|
 |
|
|
|
interview
and photo
by Alex Roslin |
George Riddell
|
| 
Veteran
angler, fishing philanthropist and owner of Montreal’s
oldest tackle shop.
MORE
INTERVIEWS |
DISCUSS ON OUR FORUM |
This
month George Riddell celebrates his 77th birthday as he gears
up for another year of fishing. And you can still find him behind
the counter of his “hangout,” Riddell Fishing Tackle
at 55 Bernard Street West in Montreal.
ON LEARNING TO FISH
I’ve been fishing more than 65 years. I started in 1937.
My father got laid off in the Depression. We didn’t get
welfare in those days, and I needed food. I learned how to fish
through trial and error. I used to make hooks from finishing
nails and dig up my own worms from the ground. I got my line
from a butcher store. I didn’t even have 25 cents for
tackle.
ON OPENING HIS STORE
I started my store in 1960 with only $250. I made almost everything
myself: sinkers, lead weights, lures. I made the best leaders
in Montreal at the time. No one makes leaders like that any
more. I also made a lure retriever to get lures caught on logs
in the water. Tourists have come to my store from around the
world to buy these things and collect them as souvenirs. They
never saw anything like it. I’ve sold thousands of them.
ON HIS BIGGEST CATCH
I once caught a six-foot sturgeon in Rivière des Prairies.
He weighed 160 pounds. There’s a picture of him on my
wall. He was a giant. He yanked me so hard he almost pulled
me out of the boat. My favourite hat went flying off my head.
My friend said, “Your hat, your hat!” I said, “Screw
the hat, I want the fish!” You don’t play with a
six-foot fish. I never caught anything bigger.
ON STAYING IN BUSINESS
It’s a hard business. But it’s my thing; I can’t
let it go. There used to be a lot of other fishing stores in
the city, but they’ve been going down over the many years.
Things have changed so much. The cost of merchandise has gone
up so much that there’s not many of the small guys in
the business. The height of the good days was ’75, ’76,
but the good old days are long gone. In ’75 there could
have been 20 stores, but today there’s maybe six or seven.
Everything that used to cost pennies now costs dollars. This
is a story that could never be repeated today because everything
is too expensive. There’s not going to be another one
like me.
ON HIS GIVING NATURE
Over the years, I have given away thousands of dollars of stuff.
I want to give all this stuff away in case I drop dead. I’m
too proud to sell it. Too many people are hungry for dollars.
I used to lay out carp on the sidewalk and put out a sign, Free
Fish. I once gave away 600 or 700 pounds of fish.
ON THE SECRET OF FISHING
I tell people, “Don’t give up. The fish are in the
water. You just have to learn how to catch them.” That’s
the secret. You have to have many bad days before you have a
good day. If you caught fish every time, you’d get bored.
|
| BACK
TO INTERVIEWS | DISCUSS ON
OUR FORUM |
|
|
|
|