The new cane pole
An old-fashioned favorite is back
WHEN MY FRIEND Kent Driscoll recently handed me a new B’n’M telescoping pole, I couldn’t wait to use it. Kent is a pro staffer for the company, which has been making fishing rods since 1949. The new pole, which is called the Ambush, is made of graphite, but it’s an old-fashioned cane pole style designed by legendary crappie angler Steve Coleman.
Using the Ambush took me right back to my childhood, when I was 5 years old and we were headed to the lake for some fishing and camping. Those days were so much fun. Some of my most vivid memories from that time are weekend outings with my twin sister, Kim, and my parents. Kim and I spent hours catching crawdads along the shoreline, turning over rocks and snatching them before they left the scene. When Momma wasn’t grilling hot dogs or making sandwiches, she and Kim went swimming. It was a great time for us all.
The highlight of these camping trips, for me, was fishing with my dad. We had a small boat and could see the camp from where we fished. I would wave at Momma each time we passed near enough, and if we caught a fish, I held up the size with my hands. My Dad was a serious angler. He had good fishing equipment that included one of those giant two-sided tackle boxes filled with tackle. At the time, I had used only two types of fishing poles—spinning rods and B’n’M jig poles that my grandfather used. I had never seen a cane pole until that day on the way to the lake.
There was a small gas station, or filling station as we called them back then, on the way to the boat ramp. We always stopped for food and minnows. On this day, standing at the counter waiting to pay, I happened to look up into the rafters where there were fishing poles like I had never seen—but I knew what they were made of, because I had seen cane growing along a creek. Without any guides or even a place for a reel, I might not have known they were used for fishing except for one thing—the B’n’M logo.
Those B’n’M jig poles that my grandfather kept in his little barn shed had that same logo. After gathering tools for planting beans or repairing the hog pen, my grandfather always let me close that little shed door. Maybe he wanted to teach me to keep the door closed—or maybe he was giving me a moment to check out those poles and dream about fishing.
As fishing technology progressed, so did fishing poles—even the humble cane pole. My cane pole days were limited to that one trip, more than 50 years ago now, when I thought using a pole with no guides and no reel was the coolest thing. Today, my cane pole fascination is back.
