Quinte Fishing

I'm preparing some quality tackle from my surplus as well to send along to the family. I hope they get more than was lost...

I can somewhat relate to what the young lad is feeling when his Dad's tackle box was stolen. Back when I was in my early teens, growing up in Scarborough, I was nuts about fishing and took public transit to places like Highland Creek, Rouge River, Grenadier Pond and the Hearn Generating station to try and catch anything that would tug on a line. One such trip, I packed up the nice military backpack my brother gave me with my Shakespeare telescopic rod, Compac Reel and my pride and joy (the carefully organized Old Pal 3 tray tackle box) and headed off on the bus, then subway, then a good walk to High Park to get some panfish and maybe a bass to latch on to my offerings. Well, I was fishing a more secluded area, off the path through the park, working a hula popper in the lily pads and strayed a little too far from my backpack, hand net and tackle box and someone took off with everything. I got back to the area where I knew I left my gear, and this hopeless feeling of panic overcame me. I'd spent every $ I'd ever earned plus my allowance buying lures from Lyons & Co Sporting Goods on Kingston Road in Scarborough and all that money was wrapped up in that tackle box. The simplest of lures back then, like Arbogast, Heddon, Eppinger, Rapala and Mepps. An hour later, after a frantic search around the area where I'd left the backpack, I boarded the subway for home feeling totally deflated. To add insult to injury, about a week later, after school I got a phone call. The male voice asked if they could speak to Terry (my brother's name was on a label inside the backpack). I told them who 'Terry' was and my name, hopeful that maybe someone found the pack. Then there was laughter in the background and the person said "are you missing some fishing tackle and a backpack?", followed by more laughter and then the phone went dead. My mom insisted I call the police to see if they could trace the call, but they had no interest in my plight. That phone call was like the twisting of the knife...it only made me more determined to spend every dime I'd earn from then on, on fishing gear. At least that's what my wife will tell you, LOL!

Anyways, I appreciate the generosity of the guys on this board and others, and hope the replacement tackle will bring some smiles and get the boys back out fishing.

Tight lines...