History of Eagle Claw Hooks: The Story Behind the Most Famous Stinger in History
Channel: RetroBassin
Date: 14/10/2023

If you are watching this video, there is a good chance that you have at least one pack of Eagle Claw snelled hooks lurking somewhere in your tackle box. There is no telling how many core memories have been built using nothing more than a tub of live nightcrawlers, a few bobbers, and a pack just like this. 

This pack hasn’t changed much since I was a kid, which may be why it is so iconic for anglers of any age. 
Yet, while everyone knows photo, which has become a registered trademark of Wright & McGill Co. itself, I bet very few actually know who this man is. Well, in today’s episode of Retro Bassin’ we are going to dive into the History of Eagle Claw hooks and reveal the mystery man holding arguably the most iconic stringer ever photographed. Stick around…

I also want to give a big thanks to Stefan and the team at Eagle Claw who assisted with the information and photography used in this video. 
Now let’s jump into the history of Eagle Claw hooks. As the company’s name suggests, Wright & McGill Co. founded in the 1920s, was formed by a pair of avid, young anglers by the names of Drew McGill and Stan Wright. 
Both the product’s design and name were the result of one fateful flyfishing trip Drew McGill took to the upper Colorado River. 

While the native rainbow trout were hungry and rising to flies that day, Drew McGill was having difficulty hooking them. Taking a break after a missed fish, he observed a pair of bald eagles flying above him before one of the pair landed on a dead cottonwood. McGill noticed how effortlessly the eagle’s talons pierced the weathered wood.

This gave McGill the idea to test the piercing ability of his own fishing hooks, and as he slid them across his leather creel the hooks made a mark but did not penetrate.  He then used a pair of pliers to bend his hooks into a shape that closely resembled an eagle’s talon, and the hook swiftly pierced the leather strap. 

McGill hastily modified all his hooks that way and was soon began hooking and landing trout he would have previously missing. 
The talon bend was one of the biggest innovations in fish hooks in hundreds of years and in 1938 Eagle Claw became a registered trademark of the Wright & McGill Company, employing a growing number of workers in the Denver, Colorado, area. 

By 1948, the Wright & McGill Co. owned and operated the world’s only automatic hook-making machines. The new machines barbed, shaped, eyed, and pointed the famed Eagle Claw hooks in one operation. The Wright & McGill Co. soon produced thousands of hooks per day on the new equipment. In addition to fish hooks, the company would expand to produce a line of flies, fishing lures, and fishing rods out of a pair of state-of-the art factories.

Now back to the mystery man on the package. I always thought this to be a photo of either Drew McGill or Stan Wright, but he is actually neither. The mystery man is actually an Eagle Claw employee by the name of Paul Mount who joined the company in 1938.
Among his other duties, Paul was in charge of arranging VIP fishing trips and 1942 he was tasked with organizing an excursion on the Colorado River with actor Dennis Morgan and eagle Claw founders Wright and McGill. 

The fish represented the group’s daily creel of rainbow trout, the floppy hat owned by Drew McGill, and the “stringer” was actually an Eagle Claw Granger fly rod sold for $100 in 1942…one expensive stringer! Now, when you adjust for the rate of inflation, that is a 1,875-dollar fish stringer! It’s no wonder Drew McGill reportedly joked that Paul was not very particular with what he used to string fish.

With over a billion packs of Eagle Claw hooks sold since that day in 1942, Paul’s likeness could well be one of the most duplicated personal photographs on a consumer product ever.

Nearly 100 years after Drew McGill first observed the pair of eagles that inspired its design, Eagle Claw hooks remain a leading manufacturer of fishing hooks and fishing related equipment. But the next time you pass a peg of snelled hooks, now you’ll know the name and story of perhaps the most famous stringer of fish ever photographed. 

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