The man who taught me to fish gave me his tackle as he is now nearly 90 and unable to fish. He has not fished much in the last two decades and most of the tackle is from the 60's, 70's and 80's. A couple of the tackle boxes are likely from the 50's.

He had 3 sons who did not like to fish, but found a neighbor boy (me) who loved to fish. I was 11 and he was in his late 40's. I am so grateful for the time he invested in me from ages 11 to 16. Looking back on it, he was not a great fisherman, but that mattered so little, I'll I needed was somebody to invest some time with me.

About 5 years ago, I took him fishing, frog fishing on a private lake and he missed nearly every fish, but he or I did not care, as I just enjoyed watching him fish. About 6 months ago he called and asked if I wanted his fishing stuff. Of course I said yes. I'm looking for an idea for the best use of the stuff. Some of it maybe of value, most of the stuff likely not. Any thoughts on how to value the stuff and who might buy it? I would love to donate the proceeds to another generation of fisherman.

Hey Steve,

I did a little online snooping and came up with this. Some antique lures are worth as much as a small home. In fact, the antique fishing lure pictured here, the Giant Haskell Minnow, sold at auction for $101,200.

http://www.wideopenspaces.com/5-most-valuable-antique-fishing-lures/

BTW, I owe you lunch. Call or text me when you are able to go.

It really depends on what you have and the condition it's in. The best thing to do is sort everything and see what you can do to identify the lures. After you figure out what they are worth you can go from there.

I had a good friend (Dean Stroman) give me a 5 gallon bucket full of lures just hanging on the rail in his boat house on Fork a while back. I found some lures in there that were worth as much as $100 each but most were not worth more than $3-$15. I won't ever sell any of them. They all went into a Shadow box that will be hanging at my lake house when done.

Shadow box is a great idea... you have a great story to tell your kids (or the lucky boy down the street) and can one day hand them down to them...

Shadow box

Post some pics and I bet we can help you sort it out. Not everything has to be old to be valuable. I have paid top dollar on occasion for stuff made no more than 10 years ago.