Larry Harper shows off his invention, the Porcupine Attractor, at a recent gathering of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association. Harper says the odd-looking devices definitely attract fish, and he says lures absolutely will not hang up in the Porcupine Attractor.
photo by Richard Simms
If you ask me, it looks like an old World War II submarine mine… tentacles sticking out everywhere, ready to explode when anything touches them. According to inventor Larry Harper however, the only thing that will explode will be your catch rate.
"It works," exclaimed Harper. "Put it in a pond and take some kids out there and there going to catch a fish! And they're not going to get hung up in it and break their lines."
But he doesn't only place them in ponds. He says he's got 500 Porcupine Attractors scattered around Kentucky Lake and says they're crappie magnets.
And if they're good enough for Bill Dance, they're good enough for me.
I asked Harper how he got Dance to endorse his product.
"Believe it or not I didn't have to do anything," said Harper. "My phone rang one morning and this guy said, 'Mr. Harper?' I said 'no it's Larry.' He said, 'well, this is Bill Dance. Have you got time to talk to me a few minutes?' I thought somebody was pulling my leg. I never dreamed Bill Dance would call me. We talked over an hour."
Dance ended up naming Harper's invention because he thought it looked like a porcupine. After just three years on the market, the attractor is being sold in Bass Pro, Gander Mountain, Sportsman's Warehouse and Cabelas is looking at them.
Harper said he made about 30,000 last year. He's hoping to reach 100,000 per year soon.
Harper says he's got six grandchildren and he wore calluses on his hands retying broken fishing lines after the kids got hung up in typical brush-style fish attractors.
He got the idea for the porcupine attractor one day while the kids were playing basketball. He made the first one by hand and tried it out in a 5-acre lake.
"I threw it off the dock. It had been there four days and I caught five crappie out it," said Harper. "And I don't mean little crappie, I'm talking big crappie."
The Porcupine Fish Attractor was born and Harper has never looked back.
Learn more at: www.porcupinefishattractor.com