SHORELINES

9 a p c s hor e l i n e s.c om | 2015 Vol :4 "The Bible says we can expect to live three score and 10 years – I'm a couple of years past my warranty," quips Billy Prince. One thing that keeps him going is adding to his whopping collection of vintage fishing tackle. "It's my hobby, I've been doing it almost all my life," he says. "I've got more than 6,000 pieces, some going back to the 1800s." Many are still in their original packaging (which increases their value and vintage appeal). "I mostly find them at yard sales and tackle shows," he explains – including the annual autumn one in Decatur that he founded. If fish haven't evolved much in millennia, the gear used to catch them has. An outbuilding behind Prince's Decatur home brims with a dazzling diversity of lures and other tackle, most of it neatly grouped and displayed on pegboards. He calls it "my tackle box," an epic version of the one he had as a boy, when he and his grandfather would organize their tackle boxes before going fishing. Many of the most valuable are stored inside, in a room where a police scanner crackles with calls (retired from a General Motors plant, he's a chaplain with the Decatur Police Department). A sentimental favorite is the uncommon "Jim Bo" lure. Opposite: Photo by billy brown — More than 6,000 lures spanning decades are displayed at Billy Prince's home in Decatur. Above: Photo by billy brown — Collector Billy Prince holds the lure that started it all. An ad he found in his father's wallet led him on a search for the lure for years to honor his father's memory.

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