Sat, Jul 04 2009
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Published September 07, 2008 12:43 am - Aquarium visitors go face to face with sharks The shark was ten feet in length and only inches away.
Now if I were wading the saltwater flats with a fly rod this would prompt me to return to shore — quickly. However, Karen and I were standing in a glass tube in the shark tank at the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks, Okla. My wife had enticed me to come along on a three-day trip to Tulsa with promises of good food, an obscure Cannes Film Festival movie at the Circle Cinema and an afternoon touring the world’s largest collection of antique fishing tackle. Karen was right about the food and the movie was good and even in English. Finally, on the afternoon of our last day, after we’d checked out of the hotel, we were on our way to Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant and then on to the museum. Once we crossed over the Arkansas River we arrived in Jenks, and it wasn’t long until we were seated in the restaurant with a wonderful view of the river. The meal was great, and we soon headed toward the museum. Long before we arrived we could see the complex from the road that wound along beside the river. The sprawling collection of low blue and white New England style buildings reminded me of a horse racing track. This should be one heck of a tackle museum. The Karl and Beverly White National Fishing Tackle Museum occupies only one room, albeit a very large room, of the Oklahoma Aquarium. It’s also home to the regional headquarters of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, all situated on the shores of the Arkansas River. After purchasing our aquarium tickets we located the tackle museum next to the snack bar. Immediately inside the museum entrance we came to a display of an open-framed contraption with pedals on one end and a bicycle seat and transom clamp on the other. The pedals were used to drive the propeller which hung down beneath the seat and into the water, much like today’s trolling motors. I was merely pointing out the novelty of the item when Karen stopped me and said not to even think about it. There was no way she was going to peddle that thing around while I fished. The amount and quality of the tackle in the collection is amazing. It was all donated to the state by native Oklahoman Karl White, who began collecting at age 8. His first lure was a Heddon and Sons Crazy Crawler. He had to save his ten-cent allowance for many weeks before he was able to afford the $1.10 purchase price. After collecting for over 55 years, Mr. White’s collection has nearly 30,000 pieces. As I rounded the end of one of the shelves of tackle, I stopped inches from running into an old wooden boat. It was unlike any boat I’d ever seen. It was about 14 feet long with wonderfully curved lines. The hull and various other portions of the craft were coated with a dark green fiberglass resin which nicely set off the naturally finished wood. It was beautiful. In my defense, the sign stating that the boat should not be touched was not visible from the direction I had approached. I discovered that it was a 1949 Skeeter Bass Boat, the first one Skeeter ever produced. I’m not sure of the year of the Mercury outboard that was attached, but both it and the boat had been completely rebuilt and are now works of art. There was a single chair nearby, and so I just sat and stared for a while. Hanging from the wall, not far from the Skeeter, was an odd float tube. Rather than being made from plastic or rubber, it was made of brass and didn’t look at all comfortable. Old tackle was everywhere. As I was admiring two casting reels, each made of brass with their own transparent display case, one of the volunteers stopped by. He said that one was the first production gear reduction casting reel ever made and the other was a Snyder, one of only eight of the first American geared reels ever made. 
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