Some thievin’ son of a gun once did me the favor of stealing my tackle box. My fault. I left the garage door up while mowing the backyard like I did every Thursday evening to leave the weekend mostly crap-free. I didn’t miss the box right away — not until the first Saturday I went to lift the garage door and hook my Mako trailer to the 4X4, backed in and waiting for a day off. Standing there in the predawn chill, it occurred on me that the only lures I had were the two tied to tips of my light spinning rods: One plug and one jig. There were no 24-hour big box stores in those days, so I just went anyway and made the best of it.

Talk about angry. Heading
for the ramp, I was kicking myself for leaving the box in plain sight as I took mental inventory of a few hundred bucks worth of pliers, leader spools, knives, tools, spare parts, lures, lures and more lures — a tackle shop stuffed into a 12-pound suitcase, built for all possibilities. Tightening my grip on the wheel, I recalled seeing a stranger on his cruiser bicycle
that evening riding through my neighborhood, waving to me. Waving. Had to be him. A likely suspect for sure, and if I ever ran into him again I would call him out.