Fun With Vintage Fishing Magazines
 

I love old fishing magazines! I try to focus on collecting copies with a surf fishing/striper cover photo but I have aquired quite a few that make for damn interesting reading! Some fabulous articles and you can learn alot not just about fishing 30, 40, 50, even 60 years ago but you realize that not too much has changed in all those years! I just picked up a lot of 40 vintage Saltwater Sportsman and other various fishing mags for about a buck a piece!!:kewl: Lots of great old ads and things too! I have framed a few to hang on the wall so I thought I would just post a few pics of some and a few others of interest! Hope you enjoy!:eyes:

The one on the left is an August 1949 Field and Stream and the right is a 1937 Sports Afield!

The one on the left is a June 1956 Outdoor Life (Great artwork!) and the one on the right is an April 1961 SWS and I think Flaptail knows the fella on the cover?

One for you "Mosquito Fleeters"!

Garage builders were alive and well as far back as 1955 from what I could find in some of these old mags......this great "DIY" article is from a 1959 issue of Fishing the World magazine! Thought you builders would love this!

is the fish in the "charley whitney" photo a bass or is it a drum? doesnt look like the head of a bass

Channel bass the caption reads....probably like a red drum I think?

where can you get old magazines like that? i would love to be able to read about "yester year" being only 22 years old

Get These While You Can!!!
 

We have all been doing it the hard way all these years?? What we all need is one of these! Any of you "Old Timers" still have yours?:hihi:

Antique shops, Ebay, Flea Markets?

Exactly like a red drum ;)

Charlie Whitney, once owned a tackle shop on Race Point Rd in the basement of his house just a few doors down from Nelsons. I think of him everytime I go by it. He would be puttering around the shop trying ti whistle ( he actaully just made blowing noises not an actual whistle) he fished with Woolner all over the place. Moved from Shrewsbury to Provincetown, opened the shop and stayed there until he died. He was buried back home in his hometown of Shrewsbury.

Charlie was a kind and gentle soul, he gave me a bunch of plugs which I have in my collection, I would stop in and shoot the breeze with him, see something interesting hanging and take it down and start playing with me and he would say, "you want it? Take it, no use to me anyhow".

He was one of the Worcseter area greats Like Laine, Woolner, the Kissels, Perry, Townsends, Kukonen who made the fifties and sixties striper culture of the outer cape famous.

Not many left like those guys.

that's a GREAT ad Larry :laughs: We do the same thing going for bar clams in NB with a 5 gallon pail you put a piece of plexiglass siliconed in the bottom and hang the handle around your neck. Makes finding the clam holes easy

I like how the pipe is like 1' away from the fish :bl:

Larry, thats a great thread. as a young surf want a be in the early 60's I subscribed to SWS mag. I saved everyone. When I restarted this obsession 6 yrs. ago I went to my parents house to see if any were still around. Unfortunatly they were gone. I remember 1 issue probably 63-64 with a cover picture of a large surf bass caught on a red/white jointed plug. I was in awe at the picture and went down the cellar an made a crude version of one w/broomstick and screweyes. Ah, early days of plug building. I still try to find that issue. They have archived covers 4/sale but that one wasn't available. Thanks for the memories.

Thank you for posting these...they are fantastic. I especially like the cover with the guy smoking his pipe after landing a cow. Really cool stuff.

Good stuff Larry. As a kid, I would read my Dad and grandfather's mags cover to cover. I wouldn't miss a single article or ad. Loved those mags.

I just picked up a 1920 first edition of The call of the surf. I was told it is the first book ever written about surfcasting. I can't wait to start reading it.

Because a writer decided to take one approach or philosophy - be it his own or another's - and document it, over time, that singular take on the sport takes on great significance, simply because not much else remains.

Great Thread, Larry
 

I love old cover art -

On a similar note I really enjoy the old articles - they often contain some real gems that have since been forgotten or overlooked.

In fact, I think I've just stumbled on my Holy Grail and what might be the mother of all magazine articles for me and the final piece of the puzzle. I'll keep ya posted.

Yeah, my luck appears to be on the upswing. Apparently last week was a big one in the Karma department and extends waaay beyond the birdwatching :)

Sorry Larry, I have to steal this thread :)
I thought this would be interesting for everyone.
I have been told that during ww2 their was no fishing on any CapeCod beaches and they could only fish in the canal, (maybe Flap can fill in the blanks) Below is a picture of a permit from the war Dept to fish the canal. June 11,1941
Enjoy
VB

Ok, Back to some nice old fishing Magazines / Art

One more
VB

Peter those are awesome! What great pieces!:kewl:

One I forgot I had!:btu:

I can send one to you Karl? Can you give it to him?

In June 1941 we were not at war yet with either Japan or Germany but we were heavily involved in the lend/lease act of 1940. Through the lend/lease act of 1940 were providing Great Britain with "surplus" materials such as mothballed WW I destroyers and tanks, planes and surplus ordinance ( which was actually newly made but declared surplus as our standing Armed forces at the time numbered in the 200000 range) a minor technicality.

The only way to get this stuff to GB was by convoy and being that at the time our territorial limit was only 3 miles off the coast Nazi U-Boats were having a field day with the convoys of merchant ships depating for GB and being that we were still officially "neutral" we provided no naval armed ships to cover them and GB didn't have sufficient naval arms to do it either until they were 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way across.

These convoys found it best to use the CC Canal and make up in Buzzards Bay. This helped avoid at least a bit of the u-boat threat as once in open water they were on thier own. One fact had not escaped the US Govt was that sabotage of these convoys transiting the canal would really mess up the process and cause vessels to leave NY and have to go aound the outer cape on thier way to Halifax Nova Scotia. A ship blown up by german saboteurs in the canal would have drastic effects on the the fragile supply line to GB.
( See the Stephen R. Jones wreck in the canal May 1942 and the mess that caused 1000 yds east of the Bourne Bridge)

So the canal became off limits to any civilian use unless under the Corp of Enginneers gave specific permission. Note that it was understood that fishing would only be permitted in daylight hours not in the nightime though the permit does not speciffically say so. Armed patrols in jeeps were constantly going up and down the servoce roadws on both sides. Anyone caught and not known to the patrol personnel were hauled in. There were Gun batteries at each end. ( The Horizon Beach club, though under a differnt name now, was built as a WWII barracks for the gun battery at the east end originally. I had my first legal drink there when it was known as the Ship's Turn inn.)

Stan Gibbs told me of this in length and told me how they would sneak in to fish and keep a look-out for the patrols where they would hide in the rocks and bushes when they would come by.

It was a big thing to gather with the familly on Sundays and watch the ships go through sometimes 30 or 40 at a time heading to uncertain futures and GB.

Flap-

Thanks, great post....I love that stuff.

Blitz

sure is really cool to learn about the old days. brings me back to sitting around cleaning a pile of catfish listening to my grandpa tell his fishin stories from before my time......