TIGHT LINES
TUNING UP FOR SPRING

with Andrew Spencer Another Daffodil Weekend is upon us, and that means that antique cars are coming out of the woodwork in preparation for the car parade on Saturday. I've never been one for owning such vehicles - aside from the prohibitive cost of purchasing, say, a 1967 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, the upkeep ain't cheap - so I've been more of a sideline observer over the past years.

That all changes now.

I was recently the recipient of a gift from my grandmother, a gift that qualifies for the antique car parade. She bestowed upon me her 1968 Volkswagen Bug. Now understand that this car hadn't been started, to the best of my knowledge, in four years or so, and it certainly hadn't been driven in that time. And, in the interest of full disclosure, it hadn't been inspected, either, but it's very high on my list of things to get done this week.

The gang at Nantucket Auto Body got it up and running, and I was off. My first stop was the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce on Main Street, so that I could register it for the car parade. Toby Greenberg smiled, asked me about Palm Beach (without, I might add, asking about my lacking a suntan, which was a HUGE point in her favor) and then informed me, much to my chagrin, that there was a waiting list to get a car into the parade. Apparently this thing has gotten popular over the years.

It's not a Rolls, but it does roll. Be on the lookout this weekend for the man in the yellow pants. Photo by Jill Sandole

So I put my name on the waiting list and hoped. And as of this writing, I've still not heard whether or not I'm in. But when I really sit and think about it, I'm not too terribly concerned. I've got my pants for the event, and that's half the battle. Whether or not the car actually gets in the parade, the whole possibility of being able to drive an antique car while wearing yellow Lilly Pulitzer pants was enough to get me to do what I really needed to do, namely getting the car in working order.

And you know what? The same thing is true for your fishing equipment, kids.

The segue'll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be a segue.

Friends and neighbors, your fishing equipment has been sitting around all winter long, and it doesn't matter if you've had it professionally stored or just stuck in your garage or a back closet. No matter where it's been, your reels need to be tuned up and your tackle boxes need to be cleaned out. So get on the stick before you head out to the beach.

Fishing line deteriorates over time, and the old trick of stripping off ten yards-or-so and "starting fresh" is all well and good when you're working with a relatively new spool of line. But line that's been on your reel since last fall already has more than its fair share of nicks in it, not to mention the deterioration over the course of the winter. So splurge on yourself and drop the extra few dollars to get new line on your reel. Nothing - and I mean nothing - will make the nice days following a bad nor'easter go south in a hurry like losing that first fish of the season to old line out on the western shores of the island. And if nothing else, can I get some props for including all four compass points in one sentence?

And just as your line can deteriorate over the winter, so, too, can your tackle. Despite your best efforts at prevention, you'll probably discover that more than one of your favorite plugs has some rust or other signs of age and diminished strength. And those super-duper Slug-Gos you bought when the stripers were thick as thieves in October probably won't be quite what they were six months back. So while you're getting that line spooled, splurge a little bit more and update your plugs.

Rods and reels aren't immune to the effects of time, either, so make sure the guides on your rods are still good and, if you need to, get broken or damaged ones repaired. Get your reel checked out, too, and let somebody lubricate it and change out any parts that have passed their prime. You might want to check for pliers that your good-for-nothing children might have "borrowed" in your absence and failed to return, and make sure that your knives are sharpened. They tell me that they're catching bass pretty regularly over on the Cape, and, if the wind will ever die around this place, we might get a few here any day now. But like I said before, nothing ruins the fun of that first fish like broken line or malfunctioning equipment.

And I realize that all of this stuff adds up when you start looking at the final bill, but just keep thinking about that '67 Silver Shadow. I found one for sale for thirty grand. That eight dollar line

change is starting to look like quite the bargain. I