything to do with timing. Although he continued to manufacture lures during the war, the paucity of components available to tackle makers meant that he likely had to seek out other work.


It was during the Second World War that Rinehart perfected his signature lure, the Jinx. The earliest mention of this lure is in the spring of 1942, when the lure was offered along with a slough of standard fishing fare by the local Newark branch of Sears, Roebuck & Company—the earliest reference to the Jinx yet discovered. Since it would have taken some time to have perfected and finalized the Jinx to a point where it could be sold over the counter at Sears, it seems likely the Jinx was developed the previous year. It is interesting to note that the Jinx sold for .90, around the same price as its main competitor— the Heddon River Runt Spook—and more than many standard nationally-distributed baits. Note that the name used was “Rinehart’s Jinx.”


Despite the war, Rinehart never gave up the dream of expanding his tackle business, and as the fighting wound down he began concentrating on the growing demand for lures in the wake of the end of the war. He must have anticipated this unprecedented boom as he reentered the tackle field long before many of his competitors. Throughout 1945, Rinehart was advertising heavily in both national magazines and in the local Newark Advocate & American Tribune. Advertisement such as the one below show that, while many firms were still struggling to kick-start production, Rinehart was declaring that the Jinx was known “from coast to coast and Canada.”


The late 1940s and early 1950s were halcyon days for Rinehart and the Jinx, as it became one of the most popular lures made by any of the non-Big 5 (Shakespeare, Pflueger, Heddon, South Bend and Creek Chub) companies. But an extraordinary growth in the tackle manufacturing field, along with the first push of the ultralight spinning reel market, meant that these days were not destined to last.

In an effort to keep up with what had to be increasingly slim profit margins, Rinehart expanded his business to include standard tackle shop sales. For example, on 27 May 1952 he took out an expansive want ad listing a Johnson Seahorse 10 HP motor for sale from “the Fred Rinehart Tackle Co., 15 Forry Street.” At first I wrote this off as a personal want ad sale, but then other items began to appear for sale from this same address. A few years later, for example, Rinehart took out a regular ad listing “New Fiberglas [sic] Boat…see this new design, the best in boats.” He listed the same address.

The smoking gun that Rinehart was now operating a sporting goods store out of his 15 Forry Street address comes in the form of advertisements run in the fall of 1956. These declare “Get your shells and licenses at Fred Rinehart Tackle,” and were run beginning on 13 September 1956. This was in anticipation of hunting season opener, so not only was Rinehart selling fishing tackle he was also selling hunting gear as well. The ads concluded: “Open ‘Til 9:00 tonight, open all night Friday the 14th.”


Clearly, sales of the Jinx had plummeted and Rinehart was doing what he had to do to keep the firm running. Bad luck seemed to dog Fred at every turn, however. Perhaps he was, like his lure, a bit jinxed during this period. On the last day of August, 1956, Fred was driving home in afternoon rush hour traffic in downtown Newark when he was involved in a three-car pileup caused by an out-of-control driver. In 1957, as Carpenter points out in his book, Rinehart sold his tackle company to Harold Kitzmiller of Gahanna, Ohio to concentrate on the development of a nursing home located next door to his 15 Forry Avenue home, only to have the firm and its assets returned to him a year later when Kitzmiller defaulted.

Then, on 10 March 1958, his run of bad luck culminated when Rinehart was badly injured in a grass fire that began when he was burning trash out behind his house. As The Newark Advocate reported:

Fred Rinehart…required resuscitator aid when a grass fire he attempted to fight single-handedly got out of control near his home Saturday afternoon. A trash fire started by the man got out of control and burned into a cornfield, firemen said, and Rinehart was nearly cut off by the encircling flames when the first truck arrived.

Overcome by smoke inhalation, it was only the quick actions of the Newark fire department that saved Rinehart from far more egregious injuries.

In the wake of this near-death experience, Rinehart found a new buyer for his tackle concern and sold it to investors in Marietta, Ohio, where it would continue for a couple of years before closing down for good in 1962.

The expenditure of capital in starting up a new business forced Rinehart to make some difficult financial decisions. Evidence of this can be found in the 15 May 1960 Newark Advocate want ads, which list a “1955 Royal Lancer Hardtop Dodge” for sale by Fred Rinehart. The price? All the buyer had to do was “take over payments.”


Dark days soon ended for Fred, and the Newark Nursing Home seemed to prosper over the next decade. He would spend the remainder of his days running the nursing home business, and eventually split his time between Newark and Lakeland, Florida. He was a member of a number of local fraternal organizations including the Eagles Club. Rinehart passed away at the age of 67 in 1972, and touchingly, his daughters would run an advertisement for a number of years after memorializing the date of his passing.

Of course, there is much to still be learned about Rinehart, but hopefully this short biography will add a little bit more to the story of Fred Rinehart. As the title of Doug’s book says, there is just something about a Jinx. And there is just something about Fred Rinehart, too.

-- Dr. Todd

A Review of Doug Carpenter's There's Something About A Jinx

A Review of Doug Carpenter's There's Something About A Jinx

Many collectors and historians are so preoccupied with the big boys--the Heddons and Pfluegers and Shakespeares--that they often overlook the mid-sized tackle companies that often sold their wares for decades. These companies and their histories are largely unknown; indeed, the fact that we know as much as we do (and it isn't a lot) is due mainly to the NFLCC Magazine and its sister publication The NFLCC Gazette.


A Classic American Bait: The Rinehart Jinx
The Fred Rinehart Tackle Company of Newark, Ohio (and other, later addresses) is just such a firm. They produced a huge number of lures in a bewildering variety of styles and colors over a long period of time, yet little is known of the company's history and production. Fortunately for us, Cecil Douglas Carpenter has penned a great new work entitled There's Something About A Jinx: The Fred Rinehart Tackle Company (Self-Published, December, 2007) that fills in many of the gaps in the history of this interesting firm.

Fred Rinehart fishing tackle was manufactured from approximately 1937 to 1962, and as the reader will discover, the company had a very distinct periodization. Many might be surprised to discover that the company had its start making a line of foam rubber fly rod lures called "Naturalife." By 1940 or so, Fred launched the lure that would make his name famous: the Rinehart Jinx. This lure was eventually manufactured in three sizes and over 100 colors, making it one of the most popular and collectible of lures from the plastic/tenite era. Other Rinehart lures followed in the wake of the Jinx, including the Buzer, Chief, Toper and Chuby, but they never quite achieved the popularity of the original. The company was sold in 1957 and moved to Gahanna, Ohio, then sold again and moved to Marietta, OH where it was finally closed in 1962 a quarter century after it began.

After some limited background history, the book hits its real strength, which are the hundreds of full color photographs that show the design permutations, color schemes, and other details of the various Rinehart lures. The number of colors that the Jinx was available in is almost unbelievable, yet nearly all of them are clearly distinguishable as a Rinehart product once one knows what to look for (as if the distinct Rinehart profile was not enough of a hint).

The book has many merits, and the crisp and clear color photography is right at the top. Almost every known catalog, box, brochure and advertisement has been included, and offer greater depth to the Rinehart story. It is difficult to imagine a more complete overview of design changes and colors could ever be compiled. The only detraction is that the history is a bit scant; while most people will probably buy the book for the impressively complete color codes, there are parts of Fred Rinehart's story missing. I had been working on a short biography of Fred Rinehart when I met Doug at the Cincinnati show last September, and unfortunately was unable to provide this information to him before the book went to press.

The 300-page softcover book is full color throughout, and was printed in a very limited run so anyone who desires a copy will definitely want to reserve one ASAP. It is definitely the kind of book you will regret not owning in a year, or two, or three, and as a copy recently sold for over 50% list price on eBay, you will definitely pay much, much more for this work in the near future--if you can even find a copy, that is. Don't forget the hard lesson learned from Mitchell reel collectors, who regularly have to pay $500 or more for Dennis Mitchell's history of the firm.

Hopefully this work will spur others with similar knowledge of mid and smaller-sized tackle companies to compile the information in book form. There's Something About A Jinx is among the most comprehensive histories of a medium-sized tackle company in recent memory, and well worth the price.

-- Dr. Todd from Otter Tail Lake, Minnesota