The Sad State of Old Stock

I have spent a lot of time on the road this year in and around fishy towns and whenever I can I make it a point to hit the local tackle shops.

That includes not just the big ones but also local stores and even gas stations with a tackle wall. Freshwater, saltwater, it doesn’t matter, I just want to see what they have.

And I’m particularly interested in old stock – lures that aren’t made anymore or may only have been made in small batches by specialized manufacturers. That’s not just high-value items like vintage Wiggle Warts, but also a variety of brands, styles and colors that I keep on a dedicated list. If and when I see them, I’ll scoop up as many as I can.

But despite driving from my Virginia home to Alabama, Tennessee (3x), South Carolina (2x), Illinois, Missouri, New York and Oklahoma (and flying to Mississippi and California), I find less and less of these dusty treasures. This year I’ve crossed nothing off of my list.

It used to be that you’d go into any decent local tackle store and there would be bargain bins, or decades-old lures in a forgotten corner, sun-faded and forlorned. The king of this type of purchase was the late, great Aberdeen Bait & Tackle in Aberdeen, NC (RIP), which specialized in this sort of gear, but every decent store had a touch of it. I liked stopping in northern stores for lures that might work in the south, and vice versa, as well as saltwater shops where no one had looked for the little jewels that I wanted.

With online shopping, there’s unfortunately less and less reason to go to brick and mortar stores for the staples. I’m looking for something special. Sometimes that’s a locally-made spinnerbait or small batch glide bait, but usually it’s for something from the 80s, 90s or aughts. I suppose between those stores’ own eBay accounts and voracious scouring my treasure hunts, those great random finds may be a thing of the past – but I still hold out hope in every town that I’ll find a few orphans that want to come home with me.