Old Fishing Tackle: Care & Cleaning

I find myself accumulating a rather large collection of old fishing lures as time goes by. A lot of people would consider it junk, but I think of caring for old fishing tackle as a way of preserving history. But it's difficult, old fishing tackle easily rusts and is difficult to keep intact. I like to try to maintain them as much as possible in order to keep them as close to their original condition as possible. There are a few steps you can take in order to preserve old fishing tackle and the first I'd like to discuss is how to clean old rubber baits. I use a M-30 lanolin based hand cleaner. It cleans off the sticky stuff but also does a great job at restoring the old lure to its fresh scent. I usually just splash some on and squish it around the bait and leave it sit for an hour or two. After that I rinse it with warm water. You'll be surprised on how well this works for old fishing tackle with rubber.


Cleaning rusty old fishing tackle is another story, I always check to see if the tackle looks to delicate to even be able to handle a cleaning. If it seems delicate, it's more useful to just leave it be. If you choose to give it a go, I've found that the best way to clean old rusty fishing tackle is to use a sanding pen. I believe these were originally created for small chips in cars but they do work pretty well to remove rust from old fishing tackle. Just be sure to use them gently in order to not damage the lure.


I always want to mention that the way you store old fishing tackle is highly important. Very dry air can cause old fishing tackle to shrink very quickly, this causes the paint to crack. The best kind of temperature to store old fishing tackle is around 65-70 degrees inside a case with low humidity, around 40% humidity is ideal. It's also wise to occasionally open the case to allow humid air in if the humdity falls below that point. It is also relevant to note that keeping moisture out of the case is also very crucial in regards to storing old fishing tackle.


Following these guidelines I am able to store my old fishing tackle for a long period of time without any noticeable degradation. It's actually quite a lot of work to maintain old fishing tackle, but it is something I enjoy so I don't mind giving them a little of my time to keep them in shape.