 The lure, when retrieved, swims with an action that mimics that of a wounded baitfish.It was designed this way by Lauri Rapala, because of his observations as a boy and young man of the behaviors of minnows and fish in lakes near his home in Finland, where he noticed that in a school of minnows, an injured minnow swimming with an odd wobble made it the target of a larger fish looking for a meal.After seeing this, he crafted this lure, with the help of some of his friends, originally to help him catch more fish without having to constantly rebait the thousands of hooks he had used to catch pike and perch.