It was 1:40 a.m. by the time major league baseball's all-star game ended the other night and I couldn't help but think about a time when I was a kid and could listen to the all-star game in the early evening hours on the shore of my favorite bass lake. The lake was pretty remote and normally I would have just a transistor radio and a cousin for company. The newly built lake was a bass factory back then and we could catch 10 to 15 fish in just a couple of hours. But that was when all-star games ended by 9 o'clock. I miss that which got me thinking about some of the other icons of my salad days. So I decided to come up with my Top 10 list of the things I really miss about fishing.

No. 10--Sports Liquidators: Although the catalog arrived in the mailbox in late spring, it wasn't until summer that it got it's biggest workout--largely because I had to replace all the lures that I lost while fishing. I remember being mesmerized by page after page of fishing equipment and unnamed generic lures that I couldn't afford, but were sure as hell fun to look at. Finally, each summer, I'd manage to talk dad into springing for the lure "Grab Bag." Each day I'd longingly wait for the mail to arrive. As I said, none of the lure were brand name, but they worked.

Next....No. 9--Garcia Mitchell 300 spinning reel