When He’s Not Fishing, He’s Usually Fixing To Go

Larry Cloke says come by any time, he’s usually around.

But the chances of catching the proprietor of Larry’s Rod & Reel Repair at his Pasadena Park shop are about the same as coaxing a wily rainbow trout out of the Spokane River.

It’s hit and miss.

The sign on the door to his shop - a cool loft above his garage that smells of lubricant and aging two-by-fours - explains it: “Business Hours Are Subject to Change During Fishing Season.”

Cloke offers no apologies to visitors who come by to drop off a corroded reel or a broken rod only to find the door locked and the “Gone Fishing” sign in place.

“Anytime you get a chance to go fishing, you should,” Cloke says, shrugging.

And he usually does.

Cloke says he fell in love with fishing as a boy growing up in Leavenworth.

He and friends used to pack their fishing gear and a cast iron skillet into the mountains to fish the high-country lakes and streams for days at a time.

“We lived on fish and huckleberries, mostly,” Cloke says.

These days, he trolls for kokanee on Lake Coeur d’Alene or pursues perch on Loon Lake.

The repair business is little more than an overblown hobby for the 81-year-old retired safety engineer for the state Department of Transportation.

About eight years ago, he began buying up all the used rods and reels he came across at yard sales. He’d spend the time he wasn’t fishing tinkering with the equipment to get it working.

Then, he’d sell the stuff at auctions.

Before long, people were asking him to repair their broken fishing equipment and his second vocation was born.

Business isn’t exactly booming, he says as he lounges in his shop one day with his 12-year-old Dalmatian, Duchess, but that’s all right.

“If you had to live off this, you’d starve to death,” says Cloke, waving the end of a rod around at the boxes and boxes full of old Penn, Daiwa, Shakespeare and Zebco reels.

It keeps him busy, though.

Nearly 20 reels are stored near the door in old bread pans - also yard sale finds.

Some are waiting for parts - “That’s the biggest problem, getting parts,” he says - or waiting to be picked up by their owners.

There’s always a reel or two brought in by people Cloke calls “the basket cases.”

“They’re the ones who tear a reel apart and then don’t know how to put it back together again,” Clokes says with a chuckle.

Anglers seeking advice on where fish are biting or looking for an appraisal on an old rod or fishing lure also keep him jumping, he says.

“They’ll sit up here and gab for an hour, and I get nothing done,” Cloke says.

But that’s all right, he quickly adds, because work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“It cuts into my fishing.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: Saturday’s People is a column featuring remarkable Valley people. To suggest subjects for future columns, please write The Valley Voice, 13208 E. Sprague, Spokane, WA 99216, or call editor Mike Schmeltzer at 927-2170.