Steve Christilaw: Boxes in mom’s basement reel in great memories

There are pieces of your life that may be stored away, but you always know exactly where they are. To anyone else, it may just be junk, but to you they are, and always will be, a treasure.

For me, this particular treasure was tucked away in a couple of cardboard boxes in my mother’s basement. Last week I moved a few things and found them right where I knew they would be, brought them out and brought them home.

They are a piece of family history and I am most likely the only family member left who still sees them as treasure. Fishing reels don’t usually make one get all wistful.

But these do. There are good memories attached to each.

The five items I was looking for are almost-identical spinning reels.

One of them, and I no longer can tell which one, was part of the first rod and reel my dad gave me.

When you’re a boy of my vintage, there are a couple of memories most of us share: playing catch with your dad and fishing with him.

Dad wasn’t much for giving gifts – and I can only remember him ever personally buying me three: a lariat when we started to have horses around (I used to be pretty good at roping the family dog), a heavy duty pizza cutter when I started to bake my own (still have it and use it regularly), and a very nice rod and reel set that he gave me on the eve of one of the few hiking/fishing trips we took, just the two of us.

I didn’t know one reel from another, but even 50 years ago, at the tender age of 7, I recognized that he had picked out a rod and reel that almost exactly matched his own. The rods had the same action and were different only in shades of green. The reels were identical.

That’s the kind of thing that makes a kid feel special. It meant I wasn’t just along for the ride on this trip. I was going to be a serious fisherman – just as serious as the Old Man.

Both reels were in the box and both rods stand ready to use in a basement closet.

Turns out that Dad had put together a third set that my Mom used on occasion, and years later I found and claimed two more of these reels. They’d belonged to my grandmother and grandfather.

That makes five.

For the most part, fishing tackle isn’t designed to last more than a few years. This particular brand of reel was. In fact, one of the best reviews I’ve read for them read: “They don’t have the highest performance, but they’re good and they last a lifetime.”

The gears inside are metal and do not typically wear out. When I opened these reels up to give them a good cleaning, they were in remarkably good shape and encased with a protective layer of grease 50 or 60 years later.

My dad has been gone now for more than 30 years and it’s been longer still since I’ve used any of this tackle. I graduated to fly-fishing and used to tie wet flies for him.

But the memories of when we used this gear together come flooding back. How he taught me to hold the line with my forefinger and cock the bail before using my wrist to send a trout spoon flying toward the middle of the high-mountain lake. How another fisherman had stood 30 or 40 yards down the bank of the lake watching me cast, again and again. And watched as I reeled in my first rainbow trout – and the grin on Dad’s face when I held it up.

I remember the stranger complimenting my dad for how well I’d been taught to cast. That brought a grin to his face, too.

I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

My plan is to spend time with the love of my life fishing this summer, and sharing these precious pieces of tackle with her will give me a great deal of satisfaction.

But there’s a bit more to it.

I’m now a grandfather, even though I am no one’s father – it’s a long story for another time. But there are three youngsters in my life whom I plan to take fishing, and I plan to use the same equipment my father used to teach me. I’m sure that would have pleased my dad.

And if I am indeed lucky, perhaps in another 50 years one of them will take these reels out a box and a host of good memories will come flooding back.