Lauri Rapala carved the first Rapala out of cork on a Finnish lake in 1936 because he noticed bigger fish preyed on the wounded minnows in a baitfish school. The first balsa-bodied production version followed in the 1950s, and the silhouette — slim, slightly bent profile with a metal lip and small treble hooks — set the template for every minnow plug since.
The "Original Floater" is the foundational pattern: floats at rest, dives 3-6 feet on retrieve, suspends with neutral buoyancy on a pause. Sizes 3-13 cover everything from panfish to muskie.
The signature retrieve is the twitch-and-pause — short rod-tip jerks that make the lure dart erratically, with long stops between. Pressured fish often follow the lure on the move and commit only when it stops. Don't reel through the pause; let the bait sit until the surface tells you it's been eaten.