At age twelve, I resolved to build my own tackle box. Not just any tackle box, but one that would contain all the gear that I would ever need. All of it, every single thing. In retrospect, little could have symbolized childhood’s Edenic naiveté better than my hammering away in my parents’ small woodshop, making sure that all the screwheads were aligned and that the box’s shellac glowed a deep bronze. But, even then, in a child’s inchoate manner, I had foreseen a lifelong steadying adage: I should limit my sporting activities only to those requiring things that I could carry.
My woodshop project also was part of a larger venture, in this instance, a youngster’s first foray into the world of angling. Whence came this enthusiasm remains for me something of an enigma. My parents had been university educated academics, certainly not country people, and thus could do little to contribute to, or even temper, my enthusiasms.
The tackle box is pictured here as it was in its final deployment, perhaps ten years after it was built. A faithful and scarred Pfleuger Medalist fly reel, and a well-used Shakespeare spinning reel are accompanied by assorted spinners and lures, bobbers and floats, all-purpose flies, bait hooks, level fly lines, and a belt mounted container for cheese flavored salmon eggs. Missing is my glacier green solid fiberglass fishing rod. If there had been a fly rod as part of this menagerie, I do not recall, but it seems quite likely that this one rod could have been pressed into service for either spinning or fly casting.
In the intervening decades, as perhaps with many, if not all, of those reading this, gear multiplied like the dancing brooms in Fantasia’s Sorcerers’ Apprentice (Paul Dukas). Now, approaching the “other end” of life’s arc, I find myself trying to tidy up the inventory. Thus, peering into a basement recess, I was greeted by over thirty fly rods, travel cases, orphaned rod tubes, two or three landing nets, a boxed assortment of perhaps forty fly lines, various fly reels, and even a wicker creel or two. The fly rods were subdivided into single and double handers, and the mélange ranged from cane to glass to carbon fiber. A few were one piece, while the rest were in two, three or four sections. The collected Hardy Palakona rods, two of which I had purchased while I was a young university student in England, and another two while a graduate student, had since found a home with a younger traditionalist. Most of the rest have been disbursed either through purveyors of fine tackle or by the miracle called eBay.
I then ventured into the third storey attic where, resting in a shadowed space beneath an air conditioning duct, was a boy’s tackle box, the one that would hold everything. It had survived all the moves and all the years. It was a little scarred, but its dusty shellac was still rich in color, and its neglected contents prompted this tale.
So, you might ask, where does this essay lead?
As I recently stowed my gear from this summer’s salmon fishing, I was struck by the realization that that all I really needed, and probably all I really had ever needed, were my two favorite double hand rods, two or three trout rods, reels, and a few boxes of flies. Now, leaning in a corner of my study, all these keep me company. One rod tells the story of a great salmon, another of an unstoppable steelhead, while the others serve up memories of quiet days spent on shimmering streams and rivers.
At risk of seeming overwrought, my flirtation with excessive trappings appears to have run in parallel with a life’s journey which, as the years have rolled on, has also become increasingly focused and uncomplicated, or perhaps I should say, decomplicated.
Fishing has not only served as a touchstone for a well-used life lesson, but also has forged a consistent pathway through adulthood. Fortunately, the desire to fill my creel has long since dissipated, replaced by memories of the experiences, and even by a few transcendent moments, made all the easier because trout and salmon often live in extraordinary places. But, inescapably, amidst the luxury of recollection, comes the implacable reminder that, by virtue of their dwindling numbers, I should be doing more to attend to the call of these silent sentinels.
Stephen Asher
Boise, Idaho
8 October 2023
