A boatload of nostalgia: Readers share their fishing memories

Editors Note: Readers responded to last Sunday's column by Outdoors Editor Ed Godfrey about his favorite and most sentimental fishing lure, the Little Cleo, with similar fish stories of their own.

Still plugging along

For me, the Martin Fly Plug is my favorite or most sentimental lure. It was designed by Jack Martin in the 1930s and continued production through the 1950s.

I purchased two of them from Haun's Sporting Goods in Stillwater in 1957 when I was 9 years old. I bought them to use on a fly rod thinking it would be a great lure for catching bass in some of the local farm ponds I fished in Payne County.

There's nothing more fun and exciting than catching bass on a fly rod. However, that next year, I was introduced to the spinning rod and reel by my older cousin, Alan, who had just purchased a new spinning rig.

I was amazed at the ease of effort it took for him to make amazingly long casts with just a flip of the wrist. That next winter, I spent most of my free time selling greeting and Christmas cards and eventually sold enough to be able to select the prize of a cheaply made Japanese ultralight rod and reel.

The brand and model was “Keystone Jetstream” and I still have it today, mounted in a shadow box along with my very first fly reel and a Martin Fly Plug.

I was amazed to quickly learn the following spring that I could still cast my Martin Fly Plug a good distance with my newly acquired spinning rig. I caught my first respectable bass (15 inches) on it as it quickly became my favorite lure.

In later years I caught bass as big as 3 pounds on the little lure. The Martin Fly Plug is a floater-diver, made of wood, has a disproportionately large glass eye, about an inch and a half long, and has a single double hook.

To increase its hooking ability, I changed the double hook to a treble hook. The one that isn't in the shadow box still gets used from time to time on a fly rod just for old times sake, but I'm very careful with it for fear of losing it, so it doesn't get in the water very often.

When I have it tied on, it certainly brings back a lot of fond memories from those days when I was just a boy growing up on a farm southeast of Stillwater.

I noticed on eBay that you can buy one for $55. I think I paid 85 cents for mine.

Tom Friedemann, Oklahoma City

Passing on a tradition

I, too, remember my dad's Little Cleo lures. Yes, those same ones with the exotic dancer on the back.

I agree with you by the way, they were magic. But only because dad made them that way. I remember that he would hand paint his and routinely refurbish ones that were particularly roughed up.

Fly fishing has given me a real connection to my dad who was a really good fisherman. In my younger years, I really didn't take advantage of learning from him. I foolishly wasted the opportunity.

I wish I'd listened to Dad a lot more, but then again, even Mark Twain professed to that claim. I also wish that I'd started fly fishing a long time ago, but I have done my best to catch up on what I can.

From the first pattern I made, the Hornberg, which I still have (much like your remaining Little Cleos, I just don't want to lose that one) to the Blue Cracklebacks some buddies and I used to slay the rainbows with in Bennett Springs, Missouri, it has been a lot of fun.

I had wasted the chance to learn all of what dad had to teach, so wanting to avoid passing that regret along, I have been able to spark an interest, at least for now, in one of my own sons.

Mostly though, I miss my dad, so I am doing the best I can to teach my children at least one way, to avoid having those type of regrets later in their lives. After all, most of fishing is who you're fishing with ... catching fish or not.

Rob Underwood, Moore

Fishing with grandpa

Reading Outdoor Editor Ed Godfrey's recent story about the silver-spoon fishing lures sparked a memory in me about these little objects that were so wrapped into the idea of “luck.”

I never even knew what those little silver-disc things were called in my grandfather's tackle box, but I knew I had seen them shimmer in the sunlight as a child.

Godfrey explained the vintage spoons were called Little Cleos, after a wiggling exotic dancer with her image stamped on the back. And I thought my grandfather was barking at me to get away from the box because there were hooks in it. I thought they looked boring compared to the feathered ones.

For all the many times I went out in the boat with my grandfather, I did not learn or remember a darn thing about what was happening, the fishing itself, but I remember clearly every other detail.

Pretty silver-blue dragonflies froze in the air a split second before zooming away, sweat quietly dripped off grandpa's nose, scooping tepid Eufaula water onto the scorching hot aluminum of the boat had no cooling effect whatsoever, and Lordy, how I hated the chunky orange life jacket he made me wear, even under a tree near the shoreline in the shade.

I've got to tell you, this little girl hated fishing. But loved every minute spent with her grandpa.

Marcie Everhart, Moore

If you have a favorite fishing lure or memory to share, send it to egodfrey@oklahoman.com.