Open the Little Can & The Prodigal Tackle Box

Open the Little Can

I’m not sure what happened to it. There could be a lot of plausible explanations. But I think it may have been stolen. I’m talking about my tackle box. I do tend to leave important things in places where, “I’ll be sure to be able to find them.” Then I forget where that place was. But a tackle box is different than my children. (I can always find my gear within a day.) So, I have deduced that my tackle and the box which houses it, may have been stolen. I last remember seeing it in the back of my pickup truck. It had been there awhile and I had thought about moving it a few times but I never got around to it. Bad things like this happen when you don’t forward chain e-mails.

I know that the news of my tackle box being stolen will cause great outrage among my fishing buddies. You see, after all the years we have been fishing together, they really deserve a better way to learn that I did own one. One walleye angling buddy of mine, Doug, has loaned me enough gear and I have lost enough of his lead to counter ballast the Titantic. That’s not counting the “hot and tots”, Rapala’s, crawler harnesses, and a plethora of other exotic fish enticements that I never seemed to have or have the right kind of and lost. (I’m sure there are habitat tree structures that are ready for Christmas due to that gear.)

However, this confession of having had tackle and lost it will come as a bit of bad news to whoever may have my tackle box. There is an honest reason my partners thought I was tackle-less. You may have taken the box with the most worthless gear in it in the county, thank you very much. The flies in it, I tied, enough said for the demise of your trout fishing. Many of the commercial lures in there were ancient and/or just weird.

Any of your normal tackle box theft capers may be profitable to the tackle thieving mastermind. Tackle is so expensive that a couple of boxes that I know of should have tackle box insurance on them. It could be a more lucrative scam to insure a tackle box, and then burn it down. Insurance companies would be wise to not insure blinking bobbers; a couple bobber wires grounding out on the Eagle Claw hooks could start a tackle inferno. Some guys ought to keep a fire extinguisher in their tackle box for safety. You know, right by the kitchen. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of tackle problem, you took the wrong box. There is no need to hold my tackle for a stiff ransom, sending me my hustle lures in parts, I refuse to negotiate with “tackleorrists”.

Most of the value in a tackle box is its’ old stuff. Many fishing boxes are family heirloom chests. Luckily, I had recently taken out some of my Dad’s old lures. (I started borrowing fishing gear, early.) I put those treasures in my daughter’s gear, she passed on my flies. There is collector value to old tackle but there is real, higher, sentimental value on the yellow jitter bug my Dad swears he lost a bass over 10 lbs on in 1964. I used to pull that lure out and dream of my day of getting a huge bucket mouth on that very bug. Even as my Dad was pulling it out of my ear lobe or finger with a pair of pliers, I’d be thinking, “Darn, that lure is good.” That lure is still awaiting its return to glory and redemption with Dad’s granddaughter. There is also the weird, rounded wooden lure with musky teeth marks in it from another of my father’s trips. Those teeth marks are still sparking dreams two generations later.

I had a nice collection of black jitter bugs too. This time of year, during the full moon, bass cannot resist a black jitter bug on calm waters. I carried one of them through the Army using it for a million things other than fishing. I also had the greatest night fishing in my life with it during a full moon in Michigan where, like my Dad did with me, a legend of a lure was born and passed on.

I did lose some “good” stuff in my tackle. My lost box and its new owner now possess the strange but legendary “failure lures”. Like the gigantic snake lure with rolling eyes. I would throw that thing in and all the fish would jump on shore. But it is a great conversation piece. There is the Hawg Frog, which I bought more for its name than effectiveness. I was pleasantly pleased though when I discovered the one situation where it would work perfectly.

There were some effective lures, I had a nice collection of sinking and floating Rapala’s, those were always dependable. The hooks were rusting off though so I hope the new owner knows how to replace them, or he or she will lose a lot of fish. Of course, I think somewhere in there you might not want to open the old snuff can…or actually, maybe you should...

Well, anyway, I guess I’d better apply for a loan and buy more gear. Especially since I have a feeling my buddies who read this (if there is such a thing) will be canceling their “Angler Aid” concert. I think I’ll start with the black jitter bugs and Rapala’s before I empty a snuff can and fill it with…twenties, yeah twenties....

See you along the stream

The Prodigal Tackle Box

Well, it happened. Slaughter the fattened calf. A calf will have to do because it certainly won’t be a fish. My missing tackle box (reference the article on the disappearance of my tackle and suspected tackle terror caper “Open the Little Can” in September of 2007) has been found. Officer Doug Homan recently returned it to me. I think Officer Homan took on the case for one of several reasons: 1. As a public servant, from the ranks of law enforcement, he wanted to bring justice or 2. He didn’t really believe I ever had a tackle box after fishing with me over the years and wanted to bring justice. 3. Box or no box, he was tired of me fishing with his tackle and wanted to bring justice.

Profiling for the possible tackle terrorists that may have heisted my box wasn’t easy. This tackle box was hard to spot when needed. (It would go like this, “Looks like the fish are suspended and aggressive, let’s switch to trolling hot n’ tots. Do you have any of those, Bill?”) Of course, I didn’t. I would just look at a seemingly empty spot on the floor of his boat and then Doug would loan me his and maybe I’d give back the rig I had on.

It was a professional job. Individuals capable of identifying a tackle box that is rarely sighted on fishing trips must have done some serious homework. Taking all of the facts of the case into account, those individuals capable of spotting such a lightly used box who were also unlucky enough boobs to go through all that effort to get what obviously was the wrong box, were targeted to narrow the search scope. But it seemed unlikely that the cast of mainstream media was to blame, as few of them have any need for fishing tackle. So, to further identify those that could be in the field of suspects, we had to eliminate all possible individuals who fished and continued to have good fishing luck after September of 2007. In fact, I managed to catch a fish, after the box was gone. This one hundred percent harvest rate increase gave me “motive” and I found myself a suspect of domestic tackle violence.

It was an exhaustive nationwide search. There was a long dry spell in the trail as lead after lead was run to a dead end. Love sick skunks were interviewed, blood hounds interrogated and their back yards excavated, black helicopters searched, buzzards had their stomachs pumped, all to no avail. At one point, we thought we were close when we checked out information of weird little green corpses in a strange box. Everything matched the description of my tackle box. It contained un-identifiable and seemingly useless tools, it was covered with bumper stickers, and had an awful smell; almost every thing matched. Except the technology in the box was beyond the price range of anything I’d have. There, the trail became cold as we ran out of clues at the place they call “Area 51”.

Suddenly, after months with no information, Doug called and stated that he finally had located my box. How he got it, he won’t say other than to say it was in a place it had never been before…his boat. I have no idea how it could have been there. Maybe the guilty party realized he had stolen a most unique tackle box, one that actually hinders your luck and returned it, before he starved.

After delousing Doug’s boat, we took a look at the box. I wiped off the Billy goat puke and opened the box to confirm its’ identity and inspect its’ contents. Inside was all the ID we needed to prove that this was my old tackle. Petrified soft baits, outdated spinners, mummified minnows, rust, rubber chickens and the usual adult novelties laid about. Strangely, I also discovered something that looked like a viable lure, a shiny chartreuse “shad rap”. It was right next to my beer can surface popper. I held it up for Officer Homan to see and stated, “Hey, this looks like it could catch fish. What’s it doing in my tackle box?” Doug replied that it was strange that something like that would be in my personal bait coffin; he used to have one just like it that disappeared around September of 2007.

There was no denying it; the prodigal box had returned, darn it. I’m in double trouble as now my wife accuses me of dumping the box in a back alley and then taking the opportunity to buy a new one. I declare my innocence. I would not have carelessly left my tackle box out in an alley. A kid could have found it or it could have polluted cockroach habitat. I didn’t buy a new tackle box either, I borrowed one. (But I did buy some new rubber chickens and really neat Billy Beer Can lures. I bought enough to loan a couple to Doug. It’s the least that I can do.

See you along the stream.