At one point or another someone has collected something. For Jay Jorgensen, that collection would be fishing memorabilia and other water-related items.
Located in two garages at his home in Syracuse, the collection includes fishing lures, minnow buckets, old outboard motors and most anything fishing or water related.
"It's just fun to look at but it's probably not worth a lot," he said of his fishing gear.
His extensive collection of minnow buckets is his most prized possession, "because they are inexpensive and easy to collect," he joked. He has about 75 different, old minnow buckets. The most he has spent for a minnow bucket is $25. "I usually buy them for $10 or $15 or so."
At one time, he also collected water skis, reaching about 200 of them. "I didn't have the energy to take them down so I sold most of them," he said. Now, he has about 20 on a wall in one of his garages.
Jorgensen started collecting water skis in 2001 when he lived on Lake James. He moved to Lake Wawasee in 2005 with his wife, Jane.
"That's when an outboard motor came along and so I started collecting those," Jorgensen joked. "They (the motors) were mostly old and beat up."
His collection of old outboard motors, about 20, includes some of the first ones ever made, hand-cranked motors called "knuckle busters."
"I have two that are hand-cranked types," Jorgensen said. His oldest one was made around 1915, he estimated. But his collection doesn't stop there. "I have a lot of trophy fish, too. A lot of the trophies are wood carved or replicas of fish that I had caught," he said.
He has some fishing lures, too. "In fact, I have a lot of them," Jorgensen chuckled.
He also has leader boxes, used for fly-line leaders. "I have four of those," he said. "There's not that many of them around. If I find one and it's different, I'll buy it."
Most of his fishing-related collection dates back to the 1960s and earlier. His oldest item is a hand-cranked outboard motor, circa 1900, and an old minnow bucket.
He gets most of his items at antique stores, garage sales, and hunting and fishing towns, like in Minnesota. "There's different minnow buckets there than around here," said Jorgensen, who is always on the lookout for new memorabilia to add to his collection.
"It's fun and exciting, and it just gives me a grin," smiled Jorgensen.
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