Review of the March 2012 NFLCC Gazette & ORCA Reel News

Review of the March 2012 NFLCC Gazette & ORCA Reel News

The mail recently brought the latest issues of two of my favorite publications. The first is the NFLCC Gazette (Vol. 34, No. 130--March, 2012). It contains a lot of superb articles, including the cover story by Fred Sweeney on the Creek Chub/Shur-Strike Salesman's Sample Case. It is wonderful to get more background on this legendary find.

Colby Sorrells offers up one of the most popular lures ever made, the Johnson Silver Minnow. With tens of millions of lures sold, it's one of the great successes in the history of fishing.

Steve Scarborough gives us a nice article on a rod-and-reel combo I'd not seen before. Bob Dennis opines on Carolina Lure Collecting, Darwin "The Bomber Man" Stewart writes up a biography of Jack Wendling, Bob Hornstra's nifty article on the Patterson (NJ) Rod and Gun Store, and Lee Bontrager gives us a short piece on Alaska's Own Mary Ann.

Yet another fine issue. The Gazette is ably edited by Jim Fleming down in Music City and more information about the NFLCC can be found by Clicking Here.

Around the same time, we got the latest issue of ORCA's Reel News. This big issue featured a roster of great articles, beginning with Bob Millers' Decade-by-Decade look at Pflueger reels, this time on the "dismal thirties."

My own contribution this month was a detailed article on the fishing reels of the Holiday Sport Stores, a neat post-war company. We also had regular contributions including More Reel Stuff by the great Stu Lawson, who gave us some obscure B&M reels, Mike Cacioppo with the third installment of his great series on Penn (on left-handed models), Jim Schottenham's Reel Auction Report, and Ben Wright's Spinning Lines column on an interesting combo reel.

Another home run of an issue!

If you are not an ORCA member--and by now I'm just going to hold my breath until you are--you can join us by Clicking Here. The Reel News is lovingly edited by Richard K. Lodge.

-- Dr. Todd