My love, besides my wife and family, has to be
the little guys in the fishing world, the fly rod
lure. I have been collecting off and on for 21 years,
starting at the age of 12. I thought I had a great
original idea; having seen the old lures in my
grandpa's tackle box, "it would be cool to collect old
lures."
When fishing, almost daily I would chat with
others fishing and always asked if they had any old
lures. Well, I finally had asked the right person,
who's name I never got. He told me of a little shop
that had a bunch on a wall which were for sale. I
eventually found that shop, Let' er Fly, owned by Tim
Karrash. Tim was my 1st mentor in the vintage lure
world. I'd spend hours shooting the crap with him and
always had first glance at the lures he picked up on
his Michigan trips. He had one hell of a picker up
there. I can not forget my two other mentors, in my
early days of collecting, Dick Wilson and the late
Milton Simich.
Lures were put on the back burner for about 11
years due to my ventures to Africa and my studies at
Kent State University('98 BA Anthropology). I sold my
collection sometime in the mid 90's because of the
previously stated endeavors. Oh, to have those baits
again.
About 3-4 years ago I took a peek at eBay and saw
a way to make a little extra money using my knowledge
of old lures. I originally just bought and sold, not
keeping anything. I ended up getting quite a few fly
baits and tended to hold on to them for some reason, I
honestly don't know why. I don't fish as often as I
used to and I have realized that when I do fish, I
bring both fly and spinning tackle yet as the day
progresses, I drop the spinning tackle and only use
the fly rod. I must say I have yet to fish for trout,
being from Northeast Ohio I am a bluegill and bass fly
fisher. One of these days I may get rid of my non-fly
tackle, who knows (maybe the Shadow).
Maybe it was this realization that led to my
specializing and collecting only fly rod lures. My goal is to
get at least one of every bait identified in Mumas' book. I have
recently had to modify that due to finances. There are some fly rod
baits I have had, but sold. I do have pictures of most of them
so my collection is not just tangible, it has some pictoral aspects
too and I do go back and look from time to time.
Besides being a lure collector, which I know
sometimes is hard for us to realize, there is life beyond lures,
I have been a licensed Professional Hunter in the Republic of S.
Africa. I have spent a total of 2 years in that amazingly beautiful
region of the world. A quote/metaphor I often give to people who
wonder about Africa is, "Africa should be every human beings
Mecca."
I am currently a member of the survey crew for the
city of Columbia, MO. Hopefully that will change this upcoming
spring and I will work for another engineering co. If that occurs,
I will work on getting my P.L.S. license. I have only been married
now for 1 year and 3 months and have a beautiful wife (ask Ron McKuin)
and stepdaughter. We have 2 dogs, one Bessy (she is my dumb dog)
and the other Jessie(she is my wife's smart dog). the names weren't
planned to be almost the same sound, we each had our dog before we
had each other, I do think the dogs get confused though.
I do have to give many thanks to a few fellow
collectors for helping me along my way with the fly
collection: Rich Underwood, Bill Stuart, John Kruzan,
Jack Looney, Jerry Martin and many others I have not
mentioned.
The 2nd picture is of some various flies that I deem
trout sized. They are all less than 1/2" in body
length and make many poppers look like musky poppers.
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