The Herters Catalogue

Something I used to really enjoy was browsing the Herters Catalogue. Anybody else remember Herters?

The closest thing we have now is probably the Cabela’s Master Catalogue.

Seems the Internet has almost done away with the need for paper catalogues but I still enjoy browsing through a thick one full of gear and daydreams.

Herters was educational, inspiring and for the most part, hopelessly out of reach to a kid.

One of my brothers did once order some very tiny hooks for fishing perch in a little pond we haunted. When they came not only were these hooks impossibly small but I swear; they were gold-plated. No kidding.

 Growing up in a place where most fishing was done off the town wharf for Pollock and Tommy Cod using big Red Devil (Devel) lures, the site of these gold-plated #18 hooks in their white cardboard box –complete with the Herters logo-
was astounding. What a treasure and man, were they ever deadly.

I learned the first real lesson about the difference between fishing and catching with these little beauties.

The fish we were targeting were not really Perch but rather some large strain of Golden Shiner.

We only tried for them because they were so hard to catch. The tiny, gold, Herters hooks meant we couldn’t just use the 12 pound mono we relied on for wharf fishing. It wouldn’t even go through the eye of the hook. We had to use a leader of much finer mono.



What had been almost impossible suddenly became so easy that we soon lost interest and turned our minds to other challenges. That’s how I became a Trout fisherman.

That simple lesson stuck with me though. Whenever I’m in a situation where I know there are fish around but I just can’t connect, I’ll try all sorts of variations of “fine and far-off”.

Sometimes just lengthening the leader will do it. Sometimes changing the fly to a smaller version of the same pattern is the ticket.

For feeding fish like Trout or Bass I’ll start with the leader. For Salmon, I’ll start with the fly. It is a strategy that keeps evolving.

Even now after all of these years there are still variations I haven’t had time to try yet. Next time though…