What to do with or how to dispose of old tackle

[Kromer]

I spent Saturday with my wife at her Mom and dad’s house. Mom was the last to go and passed away about 8 months ago. Anyway her dad is who woke my passion for and taught me how to fish. Mind you he was a trout guy but that’s where it all started.

My my job was to go through all his tackle. There are a few things I will keep to remember him but for the most part these are 6’ Rods, old Mitchell and zebco reels, all his “stuff” is from another generation. I am not interested in selling these things but at the same time it would be heartbreaking to throw it away so any ideas would be great.

6 tackle boxes
18 rods
Other assorted stuff, trout or fly related.
Maslow found what appears to be almost new Lowrance X70, man that thing has a lot of buttons 😮

[Axkiker]

Donate the rods / reels to some youth deal. When BP has their trade in program I believe all the setups are donated to a youth charity. Same for the tackle boxes.
Lure wise im sure you could find a collector that would be interested

[jigman51]

Let some high school fishing team look through it.

[dabass]

I loaded up the local Boy Scout camp with my clean out the shop

[n2ratfishin]

Let some high school fishing team look through it.

+1

[Pokie Pa]

I donate all the items I no longer use or want to a local high school fishing club. The kids are so grateful.

[RazorCat]

Have a garage/yard sale.

[Chautauquanuy]

I loaded up the local Boy Scout camp with my clean out the shop

I did the same. A neighbor is in scouting and very active in a Boy Scout camp in the Laurel Highlands. He told me they used some of my donated stuff locally, then they gave it to the large camp. They have a lake plus a trout stream that they fish.

[Cousinwilbur]

https://projecthealingwaters.org/

Maybe send it all to these folks>>>

[Have rod will travel]

Ive bought tons of tackle boxes at garage sales. The resale market used to be great. I have sold stuff on ebay and made lots of money. But lately the market has dropped. Now lures I used to get 75 bucks for are not selling for 2-3 dollars. Old rods and reels are a dime a dozen. Go through the stuff and compare on ebay to see what its worth. There are also some great books with great pics to help you. On the plus side there are some rare rods, reels, and lures that are still worth big bucks. Just hope you have one of them.

[DaveBrabec]

Lots of high school and college clubs that would love that stuff

[billius]

If it was me, I'd keep it all. Things like that are/will be hard to come by in the future. They'd be great things to use to start a collection.

[madmurph]

Are high school or college teams really going to want that "stuff"? Maybe I'm wrong. However, the handful of team members that I have seen were all using new, decent quality equipment. I would bet they all have 3700's (or some other variant) with new lures, and wouldn't be interested in tackle boxes with old school lures, 6' rods or Zebco reels. I would guess the scout or youth camps would probably be better.

[lakefolk]

Are high school or college teams really going to want that "stuff"? Maybe I'm wrong. However, the handful of team members that I have seen were all using new, decent quality equipment. I would bet they all have 3700's (or some other variant) with new lures, and wouldn't be interested in tackle boxes with old school lures, 6' rods or Zebco reels. I would guess the scout or youth camps would probably be better.

This^^^^^^^^^^^^^ high school and college teams are using way better stuff than i have

[Axkiker]

Are high school or college teams really going to want that "stuff"? Maybe I'm wrong. However, the handful of team members that I have seen were all using new, decent quality equipment. I would bet they all have 3700's (or some other variant) with new lures, and wouldn't be interested in tackle boxes with old school lures, 6' rods or Zebco reels. I would guess the scout or youth camps would probably be better.

Yup... a 7 yr old whos never fished before will love a zebco 303. Heck I think the ones i had are still at my parents house.

[ToyotaKev]

If a church goer, or know a regular attendee, I'd offer them up to what Axhiker said...that 7-10 yr old group that wouldn't "judge" that they are older...just excited to try!!!

[Umckibben]

+1 on the youth groups, donating to scouts would be a great option

[fr8dog]

With the fly stuff check with a Trout Unlimited group. There’s a lot of junk out there but sometimes a few diamonds show up. Don’t just dump it off.

[pabasshawk]

I am active with the Boy Scouts and have donated a great deal of rods, reels and tackle to them. Also my club takes a group of scouts fishing a couple times a year. Over the past 40 years we have had several scouts that we took fishing and gave tackle to who have become members of our club some even have kids of their own that have started fishing.

[riggpigg]

You might be surprised at the value of fly fishing stuff.....