Yesterday's Fishing Reels

Before I was a fly fisherman on trout streams, I fished farm ponds and lakes in Oklahoma as a young boy through to my twenty something years. My fish of choice in those days were bass, crappies, and hybrid stripers. I suppose even in the early days of my fishing life, I was a bit of a 'gear head' as I started fishing with Zebco reels and eventually evolved to the ABU Ambassadeur reel (my favorite). No, I don't have any of the rods from those days as they disappeared somewhere along the way...regretfully.

My Dad would sometimes follow my lead and acquire a piece of gear like mine from time to time, whether it is was fishing gear or golf clubs. The photo of the Mitchell spinning reels is an example below of our father-and-son pair. That Zebco reel...I caught my first carp on that reel, which was a surprise. My Dad helped me net it and quickly threw it back into the lake saying, "that's a trash fish." And to this day that is exactly how I view a carp...even though it has become a sport fish in fly fishing these days. Still, I'm not interested.

My old tackle box from those youthful days sits in the garage with much of the lures and equipment I used back then. As I was going through the tackle box a few days ago, some of the lures were nicely tucked away and appeared unused and new. And, the reels pictured in the post were sitting in the bottom of the tackle box wondering where have I been for a few decades? Even though I no longer fish for bass, I can't bring myself to get rid of it all. They bring back too many nice memories of Dad and me running a trotline or fishing from his boat with a Texas worm rig and enjoying a nice, lazy day on the lake.

You know, it would be kind of fun to take that old, green, ABU Ambassadeur reel out for a spin some day...

Click on photo for larger view