If Moleskine made Lure Boxes

Recycled Fishing Tackle Box #2

I needed a portable home for my little collection of homemade spinners. I imagined afternoons on a trout a stream with a rod, reel, and my box of spinners. I routed out compartments in a piece of scrap pine and then attached a cover made from the front of an old business folder. I took inspiration from that other portable device the Moleskine pad and a tobacco tin of lures an American fisherman had shown me down at the lake.

How To Make Spinners From Scrap

I started making my own fishing lures for a number of reasons one of which was losing lures while teaching my oldest son to fish with spinners. Spinners while great at attracting fish are also amazing at attracting snags, I suspect there isn’t a pond, river or lake in the northern hemisphere which isn’t playing host to its little collection of orphaned spinners; no wonder Mepps claim to produce the world’s bestselling lure.

Having found the remnants of copper fireplace hood that somehow had managed to survive a few decades past its style by date I thought I would see if I could start with raw materials and make a decent spinner.

Fishing The South Pacific (straight to video)

Image Above: Tackle Box made from an old video case.


I am sat amidst what looks like the aftermath of a rock festival, a long train of debris surrounds the lake like a tide mark. Summer has brought its fair share of litter louts to the pond, tins of sweet corn and empty bags of ground bait mix with half eaten packets of crisps and pop bottles, fish food and fisherman’s food.

The smell of weed wafts over from the next peg and in the distance on the far bank a voice breaks into a few verses of and old Roxy Music hit.  The vocalist is a big guy and continues to run through hits that may have been popular in his youth.  I reach into my rucksack and pull out a video, South Pacific. There is a pause as I look at the palm trees and dream and then I open the case and take out a fishing float.