Grandpas tacklebox

I was recently given my grandpa’s tackle box as my grandma had passed away earlier this year and they were cleaning out her place. Grandpa had been gone for 20 years so I suspect that most of the things in it are 25+ years old. Unfortunately I never had the pleasure of fishing with him. Any recommendations on what I can do with any of this stuff? I plan to use up the lead sinkers etc. and any of the spinner rigs in good shape will get re-tied with some fresh fluorocarbon.

It looks like he primarily lindy rig fished with a little bit of pike fishing thrown in. Anything in particular odd or unusual I should know about? Anything I should definitely save or definitely not save? Leaning towards tossing out any hook with signs of rust. There are a number of wire snells for pike – not something I have seen or used before.

It also had a fillet knife, pliers, and I believe that clear glass bottle is anise scent but I have not confirmed this. Here are a couple of pics of it all layed out:

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Those top waters are awesome. Same with those wooden divers. They don’t make them like that any more.

Id kill for my gramps tackle box. Think I’d cry if I ever got to see and open it again honestly.

Cool stuff.

No idea what your relationship was with your grandpa, but an idea would be to make some sort of display case/shadow box type thing for good memories?

That is very, very cool. Whether you use the stuff or not, me personally I would keep the packaging. I really like history and with outdoor stuff I like having vintage items and packaging, even to just hang on the garage well.

If that is the big 3” beetle spin i would put that to use. You can’t get those larger ones anymore and they were awesome baits.

I’d use some of the stuff and keep some for memories. Neat box of old lures.

luttes wrote:

No idea what your relationship was with your grandpa, but an idea would be to make some sort of display case/shadow box type thing for good memories?

X2 On this idea. Use some of it and maybe take the Lazy Ike’s and some of the other hard baits and make a display. Sorry to hear about your Grandma.

I did save the Lazy ikes and poppers to put up on display – I have them on a shelf near my boat in the garage. I’ll try to grab a picture of that.

Anyone know what the strange shaped silver spoon is? That is not something I had seen before.

That big 3″ beetle spin is actually headed up north with me to Grand Rapids area this weekend and I will see if it can still catch fish!

I think I would put it on the shelf in the man cave, fill that little glass bottle with your favorite elixir and sit back and enjoy it. Wish I had my grandpas.

I received 2 tackle boxes from both of my grandpas. I was fortunate to be able to donate all the old lures like lazy Ike’s, river runts, daredevils(still in original packages) and a lot of other lures to our small local museum. These tackle boxes had lures etc from the 1940s through the 1960s. I knew I wouldn’t want to lose them and I can still see them from time to time and other people could enjoy them also. I remember one daredevil still in the original package was $1.98.

A nice example of what a typical guy’s tackle box would have looked like around 1976 or so.

Out of curiosity, I actually took some old lures like Lazy Ikes, Pul-vor-izers, and Flatfish off the display shelves in my dad’s den and we fished all these old plugs in Canada a few years back. Just to see if they still had it.

We caught fish on all the old-school plugs. In fact one day the Flatfish was nearly the perfect lure, we were fishing a small bay on the side of a river and it was only about 5 feet deep. The shallow running flatfish was just the ticket, the walleyes I think would see that plug for long distances and lie in wait for it to swim over.

Fun to think about the way it was. A really nice deal to have that original tackle box just like the owner left it.

Just seeing the pictures makes my mind imagine that unique smell that all old tackle boxes have.

My grandmother has quite the tacklebox with some very old and unique lures. She has always used a steel, square fishing rod from lord knows when, until she misplaced it a few years ago. Between her kids, my siblings and cousins, I’m not sure who all will be vying to own it once she’s gone.

I went to buy a stick welder from a gentleman last year, and while I was there he asked if I wanted to give him $20 for his old tackle box. Said he was moving to Florida and was done with freshwater. I spent an hour listening to all his stories about a handful of lures, what an excellent conversation. Both of my grandfathers passed away when I was too young to remember having conversations with them, so this was a really nice experience.

The contents of the box looked identical to what you have there. I sorted everything out, put all the lazy ikes and the 2-3 raps into my tackle rotation. There must’ve been $100 worth of lead sinkers of all shapes and sizes in that box, put all that in the boat too. Then some of the really vintage stuff I gave to my dad, he likes to get free or cheap mirrors from garage sales and make frames for them. He attaches old lures to some of these projects, they make really nice mirrors for the cabin. There’s some other odds and ends in that box which is now sitting on a shelf, figured I’d clean it out and give it to my son one day as his first tackle box.

I was lucky enough to end up with both of my grandfathers tackle boxes. I have a bathroom with a fishing theme and ended up doing this to remember the good times. I think of them both often!

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I remember a few years after my grandpa passed my family was cleaning out his workshop and they came across his tackle box. Even though at that age I loved to snoop around in that shop I had never seen it before. I opened it up and the first thing that catches my eye was a lure with mercury flashing around inside. Even at that age I knew mercury in a fishing lure was a bad idea. Unfortunately I have zero clue where that box went, likely one of my uncles grabbed it. Really wishing I had that box.

tight_lines wrote:

Anyone know what the strange shaped silver spoon is? That is not something I had seen before.

The one on the right with the brass swivel? If so, that one looks like a;
Vintage K-B made in Superior Wisconsin.

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I forgot the name of the jointed bait , but that was my father’s #1 bait for walleyes on every Canada trip

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Zoomer, that’s an awesome display! I screenshot it to do something like that. I have my dad’s tackle box that was his dads…I have a ton of old lures and was thinking how to display them.

Randy Wieland wrote:

I forgot the name of the jointed bait , but that was my father’s #1 bait for <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleyes on every Canada trip

That would be a Mirro Minnow with the metal lip. Very well built lure at the time.

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Wife’s Grandpa and my Dad left a couple tackle boxes to us. We set up this display on a hutch.

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I wish I had a picture to share. I hung up some of my grandpa’s and dad’s old fishing rods on the wall and hung their lures on them. I even have my grandpa’s old ice scoop auger with my grandma’s handwriting on it up in the same room. It brings back great memories when I am in there. There are lots of display options you can do. My buddy has coffee table where you can look thru the glass top and see all of his family’s old fishing stuff at his cabin.

I found a net at a craft/hobby store. I have it sort of bunched up hanging on the wall. When my grandma moved out of her house and the family divided up grandpa’s stuff I took as much hunting and fishing stuff as I could. I put all of his old lures in that net along with some old time rods and a lantern. It takes a good chunk of the wall and now I keep adding to it when I find something.

I want to say I got the net at Hobby Lobby or something real cheap.

My brother and I are to divide my Dad’s tackle box but my brother never seems to want to divide it. I know it has great memories for the both of us. There are some cool vintage lures in my Dad’s also. Like the ideas of displaying the lures.
Great memories!