Outdoor Tales & Trails: Heirloom lures have staying power

By Dave Beck
Posted 10/30/24

I did a fair amount of stream fishing as the trout season was winding down. In the past I never really spent a lot of time chasing trout this late in the season but this year I actually found it …

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Outdoor Tales & Trails: Heirloom lures have staying power

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I did a fair amount of stream fishing as the trout season was winding down. In the past I never really spent a lot of time chasing trout this late in the season but this year I actually found it to be a pretty cool gig. It’s a lot more fun when it’s not 90 degrees outside and there is almost no competition from other trout heads.  

I did have a few guilty thoughts about trout fishing instead of sitting in a bow stand. It seems that the older I get, and I’m older than I want to admit, the easier it gets for me to wait for the rut to bow hunt. At least that’s the way I internalized it to justify going fishing while there was an unused archery buck tag in my pocket.

On my last outing to the stream, I started by hitting the best hole that I knew of on my stretch of the river. Of course, I used lures that I had a great history with and I quickly learned that past results are sometimes not a great predictor for current events. Nothing seemed to be working. I used Rooster Tails of all colors but the results were the same. I switched to my old faithful, the tried and true Panther Martin (which is the coolest name for any lure that I own aside my Fat Bastard Jr. musky lure).

To make a long story shorter, everything I tried from my small plastic trout tackle boxes all came up with the same result: NADA! Color and size were so irrelevant that it was borderline maddening. I was in water that I had half of a lifetime of experience on and past catches were the only thing that kept me going. With the season closing the very next day, desperate times called for desperate measures.  I pulled out the tackle box that held a half dozen of my Grandpa Wally’s lures. On a guess, a couple of the lures were bought when Casablanca won Picture of the Year. I felt like Judge Smail’s from Caddyshack pulling out the old Billy Baroo. (IYKYK).  

The first cast with Grandpa Wally’s lure produced an 18-inch Brown trout that gulped my, I mean Grandpa’s old-time spoon. A short fight later I was holding the Brown in my hand. It was as if Old Wally came down and threw the cast himself.  

I landed a half dozen more fish and my confidence swelled. Then on a cast I hung Grandpa Wally’s lure on a branch above the far side of the stream. I realized that there was no getting across the stream to a shallow spot so that I could retrieve the lure. I was correct in my guess that the stream was exactly three inches higher than my boots. If you have ever stood in a Wisconsin trout stream in October, up to your “mid section,” you know that “exhilarating” is a conflicting term. I “OOOOOOOOOOOOWWWEED” the entire time as I crossed the stream and on the way back. I clutched the heirloom lure in my hand like it was a gold nugget which is probably equal to its sentimental value.

As I sat alongside that quiet stream dripping wet I could only hear one thing: Grandpa Wally laughing.

 

Didn’t get enough Dave this week? Visit “Outdoor Trails and Tales with Dave Beck” on Facebook for photos and video of Dave’s adventures. You can share your own photos and video with him there as well, or by emailing him at dave@piercecountyjournal.news Also, check out OTT content on Instagram @thepiercecountyjournal

Outdoor Tales & Trails, Dave Beck, trout fishing, outdoors