"We've Thrown Everything but the Kitchen Sink"

When a young lad said that to his grandpa, with whom he had gone fishing, the grandpa responded, "You're right. Let's try it."

The young lad then sat there watching his grandpa rummage around in his old tacklebox. Shortly, the elderly gent pulled out his "kitchen sink lure (see photo at right)," put it at the end of a pop-gear rig, and 5 minutes later had a fish.

Incidentally, if you're a dummy like me and don't know what a pop-gear rig is, here's an explanation I found online. "Pop gear is known by many names. Among those names are gang trolls, cow bells, and Christmas trees. Pop gear generally consists of a 2- to 4-foot wire leader, with two to six spinner blades of different shapes, sizes and colors, as well as assorted colored beads to attract fish while trolling."

When his grandpa passed away, the boy's dad let him have his choice of one lure from that old tacklebox. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out which lure the young lad took. A few years later, when the boy had grown up, he proudly displayed the "kitchen sink lure" in his office.

"Everything but the kitchen sink" first appeared in the mid-20th Century--during World War II, to be exact--to describe scrap-metal drives. The only item in the kitchen which could not be recycled was the porcelain kitchen sink. Within a year or two after the war ended, the tackle industry exploded, and so did "novelty" lures, including the "kitchen sink lure."

One collector has assembled more than 50 different "kitchen sink lures (see old ad at left)," and several have been granted patents. Records indicate these lures generally sell between $20 and $30 in good condition.

What I found interesting is that the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" actually grew out of "everything but the kitchen stove," which was a popular phrase in the late 1800s. The advent of indoor plumbing and sinks precipitated the change.

I gotta be honest here. It doesn't much matter to me whether we call it "everything but the kitchen sink," or "everything but the kitchen stove." All I know is that it's extremely frustrating to have one of those days when you make cast after cast, after more casts, and end up having zilch, nada, or you-name-it to show for the effort. Maybe I'll start checking around to see if I can find one of those "kitchen sink lures" for sale.