I spent a portion of Sunday afternoon rearranging tackle boxes.

It was therapy for somebody whose been stuck in isolation for the past several weeks.

I inherited a lot of fishing tackle from my dad, who was a big-lake fisherman in Canada for many years before both time and dementia took him away from the water.

When my dad had a hobby, he was really engrossed in that hobby. There was all sorts of hunting and fishing in his life and in his most recent healthy years he was an avid golfer.

After my mom died in 2016 and dad went into assisted living, I had to figure out what to do with the piles upon piles of hobby gear. One of my nephews took over ownership of Dad’s best set of golf clubs. My dad had so many golf clubs saved up over the years that he had five complete sets. He also had assorted drivers, specialty clubs and putters. I already had my own set of Ping Zing irons, a B-60 Ping putter and a set of woods I’m comfortable hitting. The only thing I added to my bag from dad’s massive collection was a chipping club.

The other clubs eventually found good homes with friends.

Sorting through the fishing gear was much more difficult than the golf clubs. When I started reducing dad’s tackle collection it was an immense task. He had a dozen tackle boxes for all types of different fishing. At first, I enhanced my own tackle box. Through my life I’ve only ever felt the need to have one tackle box and it is more for nostalgia than for fishing. Then I put together tackle boxes for my son and nephews.

I had a friend who was getting heavily into musky fishing a few years ago and he asked if I had some tackle I could borrow for a trip. Borrow? I absolutely set him up. He ended up heading north with two full heavy-duty tackle boxes and three Ugly Stick rods with baitcasting reels. Since this friend had fished with my dad and I when I was younger, I felt like the musky equipment was going to a good home.

My favorite type of fishing is for largemouth and smallmouth bass using surface lures. I also like diving baits when fishing from shore over a drop-off.

This past weekend I boiled four tackle boxes down into one. I had to get rid of all of the rubber jigs and twisters. They were old and anyone who has had bags of those in their tackle box for some time knows that the rubber/plastic of which they are made begins to break down and just becomes a big lump of goo.

I focused on keeping lures and baits that reminded me of my favorite fishing trips. I kept a lot of Rapalas, Rat-L-Traps, poppers and crankbaits. I had all the colors of the rainbow — as that’s key to helping discover what fish are biting.

Some of the lures had seen better days and had lots of battle damage from being attacked by bass, northern pike, musky, walleyes… A good bait often is the bait that is all beat up. It shows that fish are attracted to it.

Just like with his golf clubs, my dad had more fishing gear than he could ever use. I saw lures that dad had kept since before I was born. There were lures I remember using when my dad and grandmother were in the boat. Just as my dad could spend a day from sunrise to sunset fishing, so could his mom. Me? I had no patience for such things. As I’ve mentioned before, there were times when going fishing was like being forced to eat vegetables. I just didn’t want to do it. My dad never got that, just like I never got his insatiable drive to be outdoors all of the time.

Still, he taught me how to golf, fish and hunt. Going through the tackle boxes sure brought back memories of the time he spent with me when I was growing up. Sharing time is the best gift of all.

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.