7 Things to be Thankful For This Year

For the Fifth consecutive year--2007's Missive is Here, 2008's Follow Up is Here, 2009's is here, and 2010 is here.

7 Things tot be Thankful For Today (Part V)

1) Endurance. Last year my number one thankful thing was patience; this year it is endurance, as in the human ability to endure difficult times and difficult circumstances. The past sixteen months brought a termendous amount of stress into the Larson household, including one very, very frightening cancer scare. It has reminded me that the phrase, "This, too, shall pass" is meaningful on multiple levels.

2) Loyalty. In times of stress, you find out who your friends really are. In 2011, it was never made more apparent to me that loyalty is perhaps the single most prized character trait of all. There are many who will stand by you in good times, but those who offer friendship, advice, and amity in hard times are those worth spending time with.

3) Daughters. You could easily substitute sons for daughters here, or children if you have multiple kids. My daughter is turning 12 and she is a downright blast to be around. Funny, inquisitive, smart, sensitive, and caring, she is a wonder and a joy in my life. When I look at her I think only of how proud she makes me every day.

4) Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines. I recently had the great honor of completing a book about a gentleman named Lt. Commander Joel Stewart, who went to Iraq in 2005 and founded the Baghdad School of Fly Fishing and Angler's Club. Delving into the book, it continually reminded me of the many freedoms we have here -- freedoms that are protected by American men and women (all volunteers) against implacable enemies who seek to undo everything the nation stands for. Some, like local Cincinnati area Soldier Matt Maupin, gave their lives. We shouldn't wait until Memorial Day to remember their sacrifices.

5) Terminal Tackle. The older I get, the more that "bottom of the tackle box" items intrigue me. Sure, certain items of terminal tackle like bobbers, line spools and fish hooks are widely popular, but a whole host of other items--sinkers, swivels, scalers, stringers, tackle boxes, priests, nets, etc.--are fascinating and a virtually virgin world for collectors and researchers. So much fun!

6) Historically Important Fishing Ephemera. I've really gotten into historically important fishing ephemera lately. It's one of the finest sources of information on the many companies that made and sold tackle. It's been great watching fishing ephemera become more and more popular of late. For a long time, it was only catalogs that got interest, but with some letterheads going for $200 or more, it's really attracted a lot of attention to the whole ephemera field.

7) The Readers of this Blog. I can't thank you -- YES YOU, who's reading this right now -- enough for stopping by every now and then and reading what we have to say on the subject of fishing and fishing history. We take that obligation seriously. Now, I can't say that it's easy to provide content every day -- some days its downright brutal -- but with the help of Bill Sonnett and the occasional guest writer, we've managed to provide ORIGINAL content for over 1000 consecutive days without a break. That's pretty impressive. We've also turned down several hundred (unsolicited) opportunities for advertising. Not that we're against making money, but the fact is I never saw this as a way to make money, but rather wanted it to be a place where we could share information without being bombarded by pop-up ads and links to spam sites.

So, for our fifth Thanksgiving, we are thankful for many things, but above all else, for the readers of our humble blog.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, and as always, be good to each other -- and most of all, be good to yourself.

-- Dr. Todd

52 Trade Houses Part 34: L.P. Wood of Burlington, VT

Over the course of the next year, we'll be detailing the history of 52 companies that sold branded fishing tackle. 52 trade houses in 52 weeks -- some obscure, some famous, and all available exclusively here on the Fishing for History Blog! If you have any items from the week's entry you'd like to share with us, please send it my way and I'll make sure it makes it on the blog.

For a discussion of what exactly trade tackle is, Click Here. Enjoy the 52 for 52!

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Trade House Tackle, Part 34:
L.P. Wood of Burlington, VT


Today, we will feature a sporting goods store that had a long presence in the local Vermont community of Burlington. I chose this company because it represents just how difficult it can be to research even companies with a long and important local history.

The firm in question is L.P. Wood's Sporting Goods Store of 78 Church Street, Burlington, Vermont. I have spent a good bit of time researching this firm, and have not found very much at all about this firm, despite the fact it appears to have been in business for six decades or more.

L.P. Wood (and his wife Edna) was an important local businessman in the Burlington community. Forest & Stream tells us he was a a member of the Lake Champlain Yacht Club in the 1910s, along with a number of other local leading lights.

We know the company was in business as early as 1910, when it was listed in the Vermont Year Book as one of the state's four sporting goods retailers, and likely was founded even earlier than this. Gun historians have uncovered the fact that L.P. Wood's Sporting Goods Store of Burlington, Vermont received an order of 25 "Super .38" Colt pistols which were then sold to the Vermont Motor Vehicle Department. It's the earliest mention I can find of the firm.

The post-war era brings a lot more references. The firm was being listed in the Vermont Year Book in 1960 and was further listed in a 1967 issue of Esquire Magazine. L.P. Wood billed itself in the post-war era as "Vermont's leading sporting goods store." It also advertised in all of the local high school and university year books.

Thanks to recent obituaries, we also know the names of three principals at L.P. Wood's in the post-war era. The manager of the store in the 1950s and 1960s was Sabe Abell, who helped turn the store into a premier place for skiing equipment. Two other long-time employees included Royden Edgar "Ductchey" Brown (1895-1985) and Kenneth "Ted" Haynes (1912-2001).

A nice piece of fishing tackle marked "L.P. Wood" is this really nifty complimentary snelled hook holder with the firm's name on it. Inside was an actual snelled hook packet stamped with the firm's name. Both of these date from the 1930s.




L.P. Wood's is a great store with a lot of positive memories associated with it. It appears to have still be in business as late as the 1970s, meaning it had a very long run as a major sporting goods retailer in Vermont.

Anyone with any additional information about Wood's Sporting Goods drop me a note!

-- Dr. Todd

Voices from the Past: Fishing in Greece (1884)

The following account of fishing in Greece in the 1880s comes from the Murray's Handbook for Travel in Greece (5th Edition--1884). It's important because it chronicles the potential for fly fishing in the Balkans, a very dangerous place in the late nineteenth century. While researching my dissertation on travel in the Balkans, I found many accounts of fishing in the region, but I can't imagine it would have been widely appealing, with the activity of klephts (a kind of Greek highwayman) on the rise up until 1914.

Fishing in Greece

The majority of the Greek rivers being mere mountain torrents, dry during summer, the country affords very little sport in this respect.

Good trout-fishing is to be had in some of the rivers of Albania and Arcadia.

Salmon is reported to be found in some of the AEtolian lakes which communicate by the Achelous with the sea. M. v. Heldreich quotes a salmon from Lake Trichonis weighing over 13 lbs.

Very fine carp is found in the Lakes of Joannina and Kastoria, and an inferior kind in the lakes of AEtolia and Acarnania.

Barbel occurs in the Alpheus and the lakes of AEtolia.

Mullet is found in the brackish lagoons of Western Greece, and frequently ascends the Eurotas, Alpheus, and Achelous.

Perch is caught in the lakes of AEtolia.

Chub is found in the river of Karytena and in the Alpheus.

The Silurus or Sheat-fish abounds in the Achelous and the lakes of AEtolia and Macedonia. Col. Leake mentions a Silurus which weighed 176 lbs. as caught in the lake of Kastoria, but says that these fish are sometimes much larger!

The angler's prospects would probably be better in Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly, but all details on the subject are wanting. Any traveller inclined to try his hand on the Greek lakes and rivers should bring complete tackle, flies, etc., from England, as nothing whatever of the kind is procurable in Greece, and very seldom in Turkey. Greeks have no idea of fishing as a pursuit followed for pleasure, and all information on the subject is wanting.

There is no evidence that the ancient Greeks, any more than the modern, practised angling as an amusement, although we know from Athenaeus that several treatises existed on fishing. The earliest known allusion to flyfishing occurs in the gossiping Natural History of AElian, a contemporary of Hadrian. He describes the art as practised on the river Astraeus, in Macedonia, and even gives directions for making the artificial fly. AElian's ippoouros is evidently one of the Ephemeridoe, and in all probability a Palingenesia.

-- Dr. Todd

News of the Week: 21 November 2011

Don't have time to read 50+ fishing and tackle collecting blogs and web sites? Well, let us do it for you! Follow all of the latest news, articles, and stories on our Whitefishpress Twitter account! Hint: You don't need to be a member...just bookmark the Twitter Feed Page or click on latest links to the right!

Did an angler catch-and-release a 70 pound musky?…Aussies have a one-legged reel thief on their hands…A Miami marine consignment shop is a big hit…two articles on bamboo fly rods…the myth and mystery of steelhead fishing…a great interview with actor and fly angler Henry Winkler…Hardy & Greys cuts staff…Tom Mann Inc. gets exclusive rights to the Alabama Rig…Redditch history…a good blackfish rod…Charlie Campbell's big fish story…a guitar made out of a tackle box?…a combination rifle and fishing rod?…it must be THE NEWS OF THE WEEK!

The Big Lead: Did this angler catch and release a seventy pound musky ?

Australia has a one legged reel thief.

A marine consignment shop is a big hit.

Fly fishermen hear the call of the bamboo.

This author argues bamboo fly rods are sill a big hit.

Why steelhead fishing is both myth and mystery.


Henry Winkler, the Fonz and dedicated fly angler.


Hardy & Greys cuts staff, causes shock waves.

Mann's Bait Co. gets exclusive rights to the Alabama Rig.


Lake Michigan gets a nice fall perch run.

Redditch -- the home to Britain's hook industry -- gets profiled in a new book about the city.

WHat makes a good blackfish rod?


Charlie Campbell's big fish story.


Do you want to see a guitar made out of a fishing tackle box? Of course you do!


Finishing with a Flourish: The combination Fishing rod/Rifle is…well, see for your self.



-- Dr. Todd

1000 Words

1000 Words

This week in 1000 Words we continue our "Hollywood Goes Fishing" theme with a great studio photograph of starlet Leila Hyams. Hyams was one of those silent film stars who transitioned into talking pictures. Beginning in 1924, she began as a supporting character in silent films but by the late 1920s had graduated to speaking leads. In 1930, she co-starred with Robert Montgomery and Wallace Beery (both ardent anglers) in The Big House. She retired from films in 1936 but remained active in Hollywood as the wife of noted agent Phil Berg. Here she poses for a studio still ca. 1930 with an Ocean City surf reel.

Deconstructing Old Ads: Millsite's "Daily Double" (1941)

The Millsite “Daily Double”

From the 1941 Sports Afield Fishing Annual comes this beautiful full page advertisement for the "new" Millsite Daily Double.


Almost forty years ago I was canoe camping with my fishing partner on an island twenty miles north of Chapleau, Ontario when a friend named Jim paddled in to spend a few days in camp. He was not a fisherman but he  brought along his Grandfather's tackle box, rod and reel with the intention of learning something about fishing. I had the job of looking over his supply of plugs and advising him on what he should use. Almost all of the plugs were 'second line' baits of dubious parentage and I saw nothing I had ever used. Though I had never seen one before, a frog colored Daily Double in his box looked enough like a Flatfish that I figured it was a good place to start. I was unfamiliar with the bait and truthfully thought that it was some sort of novelty lure that was designed to run at different depths depending on which end of the bait the line was attached to. I was not expecting too much in the way of results. I was right about the way it was supposed to work, but very wrong about its fishing catching abilities. Jim caught fish 'hand over fist' for three days before a large pike made off with his lure.
 
Fast forward forty years and the Millsite Daily Double has become a favorite of several well known collectors. The largest (in every sense of the term) Daily Double collector is Bill Hellmer (better known as “Bigfoot”) of Illinois. This is what Bill has to say about this ad:

“The lures and color numbers are all correct in the ad and are all in reference to musky size lures (700 series) as shown. The lures are made of Tenite Plastic, NEVER wood, as some people may like to think. The lures pictured are 4 inches in length and all have the double line tie, which allows the fisherman to run the lure shallow (2-3ft) or deep (5 ft+).  Usually the lures are marked under the chin with the words "deep" & "shallow" on opposite ends.

The twelve colors shown in this advertisement were the standards, however, other colors were also made and sold. Perch scale 704, solid black no #, 1/2 blk /whte (the newer 709), were a few.  And as with many lure manufacturers, "Saturday Specials"  appeared as well. As far as I know the Daily Doubles were introduced in 1941 and were not taken out of the catalog in any following years.  Along with the 700 series there was the 400 and 800 series. The 800 was considerd Bass and Pike size, while the 400 series was the spin or fly rod size at only 2 inches.
 
My first Daily Double, an orange one, came as a gift from my Uncle around 1955 (I was ten). He told me he was giving it to me because he never had a hit on it. My first cast (right in front of Uncle Floyd) produced a Largemouth Bass, and a big, 'Thank you Unc'. The look on his face was priceless."
 
Thanks Bill.  I can only add one thing to Bill's information: the darn thing does catch fish!



-- Bill Sonnett

The Friday Funhouse

The Video of the Week.

A monster pike from a kayak. Sounds like fun.



12 Things I Would Buy If Only i Could Afford Them

An ABU Garcia 5500C Deluxe is a superb find.


Well, this Akroyd 10/0 Salmon Fly has attracted a ton of attention.


A six-pack of Pflueger Globes is a nice find.


The Pflueger All-in-One is a great lure, but this auction is for the mouthpieces only!


The EL Cajon Coxes are very scarce.


South Bend Vacuum baits in boxes are great.


Holy UMCO Possumbellys, Batman!


Tiny Tims in gantron are fun.


Charlie Russo saltwater lures are superbly made examples of striper plugs.


The Gee Whiz Frog is superb.


These 10 Whopper Stopper Hellraisers are a blast.


A 9-foot Harnell steelhead rod is attracting a lot of interest.



As always, have a good weekend, and be good to each other and yourself.

-- Dr. Todd