A "Blue-collar Glass Rod" and Other Discoveries

It was time to dump out, sort, and organize all the fishing tackle
and to discover things that I did not know that I had.

After a humongous spring runoff, southern Colorado streams are clearing. An old friend came to visit, but for various reasons, we stayed off the creeks and fished a favorite small lake for a couple of evenings. More on that later.

Inspired by catching fish for the first time this summer, I decided to bring up all the fishing tackle to the front porch, dump it out, sort things, and organize them — for the first time in years. Of course, there were some "Oh, that's where [that item] was!" moments.

How did I get so many red-and-white plastic bobbers? By picking up lost ones on various lake shores, enough that I will donate a bag of them to Goodwill.

Whose flies are these? Oh . . . I remember.

In a carton holding spools of monofilament, trolling line, and new-in-the-box flyline from years back, I found a small fly box of streamers and wet flies, mainly.

I looked at them kind of blankly. Where did I . . . . oh, those were Dad's! He used to fish mainly small streams with wet flies. It's been sixteen years, and it's like he reached out to me. Why did I put them away? I am not in the flyfishing museum business! Fish them! So they went into my vest.

I brought up all the rods and rod cases. That one-piece spinning rod missing its tip? I've caught a number of fish on it in that condition anyway. But now it will go to Goodwill, and maybe some handy Pueblo angler can glue on a new tip.

These empty rod cases — they are not empty! Out slides a Shakespeare "Ugly Stik" fiberglass fly rod that I probably used last in in the late 1980s. Really "noodly." It goes. That leaves me with three fly rods (4-wt, 5–6 wt., and 7-wt.) which ought to be enough.

In the mid-1960s, this rod's list price was $22.95. Using the "US Inflation Calculator,"
today''s price would be $181.40, only in reality it would be much less than that. One word: China.

And this one: a Heddon Pal Mark II #8353, 7 1/2 feet for 6-wt. line,  with the Controlled Flex action, which is less noodly than the aforementioned "Ugly Stik."

I stared it it. The slightly abraded cork grip—from a dog's mouth? Something else? Ferrules, guides, and wrappings were all in good condition. The problem was, I just did not remember fishing it.

I turned to the Internet. A "blue-collar glass rod," one source called it. Another said,

By the mid 60s, Heddon made a wide range of fly rods. They sold the Pal, Pal Mark I, II, III, and IV rods, as well as the Pro Weight, Mark I Custom, and Lifetime Pal Stainless Steel models. Like the earlier rods, the various models may have been made on the same blanks with the variations in price simply due to the cosmetics and hardware.

The Pal rods were the economy models, with with olive painted blanks, black wraps over a white backing, nickel silver ferrules, and an anodized black reelseat with silver hoods.

At another website, someone opined that a like-new Mark I Pal that sold for $17.95 would be worth about $50 to a collector today. Assuming you could find a collector. Otherwise, going by eBay listings, it is probably worth about $20 in 2019 dollars, since it lacks the original case.

Of course, there is apparently a retro reverse-snobbery thing going with fifty-year-old fiberglass rods. Wouldn't you know.

Was it Dad's too? I thought I remembered him fishing mostly "hardware store-grade" bamboo rods, but I was pretty young then. In 1975, he and my stepmom moved from Colorado to Whidbey Island, Washington, where he bought a 28-foot boat, took navigation and seamanship classes, befriended local fishermen, and threw himself into the pursuit of salmon -- interspersed with halibut, bottom fish (such as lemon sole), crabs, and clams. I looked forward to my trips out there.

All the saltwater gear went to M's nephew, who was fishing a lot in the Gulf of Mexico at the time. Was this fiberglasss fly rod something I set in a corner of my basement and forgot?

I suppose there are collectors of hardware store-grade fiberglass fly rods from the 1960s out there — there is a niche for everything — but it will probably go to Goodwill too. I am not sure if it "sparks joy."