The XD was "doing its thing." Its blade was throbbing nicely
by Phil Rabideau – Master Lure Designer
Here I was again on a meandering stretch of my favorite river, where the water winds its way through a rocky canyon and where the pools are deep and swift. This was my third consecutive summer to test prototypes of the Mepps XD. As I approached a large pool, I thought to myself, "Do we have everything just right this time?"
I like to fish spinners by working my way upstream, so I started quartering the tail end of the pool. . . no action. I carefully moved to the pool's middle. The XD was "doing its thing." Its blade was throbbing nicely as the little spinner ticked along the bottom. But. . . still no luck. A cast to the head of the pool did the trick; a 20 inch brown inhaled the spinner and I couldn't help but smile as I set the hook. The XD had passed the ultimate test.
As I released the fish, my mind wandered back to several years ago when Mepps President Mike Sheldon asked me to evaluate the merits of lead bodied spinners with hole mounted blades. It wasn't too difficult, as I had been spending my summers trout fishing in the mountains of Colorado. Colorado has some fast moving streams with deep runs where shaft-through-the-blade spinners have their application. It's often advantageous when fishing fast water to use a spinner that not only is small, but runs deep.
I told Mike I had given several models of this kind of spinner good workouts, and that it was a "good news, bad news" scenario.
The good news was this style of spinner can be very effective when fishing the bottom of large pools in heavy current.
The bad news was the lead-bodied shaft-through-the-blade spinners I tested were of unacceptable quality. They would not withstand the "wear and tear" of rugged stream fishing. With limited use, I would have to replace them.
Mike instructed me to develop standards for a Mepps shaft-through-the-blade spinner. I came up with the following:
- Mepps quality throughout.
- Optimized body and blade combination for easy spinning and deep running.
- Machined brass bodies; absolutely no lead components.
- Genuine silver and gold plated blades and bodies.
- Chip resistant blade decoration.
- Platium plated, chip resistant bodies.
- Durable Sandvic® Swedish stainless steel shaft.
- Precision, solid brass, fulcrum bead.
- Unbreakable, fluorescent, fish attracting bead.
- Strong, premium hooks.
The standards set for this new Mepps spinner were high. The Mepps team was to create a spinner with a design so advanced it would be tentimes better than the competition. Only the best materials were selected, including polished brass and Swedish stainless steel. Blades and bodies were plated with 24 karat gold or genuine silver. After three years of development and testing, the XD was born; a shaft-through-the-blade spinner that not only met our expectations, it exceeded them. Testing proved the XD actually runs deeper, size for size, than the competition. XD. . . Xtra Deep.
So now, anyone can fish deep, fast mountain streams with confidence. The XD, unlike the competition, stands up well under these tough water conditions. Everyone is going to have a great time trying to wear them out.
Sure, I'll continue to catch trout on my classic Mepps Aglias, but you can be sure from now on, there's going to be a good selection of Mepps XD's in my lure box. After all, you never know when you'll have to go Xtra Deep. . . for those big ones.
