May 29, 2026 By Ben Moyer 5 min read

One of many enjoyable aspects of being an “outdoor person” is that you get to do things some might consider risky — like risking a specially-made keepsake fishing lure.

But first some background.

I feel privileged to be an active member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association (POWA). As a child, reading magazines like Pennsylvania Game News, Outdoor Life, and Field & Stream, I admired writers who brought the outdoor experience to life through the printed word.

When I was accepted as a member of POWA in 1983, the organization was already over 30 years old. Earlier this month at its annual conference, held this year in Camp Hill, Cumberland County, POWA celebrated 75 years of serving its members and the outdoors. POWA had first been conceived among Pennsylvanians attending the 1950 meeting of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, but POWA did not hold its first organizational meeting until 1951.

To commemorate POWA’s 75 years, Thomas Spinning Lures, Inc., a long-time supporting member of the organization, produced a commemorative fishing lure for distribution to POWA members attending the Camp Hill conference.

Thomas Spinning Lures is a Pennsylvania company, headquartered in Hawley, Pike County, in the state’s northeastern corner, about as far away as you can get from Fayette County and still be inside the same state. Richard Schubert, a Czechoslovakian tool-and-die maker founded the company after immigrating to the United States in 1938. Schubert also had a passion for making fishing lures, and after testing his prototype lures successfully in Montana, he opened a lure manufacturing shop in Manhattan, New York in the 1940s. Soon after, Schubert visited Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains and was enthralled by the region’s forests and lakes. In 1961 he moved his company, which he named Thomas Spinning Lures to honor his mother’s maiden name, to Hawley, where it’s been manufacturing fishing lures in the same building ever since.

Current owner Pete Ridd made the commemorative lure for POWA in the company’s “Buoyant” style. It’s a spoon-type lure, slightly curved in design, with two protruding “fins” protruding from the margins near the tail. On its convex side, Ridd emblazoned the POWA logo in green-and-white as it appears on all POWA communications. Flanking the logo are the dates 1950-2025.

I have two of the lures because my wife Kathy attended the conference with me, and each registrant received a lure. Kathy informed me she didn’t need hers, so she gave it to me.

Since I had a backup lure to keep for posterity in my “outdoor archives” (Kathy envisions a great outdoor-gear garage sale someday), I decided to fish one. As a long-time POWA member, I felt it would be satisfying to catch a fish on a lure honoring my organization’s 75 years. After venturing to a local lake, I tied on the lure and made a cast.

Anyone who has fished knows the risk in such an audacious act. Every cast can result in a snag that you can’t work loose. The only alternative is to break the line and sacrifice the lure. There’s also the possibility of hooking a fish too strong for your tackle. If that fish makes a sudden lunge or too fast a run, it will snap the line and your lure is gone.

In my experience, that’s a real prospect with Thomas lures. While fishing for crappies with a copper-colored Thomas Buoyant spoon like the one graced with the POWA logo, I caught a largemouth bass — estimated weight 8 pounds — a photo of which made the cover of the July 2016 issue of Pennsylvania Angler magazine.

A similar marvel happened a couple of years ago when I bought a pack of new Thomas designs to try. On the first cast at Drake Rapid on the Youghiogheny River, I caught a hefty brown trout, which I released.

So, with a mix of anticipation and dread, I began cranking the reel to retrieve that very first cast of the commemorative POWA lure. After a couple of cranks the rod-tip jolted, the line strained, and I had a fish. After a brief struggle I lifted a nice black crappie into the canoe. It wasn’t the grade of fish that will snap your tackle, but it satisfied my aim of catching a fish on the keepsake lure. Also, crappies are one of the finest fish you can place on a plate.

Friend and fellow POWA member Alex Zidock, co-host with his wife JoAnne of the Pocono region’s “Out in the Open” television show, made the connection with Ridd to craft the commemorative lure.

“I’ve known Pete Ridd and his products for more than a dozen years,” Zidock said. “It seems that often you’re never a hero in your own backyard, but there are other places around the country and even in other countries where tackle shops stock nothing but Thomas lures, because they catch fish so well on their waters.”

You can learn more about Thomas Lures on their website at www.thomalures.com.