Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer
Although I am not a serious fisherman, I have long been drawn to old tackleboxes. Opening one feels a bit like gazing into a long-forgotten treasure chest. Among the battle-scarred jigheads, rusty hooks and melted rubber worms there is always usable gear, but what really grabs my attention are the older lures — some of them art, others antiques.
I have acquired several tackleboxes from friends who have given up fishing or died. For me, just as interesting as the gear inside is the insight they offer into the former owner’s fishing habits, or even their personality. They are cherished keepsakes, especially two I acquired from people I greatly admired.
Jon Farrar’s Tacklebox
Jon Farrar was a longtime Nebraskaland photographer and writer, as well as a close friend and co-worker. I admired his love of nature — especially the Sandhills, his favorite haunt — along with his dry humor and his writing. His articles, whether about duck hunting, black-necked stilts or wildflowers, were well-researched, highly-organized and beautifully-written. His tacklebox came into my possession by plain luck.
When Jon died a few years ago, I bought several of his hand-carved duck decoys and some hunting gear through his online estate auction. On a fall Saturday, hoping to beat the crowd, I was among the first to arrive at his Lincoln home to pick up those items. I was surprised to see that the auction company had laid out more of Jon’s possessions in his garage for sale. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his tacklebox beneath a table. I grabbed it, along with his decoy-carving tools and a few other items. I asked the woman from the auction company how much she wanted for my armful. “Twenty bucks,” she said. I about dropped.
My drive home was one of anticipation. Once there, I opened the box, and, as expected, its contents were immaculately organized — much like the file cabinets in Jon’s office. Rubber worms were lined up in one tray, lures neatly placed in others and lead weights and hooks sorted by size into plastic containers and old, metal film canisters. Small spinners and Doll Flies were tucked into Sucrets tins. There was not a loose item about.
The gear was basic: Jon was not an avid fisherman, and it was what one would expect for fishing Sandhills waters. For years, he kept a trailer house and small johnboat on Big Alkali Lake in Cherry County. Fishing for Jon was likely a diversion during spring and summer photo expeditions, or between morning and evening duck flights. His real passion was duck hunting.
“I know Jon fished Big Alkali and Pelican Lake, and he also fooled around on the lakes at Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge,” said Jim Van Winkle, Jon’s longtime friend from Wood Lake. Van Winkle said Jon fished for catfish in the Loup River and Loup Power Canal when he was growing up in Monroe. That explains the numerous large sinkers in his tacklebox.
The wire leaders and many spoons were for hooking toothy northern pike in the shallow reed beds of Sandhills lakes; the small spinners, Beetle Spins, and Doll Flies for panfish; and the rubber worms, Jitterbugs, and other plugs for largemouth bass. Jon’s lures all appeared older and a bit faded, suggesting his interest in fishing waned after he lost his trailer lease on Big Alkali a few decades ago.
Although I will use Jon’s leaders, hooks and weights, the Jitterbugs, Rapalas and other plugs will stay in the tacklebox as a remembrance of Jon: They are too valuable to risk losing on a snag.
Henry Wagner’s Tacklebox
My wife Grace’s father, Ernie Kostel, died in a farm accident when she was 2 years old. After his death, Grace, her mother Lucille and younger sister moved in with her great-uncle, Henry Wagner, at his farmhouse in eastern Charles Mix County, South Dakota. He became Grace’s father figure.
Henry’s trade was farming, but his passion was fishing. “When he had a break from farming, he went fishing — it was his way to relax,” Grace said. He fished from shore at Lake Andes and other local waters, as well as the Missouri River below Fort Randall Dam, 15 miles from his farm. Occasionally, he ventured to the glacial lakes of northeastern South Dakota.
Grace was often his fishing companion, sitting beside him with a rod in hand or wandering the shore and nearby fields under his watchful eye. For Henry, all species were fair game. “I remember us catching pike, walleye and catfish from the river, and when I was little, he would take me to Dante Lake to catch bluegill,” she said. “Our freezer was always packed with bags of bullheads for fish fries.”
When Henry died in 1983, the farmhouse became Lucille’s. A few years ago, when she moved to town the house became ours. Along with it came Henry’s three tackleboxes, which had been tucked away in a dark basement coal room, along with his fishing rods, which were leaning in a corner and strewn with spider webs. Two large plastic tackleboxes were packed with a general, ramshackle assortment of fishing gear, while a smaller metal box held large treble hooks and heavy sinkers for snagging paddlefish in the Missouri River.
Although I never knew Henry, I have come to admire him through family stories about his appreciation of the farm’s prairie and of hunting and fishing. Lucille’s favorite story is about a summer evening when he fished the Missouri River and did not come home at his usual hour. She stayed up, worried sick that he had fallen into the river’s deep, swift waters. After sunrise, he pulled into the driveway, tail tucked between his legs. His excuse: “The fish kept biting all night long.”
Grace has especially fond memories of Henry’s tackleboxes from her childhood. On cold winter days, as Henry worked in his basement shop, she often sat nearby in front of the wood-burning stove, organizing the boxes and cleaning the lures of their summer accumulation of grime. The bright colors and artistry of the Heddon Pumpkinseeds, the Norman Scoopers and many Rapala crankbaits fascinated her.
I was always puzzled by the slight, strange odor that wafted from Henry’s tackleboxes. Recently, I asked Grace if she recognized the smell. She took a deep whiff from one of the boxes, pondered for a moment, and then, in a flash of remembrance, said, “It’s wheel grease. As a farmer, his hands were always covered in it, and he smeared it on his lures’ hooks to keep them from rusting.” The odor has lingered for nearly 40 years since his passing.
Lucille told me that it would “put a smile on Henry’s face” if he knew I used his weights, hooks and swivels when I fish one of his old haunts — the Missouri River. Under strict orders from Grace, however, the lures and other gear will stay in the tackleboxes, as they are now family heirlooms.
Someday, when someone inherits my many tackleboxes, their first thought will likely be, “He must have been a heck of a fisherman. He sure had a lot of gear, but what a hodgepodge.”