Walk down memory lane

[tellico4x4]

I haven't fresh water fished to amount to anything since 1994. Used to live on Wilson for 25 years & now live 1/4 mile off it. Tournament fished hard from 1979 til 1991 and got burnt out. Sold 3 boats & got serious about western hunting. Have a 12 year old grandson that likes to fish but sports is a big interference. Nearly two years ago I bought an old Bass tracker from @dmonty with intentions of fishing with him. Like I said, sports got in the way and haven't even put boat in water. Couple weeks ago I told him that we were going to fish or I was selling it. That did the trick! He's got All-stars tournament this week & basketball camp next then it's on. I've spent last two weeks getting boat in order & going thru my old fishing tackle. I'm talking about thousands of baits. Have chunked a bunch of stuff, set aside some to give away and condense what's left. Of course spinner baits were a mess with melted skirts and such. Stripped the skirts, cleaned up what I could & chunked the rest. Looked on Amz for new skirts & what few they had were too pricey.

Today was wading thru 3 old weigh-in bags of plastics and in them I found a gallon bag of skirts in original packaging so 90% were good! Even found a few partially built spinner baits that I made in mid 80's and a whole box of unopened Pop Top Buzz Baits!!! They were made in Lawrenceburg and one of my sponsors. Doubt that there is a better buzz bait built today. Of course I'd already cleaned up 50-75 of them from an old tackle box.

Below pic is some of the treasures including skirts for 15 cents, Fred Arbogast Snagless Sally skirt ( young fishing hot shots will have to Google that), a card of hand tied jigs for 50 cents each, unfinished spinner baits & one of the Pop Tops. The skirts with orange dot are from the old Color Celector gadget that caught a bunch of us fisherman. You lowered a probe to whatever depth you wanted to fish & it told you what color. Don't remember it ever paying off for me but the dial looked cool mounted on my console

 

[redblood]

That neat. I loved fishing and went away from it and just focused on hunting. My son just turned 13. He would beg me to take him fishing when he was 8 or 9. I was just so busy with work, the business and keeping up land i would always make an excuse. It hit me one day watching him trying to fish a half dried up mud hole of a pond on the farm.

Now 2 boats later we are fishing fanatics. From creek wading to floating the river to a fully setup 2021 G3 bass boat i bought last week, we are all in. Adding livescope next week.

I understand the sports. He is local legend for basketball, but that is his only sport (dont see how the baseball families survive) . We said do one and do it right. We did 10 miles on the duck river today and i have a cooler full blue gill and rock bass to clean in the morning but its worth it.

I love those old baits. I was born in 1975, but i remember those packages from staring at the fishing section in Kmart or Big K as a kid

 

[tellico4x4]

I understand the sports. He is local legend for basketball, but that is his only sport (dont see how the baseball families survive) .

and I don't even like baseball unless the grands are playing , screws up fishing & turkey hunting. Sure glad he doesn't play football !!

 

[redblood]

and I don't even like baseball unless the grands are playing , screws up fishing & turkey hunting. Sure glad he doesn't play football !!

Im with ya. I was a basketball and football guy. Played baseball because my dad liked it. I could throw hard but that was it- awful at hitting. I really dont see how families survive baseball season- such a long season, so many games and out in the heat every afternoon- living on concession stand nachos. Plus to me its like watching paint dry. I have students who are still playing in the fall (fall ball, travel ball etc). It has to be an 8 month season. But it does show a lot of dedication and thats a credit to them