Antiques with Allure

Boat/US Magazine, Jan, 2002 by Ryck Lydecker

When Doc Gamble says he's "goin' fishin'," it might mean he's headed for the flats on Florida's Peace River in his 19-foot Bonita sport fisherman to fly-fish for snook or tarpon. But just as likely, it could mean he's out trolling flea markets, hoping to reel in an old tackle box full of long lost bass fishing lures that he can swap for the vintage fly fishing "bugs" that he collects.

Or Gamble might be casting about garage sales for a neglected but collectable fiberglass rod that he can restore and sell in order to buy the spilt bamboo fly rod he really wants. Then again he could be fishing in local auctions and pawn shops, hoping to land a once-loved fly reel that he can give a place of honor in his growing collection of antique tackle.

Gamble, a Boat U.S. member, is a California transplant who brought a life long passion for the pursuit of fish to the Ft. Myers area when he retired there in 1992. Since then, like a lot of anglers in recent years, he's been hooked by antique tackle as well. So now, when he's not wetting a line, Gamble is collecting, restoring, appraising, buying, selling and swapping the tools of the angler's trade.

He's got a lot of company, too. Collecting antique American fishing tackle, nearly unheard of 20 years ago, has spawned something of a feeding frenzy across the country and abroad in the last decade.

What's the Catch?

"Prices of antique tackle always seem to be going up and that catches a lot of people's attention," says Gamble, who is now on the board of directors of Florida Antique Tackle Collectors, Inc. The organization preserves the history of sportfishing in the Sunshine State and sponsors four exhibitions each year.

Next month the group will hold its annual Daytona International Antique Tackle Show (Feb. 22-24), reputed to be the world's largest. Gamble is show host and this year 10 collectors from Great Britain will attend plus 15 more from Germany, as well as others from as far as Australia and Japan. They come from all over the U.S., too.

"One guy came to our Daytona show last year with some old lures to find out if they were worth anything," Gamble says. "When he left, he'd sold one for $700, another for $950 and a third for $1,050."

Similar stories abound from the early days of tackle collecting 10 or 15 years ago but that doesn't happen too often anymore, Gamble says. When it does, however, it's likely to make the newspapers and that sends people up to the attic, looking for gold in Grandpa's tackle box, or down to the basement to find the rod they used as a kid, blow off the dust and troll it around the next show.

"A lot of the stuff you see now is junk but sometimes there's a gem," Gamble says. "Three years ago a man brought me what was left of his late father's tackle after his mother had sold off what she could in a garage sale.

"I bought four items for $250 and we helped him sell the rest for $400 at the Daytona show," he adds. "Kinda makes you wonder what treasures slipped through his mother's fingers."

Antique tackle aficionados tend to fit into one of three broad categories and most, like Doc Gamble, are anglers first and foremost. Some specialize in reels, others in rods and still more -- the largest group -- collect only lures.

Collecting styles vary. One may target the products of a particular manufacturer, aiming to collect every rod the company ever made or every variation in color or paint pattern for a particular lure. Another might aim to collect all the types of fishing gear made in a particular state or region.

Many also collect what is often called fishing "ephemera," that is, related gear like creels or landing nets as well as old time catalogs, advertising materials and even fishing photos. Within these categories, serious collectors may focus on gear for a particular type of fishing from a certain period -- freshwater fly-fishing before World War II, for example, or bass fishing in the '50s.

Just how many people collect tackle is anybody's guess but artificial baits and lures, produced by the millions over the years, hook the most collectors. The Old Reel Collectors Club has just under 1,000 members while the National Fishing Lure Collectors Club has 5,300.

Metal lures date back to around the 1860s and curiously, it wasn't until the turn of the 20th century that wood became the material of choice for fishing lure manufacture.

Father of the Lure

The U.S. Patent Office isn't known for a sense of humor, but when it awarded Patent No. 696,433 for an invention to fool fish, the issue date was April 1, 1902.

The patent owner, a Michigan beekeeper and angler named James Heddon, is regarded as the father of the modern casting plug. According to a somewhat hazy history, Heddon liked to whittle small fish shapes and some years earlier when he tossed one of his creations into a lake, a large bass hammered the wooden "plug."

The company he and his two sons went on to establish under the family name became one of the largest manufacturers of artificial lures in the world.

Today many anglers get their feet wet in tackle collecting by specializing in lures in made by Heddon or another of the large American manufacturers of the 20th century: Pflueger, Creek Chub, Shakespeare and South Bend. Quite often these are names that conjure up fond memories of fishing with Dad or Grandpa or Uncle Bob.