I am 68 and Dawg is my son.
I can fondly remember my dad taking me out in our 12 ft. woodem lapstrake boat out of Walnut Creek in Erie and trolling by rowing . He had a Waterwitch engine that he affectionately called "The Water b***h". He said that it made too much noise to troll for walleyes, so we rowed and pulled a single or double blade spinner with a Parmachene Bell fly dressed with a night crawler. Our catches of Walleye, Smallmouth and Rockbass along with Sheephead were phenominal.
We frequently would go out about dusk with his friend who had a cabin cruiser and he would float a seal beamed headlight on the surface and we could watch the "Canadian Sailors" (nymphs) rising to the surface to hatch by the thousands as the bluepike would dart through the beam gorging on the Canadian Sailors. We used shiners on a double hook rig and would fish until we had filled a 5 gallon pail, usually getting home about 1 or 2 AM. We used "Go-ite Reels on 5' steelrods with either cotton or nylon braided line. Each revolution of the reel handle would take in about one ft of line. When the bluepike were running we could fill a 5 gallon bucket in about an hour. This technique also was used during the day to load up on huge yellow perch.
After the "Go-ite reels, my first spinning reel was a Johnson closed face (That I still have) on a 7' hollow fiberglass rod. It opened up a whole new type of fishing for me being able to toss a nightcrawler without weight into open pockets in the weeds. My first open faced spinning reel was also a Mitchell 300.
I can't help but be amazed at how modern technology has changed the equipment that we use, but many of the techniques are just modifications of tried and true strategies.
Today, we fish with Power Pro braided line on anti reverse spinning reels using Light tackle jigging and watching the screen of a Garmin GPS/Depthsounder or an Aquaview underwater camera .
Occasionally, I will dig out a "Hula Popper" or a "Heddon River Runt Spook' and give them a try until they catch a fish , just to bring back some nostalgic memories.
Thanks, for allowing me to reminisce with you.
