Bob Sanders: Cleaning will help you find things

Thoughtful husband that I am, I bought my wife a new washing machine for her birthday/Christmas (her birthday is the 27th). She was so overcome with emotion that I thought she would break down; and when I topped that off with a bag of brand new clothespins, she did, had to go in another room to get a hold of herself.

That purchase uncovered some long-forgotten things. There was a space behind the old washer that hadn’t been touched for many a decade. We didn’t know what was back there. One thing was a rodandreel (you say it all together) that came from I know not where. It was covered with cobwebs and dust, but apparently in perfectly good condition.

The rod was a common short one, the kind we used for creek bank fishing. But the reel was a Pflueger Trump. Best I could tell, calling on Google and other sources, it came out when I was about 12.

Pflueger, you ancient ones will recollect, was the big name in reels in those days. Their Supreme was exactly what the name implied. It was as “supreme” as you could get when it came to fishing reels. Uncle Jeff had one. It came in a little velvet-lined bag with tiny tools and a tube of lubricant. He let me touch it one time. It was to other reels what Bentley is to other cars.

But Pflueger also made several less expensive reels ... including the Trump. I never owned a Pflueger of any kind. After much poring and comparing prices and looking and reading what Sears & Roebuck had to say about their reels, I picked a Bronson, as I began to get serious about rodandreel fishing.

I was using it and a Hawaiian Wiggler when I caught my first bass. Law me! I thought I was hung on something, which I was about 90 percent of the time. But this time, that something started moving, and I had a fish on the line. I was hollering at my buddy Ross, who was just a little downstream. Hey! Lookie! I’ve got one! And, sure enough, I got it to the bank and we inspected every scale thoroughly. Must have weighed half a pound, at least.

A little later, Ross caught one. It was the first for each of us — and the last one that Fourth of July.

But, OK. It was still a successful trip. There would be many more, most not successful, but memorable, anyway.

The sight of that Trump, when it emerged from the detritus behind the old washer, immediately brought back those memories and others: for instance, when I’d take my rodandreel with me when I went to drive up the cows and cast a few times where the pasture met the creek, sometimes catching a small bass, most times not.

Lovely memories. Perhaps we should clean out the storage room more often.

Whoa! Don’t get carried away.

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.