More Fishing Stories

When Every Day Meant a Full Stringer

My Grandfather, who came to this country and became a US citizen, he arrived via a couple of years spent living in Canada. While he was there, he had the foresight to obtain an 99 year renewable lease for a good amount of acreage from the Government. It consisted of a small harbor and large, natural log cabin and surrounding woods. It was somewhere along Honey Harbor in the Georgian Bay.

My father and I discussed how popular the boxes of vintage lures he has, are on eBay, to collectors. Pop has always kept them stored in waterproof all purpose bags and that precaution has kept some of his 1950 era lures and plugs in nearly flawless mint condition. The sheer volume of artificials that he collected, many before I was born, is staggering and going through them is like traveling back in time. Each plug, spoon, hand painted jitterbug has it's own special memory of a morning or a warm afternoon, a boy with a small boat and very, very large fish.

I found myself recalling stored away black and white photographs of myself as a youth, holding up Northern Pike so large that I couldn't keep their tails from touching the ground! One old, faded photo which I wish had been taken with a good Digital SLR camera (for preservation) is one holding a Pike as I've only read about being available but hardly ever see, except on fishing magazine covers.

That Pike was taken at about two hours before dark in a small inlet filed with a dense water grass near shore and lily pads rolling out to meet the open water. We fished that inlet for an hour and Grandpa was telling me to "reel it in - we're going home." Something inside me said "one more" and I verbalized that to Gramps as the large Johnson spoon, tipped with a pork rind splashed perfectly right into a pool in the lily pads.

Within two or three cranks the fish exploded into the spoon and bent my rod almost to the breaking point as line screamed off the reel - the only "drag" being one's thumb on the spool. The line held, the knots were well tied and after an exhausting 15 minutes of wondering what it was - a Great Northern boiled near the surface and made one last desperate run, which eventually tired the fish and allowed us to finally snatch him into the boat. A true monster - I would be the envy of everyone and smiled all the way back to the cabin!

Next day Grandpa was into the live well and got busy cleaning the big fish when I came outside. Upon his motioning me to come, I noticed that he seemed to be struggling furiously with a pair of pliers. When I arrived at his fish cleaning table he tossed me the Johnson Spoon that he had just extricated from the fishes jaw. I was aghast to see that it was twisted a full 180 degrees and the hook was almost straightened out before he got it to pop loose.

The old lures were art and fishing tools, where by comparison, the modern offerings are for the most part much better and highly productive. They still don't inspire the sort of memories that a wooden, hand painted, glass eyes, fore and aft propellers. torpedo shaped, casting plug does when you cradle one in your hand and remember.