You know you’re getting old when some of the fishing lures that you used when you were a kid are now considered collectible antiques.
The other day I found myself admiring some of the old plugs and lures that I have on display in a china cabinet in my living room. I remembered as a kid, rifling through my father’s tackle box and sort of helping myself to a number of his old wooden plugs. I guess I’ve been a ‘collector’ for the better part of 60 years.
When I look at all that old fishing stuff now, I cannot help but think just how much fishing tackle itself has changed over the years. Cane rods have been replaced by ultra high modulus graphite rods. Instead of hardware store Pfluegers, I now own hand-crafted, machined aluminum reels that cost more than a good number of the vehicles I have owned. Gone are the wooden plugs with their glass eyes. Gone too are lures with names like Chubb Creek Minnow and flies like the Lady Amhurst and Silver Doctor. We now have Buzz Bombs and Hawg-busters. When an angler goes fishing now, it’s almost as if they are at war with nature itself. Electronic fish finders and GPS’s (Global Positioning Systems) have made the sport of fishing into serious business.
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I do have to admit though that I enjoy using my new modern graphite rods. They are so much lighter and easier to cast than the old fibreglass or cane rods. Today’s fluorocarbon lines and leaders are thinner, stronger and almost invisible to fish in the water. Computer designed lures are effective, if for no other reason than they probably annoy fish into striking, and modern fly tying materials now give an almost life-like quality to any imitation fly pattern.
Maybe it’s just me, but somehow there just doesn’t seem to be enough of the old romantic tradition left in fishing. I mean catching a bright shiny rainbow trout on a piece of muti-coloured fluorescent painted plastic with a name like Trout Killer stamped on the side of it, well, it’s just not the same.