By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

Every angler has his favorite fishing rod, the one he thinks spins magic as it reels off a hundred or so feet of monofilament in hopes of bringing back a shining, slapping, splashing fish for the dinner table.

I had a fishing rod like that until a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s gone.

The thought of eulogizing an inanimate object is a bit strange, but that’s just what I’m going to do here. And in actuality, this particular object isn’t even “dead,” it’s just gone to live with someone else.

Now I’m not particularly attached to a lot of “things.” Maybe it’s because with two children, I can’t afford a lot of cool stuff, or maybe it’s just because I hate shopping so much. Whatever the reason, there aren’t a lot of possessions that really flip my lid. The ones that do mostly have sentimental value.

I like my guitar and several things my wife has given me and my father’s ancient softball glove that I still use, even though it looks like it has fungus. And I liked my fishing rod.

My father gave it to me about 20 years ago for my birthday and it still worked like brand new the last time I used it. My dad, brother Brian and I were fishing on the causeway a couple of weeks ago and I was watching my brother use my father’s brand new cast net to snag a submerged part of the roadway, when I made the mistake of commenting about how well the rod still worked. My father stopped giving my brother the old “are you mentally challenged?” look long enough to remark that he was indeed amazed how long my fishing rig had held up. Then he went back to grimacing as Brian destroyed the cast net.

The Bible says pride is a sin, so that must be it. Voicing pride in my 20-year-old fishing rod must be what caused it to be taken from me. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.

Truth is I had come to regard the fishing rod as somewhat magical and indestructible. I always felt certain to catch something good with it, even in bad conditions. And it didn’t even backlash too often. No, I wasn’t completely insane about it. I didn’t give it a name like “Old Ted,” “Chief” or “The South American Dictator.” Frankly, I don’t even remember exactly what model the reel was. I know it was an Abu Garcia mounted on an Ugly Stik, but that’s about it.

The thing that amazed me most about this fishing rig was how well it handled complete neglect and abuse. Several times in our 20 years together the rod went months or even years without being used. Most of those long periods of stagnation were preceded by me forgetting to wash salt water out of the reel or do anything else that would prevent massive corrosion. Still, no matter how long it was allowed to sit and fester, the rod always worked perfectly after a squirt or two of WD-40.

Over the years, I hauled in countless redfish, plenty of trout, a mixed bag of other edible fish and about 12 million hardhead catfish and stingrays. One of my favorite catches was a 10-pound black drum I landed at dusk off of Horn Island in Mississippi, which turned out to be the only non-beer-related thing my friend and I would have to eat during our camping trip. Without my magic fishing rod, drunken cannibalism could have ensued.

Among the last things I caught with my beloved fishing rod were a five-pound redfish and a 600-pound alligator on The Causeway. OK, I taunted the alligator, but it was still fun. And it was without a doubt the biggest thing I ever hooked on the pole.

One day about two weeks ago, one of my neighbors called at work and said police were all around my house and there was blood all over the backyard. I rushed home, figuring some idiot must have broken into the shed and cut himself. I struggled to think of anything of value in the shed. I forgot about my prized fishing rod.

The backyard looked like Lizzie Borden had been at a family reunion. Blood was literally everywhere. The idiot burglar had broken a window and climbed into the shed, nearly cutting his wrist in half in the process. Determined to steal something, though, he soldiered on, hauling off my fishing rod, my brother’s brand new fishing rod, a dip net and my son’s very tiny fishing pole with dinosaurs all over it.

The idiot burglar also tried to take my barely functional leaf-blower, but decided to just bleed all over it and drop it in the yard. I’m convinced he saw it required a 10-to-1 gas-to-oil mix and knew he could never figure out the math, so he dropped it.

The police caught the burglar a few blocks down at the Oakleigh Apartments, by which time he’d almost bled to death and had to be hauled to USA Medical Center’s ICU. Unfortunately for me, in his blood-depleted state, the burglar dropped the fishing equipment and several other people apparently decided they wanted it. They all had amnesia when the police asked about it later.

My birthday’s coming up, and hopefully I’ll get some new fishing gear. Who knows, in 20 years, I might feel the same way about my new fishing rod. Still, it’s tough to say goodbye to the old one.

I just hope its new owner takes decent care of it, remembers to shoot it with a little WD-40 once in a while and never, ever catches anything with it but fat, ugly hardhead catfish.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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