When he was just a kid first learning to fish, he’d spend hours in the musty old basement, peering through his grandfather’s timeworn fishing gear. Rusty old tackle boxes filled with huge lures, reels, and lines with strange-sounding names: Dowagiac, Creek Chub, Marathon, Ashway. The original Zara Gossa—not the newfangled version. Tubular steel True Temper rods hanging at attention next to the workbench, or stuffed high up in the rafters, either side of the single light bulb. His father’s first Mitchell spinning reel—one of the first imported into the United States from France. Antique duck decoys, rusting pipes, bolts, tools and fifty assorted years of odds and ends collecting in the basement-workshop-tackle repository of his grandparents’ lakeside home.

Though they fished together mostly for bass, his grandfather often told tales of fishing the northwoods when just getting there over miles of tire-puncturing gravel roads was still an adventure. Tales of muskies blasting noisy surface lures. Catching live frogs, baiting them on oversized hooks, and catching walleyes when no one else could. He never told anyone the secret, but reveled in the acclaim from other fishing camp visitors.

Reaching into the bottom of one ancient box, “Grandad” pulled out and fondled a weathered June Bug spinner—an odd-shaped blade that rotated on a steel shaft, just ahead of a huge hook to be dressed with a minnow. A faraway look appeared in his eye, recalling glory days past. The venerable June Bug, Prescott, and Strip-On were some of his secret lures back in the ‘30s, but like so many traditional favorites, they fell out of style as light-line refinements came into favor. Perhaps the fish became accustomed to it, or they simply preferred newfangled gadgets. More likely, the aggressive walleyes susceptible to being caught on the heavy hardware were thinned out by increasing pressure. A different approach was needed to re-enact the former glory days of the new secret lure.

The young fisherman’s great uncle was one of the first to jump on the bandwagon when the Rapala craze hit. Well, sort of . . . He didn’t want to pay big bucks for an actual Rapala, so he bought a cheap imitation called a Raposa. The lightweight balsa lure cast pretty well on spinning gear and monofilament line, and the shivering wobble was deadly. Slower moving and more subtle than June Bug Spinners, the fish hadn’t seen anything like it before. Bass, walleyes, pike—everything liked balsa minnows.

“Grandad” was a bit slower to pick up on the trend, since he, like his father before him, preferred traditional dacron line and ancient Pflueger Supreme casting reels, which couldn’t cast Rapalas worth a hoot. But eventually he came around. Rapalas were the hot lure for years, and in fact, they never went out of style. But other goodies moved into the limelight, particularly for walleyes.

Snelled spinners like the Little Joe came onto the market, shifting the focus back toward spinner-livebait combos. More subtle and refined than their heavy-hardware predecessors, Little Joes swept across the walleye market. Just add a weight ahead of the spinner to get it down, tip the hook with a crawler or minnow, drift along, and hang on tight. This was big news in the ‘50s—just about the time the young angler was busy being born. Still works today, though often in lighter-line more-refined versions.

As the young fisherman became old enough to fish for walleyes on his own, two primary tactics prevailed in his walleye arsenal. Early forays to the Mississippi River, and reading the teachings of the venerable jigmeister Bill Binkelman, proved leadhead jigs to be indisputable walleye killers. Pretied hair and feather jigs were the norm, but Binkelman’s plain-head concept, often in fluorescent colors, was superb when tipped with a minnow, crawler, or leech.

Second, as the soon-to-be-legendary Lindner brothers were getting their fledgling Lindy Tackle company off the ground, the slipsinker livebait rig hit the walleye world. Elegant simplicity—hook, line and sinker—presented livebait naturally on almost invisible light line. Finesse to the max, applicable to nearly any and every lake, river, or impoundment. All thoughts of using anything besides jigs or rigs for walleyes were swept away. They were the hot lures—the secret lures of the ‘70s—putting everything else to shame. Teamed with the introduction of depthfinders and Buck Perry’s concept of structure fishing, probing the depths with rigs and jigs seemed the ultimate approach for walleyes.

When he first moved from the big city to the northwoods, he chuckled at seeing a boatload of grannies and grandpas slipbobber fishing atop a shallow reef, as if they could possibly outfish his sophisticated tactics. Lo and behold, that particular day, the oldtimers kicked butt, enlightening him once again. Right time, right place, a tiny livebait dancing across a shallow windswept reef was more attractive than his fancy rigging and jigging. Not that he’d abandon them; he’d simply expand his repertoire.

Jigs and rigs dominated his walleye scene throughout the ‘80s. Hard to imagine they’d ever go out of style—particularly in heavily fished waters demanding finesse presentations. But his travels introduced him to other tactics better tailored to certain situations. Like bottom bouncers, spinners, and crawlers on western impoundments. Darn things crawled up and down contours without snagging, and they triggered walleyes. Tried ‘em in Canada; same deal for rocky reefs, not as finesse-oriented as rigs or jigs, yet nevertheless deadly under the right conditions. Heavier versions even worked for drifting shallow basins on the Great Lakes.

Speaking of the Great Lakes, his expeditions to the Western Basin of Lake Erie made him a believer in weight-forward spinners dressed with nightcrawlers. These versatile lures performed admirably for drifting across and casting ahead of the boat for suspended walleyes. On “Grandad’s” final walleye trip, he caught the most and the biggest walleyes by casting a weight-forward spinner—something he often reminded everyone of. He’d certainly seen changes in his lifetime—from horse and buggy days to the space shuttle, from braided black dacron and heavy hardware to finesse tactics with light line. Never did like trolling, but casting for big walleyes was his fondest fishing desire.

Jigging spoons began making their mark for walleyes in the ‘80s, first through the ice, then for open water. Touted as the new secret lure, they really weren’t—just another more aggressive option. Cast or jigged, they showed walleyes something different than slow rigging or jigging, which almost everyone else was using for walleyes. So he popped a few in his tackle box for times when his methods of preference weren’t taking fish as well as he expected.

Taking pride in his finesse skills with rigs and jigs, the young angler, now well into his 30s, was at first a bit skeptical about the new wave of crankbait trolling for ‘eyes. Perhaps he’d inherited some of “Grandad’s” preference for casting. But as hardbaits exploded on the walleye scene in the late ‘80s, their effectiveness became too dynamic to ignore.

Long, slender lures, with more of a shivering wiggle than a wide wobble, were taking walleyes throughout the open-water season. Weighted leadcore lines and eventually snap weights that popped on and off for easy weight adjustment probed the depths with cranks or spinners. On-line planer boards spread lines to the sides of the boat, covered wider trolling swaths, and reached out to fish pushed aside by the boat’s passage. GPS navigation to distant offshore spots. Plotting trolling passes electronically. Where would it all end?

Walleye fishing had indeed become a complex science in the ‘90s. Taken to extremes, you could become an electronic trollin’ fish-catchin’ machine. Thinking back to the early basement days, he’d witnessed walleye fishing rise from humble beginnings into the computer age. And the pace was continuing to accelerate. Each new decade brought discoveries and changes . . . and a new wave of secret lures.

In the early days, fish conditioned to certain presentations became more vulnerable to newly introduced lure styles for the first five or so years until they too became also rans. In recent years, however, the emphasis was not so much on new secret lures as on probing previously unexplored lake areas for suspended or basin fish, maximizing efficiency and coverage with faster-moving trolling tactics.

We’ve tackled drop-offs, cast the shallows, and now plumbed the mysterious depths. What new vistas are left to explore? Have we run out of options, of new secret lures? Will the fish ever become fully conditioned to our best efforts? Probably not. History has taught us that unexpected refinements surface, fueled by man’s creativity and quest to catch more and bigger fish. Even if we can’t visualize where the next advancement will come from, it certainly will arrive. We’ll ride the first few years of the new secret lure syndrome, then likely consider what was formerly new and exciting as status quo, even old hat, and look ahead to what the future holds.

In fishing, it’s possible to reach any level you wish, from the most casual outing to the most-sophisticated state-of-the-art approach. Pounds and ounces may vary, but the quest remains the same, to enjoy the outdoor experience however it suits you best. High tech or humble, a fish tugging on the end of your line is what it’s all about.

And now, as he sits at the end of his own dock, watching the joy and excitement on his granddaughter’s face as she catches her first panfish on a bobber rig, he realizes that the magic of the fishing experience never leaves, though the productivity of certain lures or fishing styles may wane with time. It’s important to stay on the leading edge of technology and refinement. Yet it’s just as important never to forget the joy of fishing.