A Row Boat Family Tradition on a Tablescape

This is a special tablescape. It honors a family tradition that is over 60 years old and that involves a mountain lake, a row boat, a magnet, and a rower with keen eyesight. Some of you readers may well have participated in our family tradition over the years decades ago because two sets of eyes are always better than one and it helps to have someone rowing and someone securing. It is a tradition that I still truly enjoy and hope to do again soon.

This family tradition started when I was about seven on this lake in the Eastern Sierra in California. This is a photo of me at about that age although our row boat is not in the photo. (It is a very old slide and the quality isn’t very good.) I learned to row a boat at that age. My father tied a long rope to one of those bushes and to the row boat and I would row the boat out to the end of the rope and then pull myself back in with the rope and repeat the process over and over. Soon after that I joined the family tradition. I actually got very good at rowing after a while, better than some of my brothers because I did it more often. That still applies to this day!

Our family did not fish for fish, we fished for lures. In those days lures were usually made of a magnetic metal. Fishermen would fish along the edge of the lake and lose their lures when they caught them on logs under the water. Luckily this lake and others nearby were shallow around the edge of the lake and the lures could be reached with a magnet on a long strong piece of heavy string. It was tricky because you had to position the boat over the lure so that you could see it well enough to touch it with the magnet. Sometimes the lure was stuck and you had to hit it with the magnet a few times to free it. The magnet we used was small, heavy, and very strong and we still use it. After a few years we sometimes took a long pole with us in the boat in case we had to dislodge the lure from the wood if it was really stuck. The row boat needed to be small and easy to move around. If the boat drifted away from above the lure’s location you had to maneuver it back into position. When I was alone I often had a oar in the water as well as the magnet on the string to help stabilize the boat and keep it from drifting.

The best time to fish for lures was early on a sunny morning when there was no wind and the lake was like glass. The lure would be reflected and shine in the sunlight and they could easily be spotted under the water even from a distance. I hold the record for the most lures found on one day (on two lakes), 101 lures. I also hold the record for the most found on one day on one lake, 50. (I think those days were at the very beginning of fishing season or at the very end when lots of lures had been lost.) We had a journal that we kept when we were at the cabin and all lure gathering numbers were carefully documented often with a witness counting. My family had a small mountain cabin within walking distance of two lakes and we had a small wooden row boat on each lake for fishing for lures. We were lucky because you need shallow water to fish for lures and both these lakes had shallow water that went out a distance before the lake got deep.

This is a slide photo of me as a teenager fishing for lures. (We used that net as a pole too.)

We ended up with over 1,000 lures and we displayed them by type on cork board in the cabin as the collection grew. We gave some away from time to time to make more room. (Someone gave us a jigsaw puzzle with lures on it and you can see it in this photo too.)

Six years ago on one of my special birthdays my brothers bought me another small white boat. This photo is of me using it for the first time and yes, I did have the magnet, and I did get two lures! The boat is stored at our mountain cabin and the tradition continues! Now back to the tablescape.

As soon as I saw the row boat on this salad plate at Bed, Bath & Beyond online earlier this year I flashed back to fishing for lures and I knew I had to do a tablescape to honor our family tradition using row boats to fish for lures. This plate is called Blue Speckle Sleep In Accent Salad Plate and it is labeled Everyday White Porcelain by Fitz and Floyd.

There are two different plate designs in this series, this is the other one. It is called Blue Speckle Lake Explore Accent Salad Plate and it is labeled Everyday White Porcelain by Fitz and Floyd. This image really reminds me of one of the lakes near our current mountain cabin.

I bought these blue plates online a few years ago at Ballard Designs, I think they are called Southern Living. They are about 11 1/2” in diameter, a good size to be either a dinner plate or a charger. I love plates that will work for either! You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying dinner plates here.

I didn’t like the shade of any of my red chargers on this tablescape so Hubby went to the Dollar Store and bought six chargers and spray-painted them the perfect red color for me. We have done this before and it is an inexpensive way to create a charger that is the perfect color for your tablescape. To read about what you should be considering when you are buying chargers click here.

I seem to be in a rut with this red flatware set. I have used it on my last three tablescapes and now this one too. It is often in use during July (as well as other months too). The set is called Milano Red Ginkgo International LePrix. I have had this set for years but it is still for sale. I am not sure where I bought it. I use it often when I need a more informal red flatware set for a tablescape. You can see it on a Grinch Tablescape that I did for Christmas here. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying flatware here.

The red, white, and blue plaid napkins came from either Pier 1 or HomeGoods several years ago. The fabric is kind of a seersucker material. Hubby was a great help with this tablescape including these napkin rings. We found the small boats and then the small oars on Etsy and he painted them and then glued them together for me. I had some napkin rings that I didn’t like so he took them apart and glued that white ring to these row boats. They turned out really cute I think. This navy blue polyester tablecloth probably came from TableclothsFactory online a few years ago.

These tiny row boats came from Party Swizzle online. When I saw them, I knew I could use them as place card holders on this tablescape.

I used this red glass goblet on my last three tablescapes too and now this one as well. I can’t remember where I found it last year. If I were starting a tablescaping collection, a red goblet would be one of my first purchases. I use them often. The blue acrylic goblet on the right came from Pier 1 several years ago. I really like the height and shape of it and I have it in several different colors. Dollar stores sell them sometimes in different colors in acrylic and in glass. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying goblets for your tablescaping collection here.

I bought this small row boat on Amazon a few months ago but it looked very different then. It was a distressed white color and was partly draped with a net and sea shells. Hubby removed all that for me and painted it. He actually made the oars out of pieces of wood and then painted them as well. I added some small white rocks to the table for the boat to sit on.

I added some red glass salt and pepper sets to the table as well.

Here’s wishing I was out on a lake fishing for lures right now, with the perfect conditions though, no wind and plenty of sun!

To see 260+ other tablescapes that I have created please click here. If you are on Facebook, join my Tablescape Ideas group! Just click on the Facebook Search box at the top of the page and type in Tablescape Ideas. Don’t miss my Tablescaping How-To section at the top of this blog post (or here) for more tablescaping tips and tricks.

I put a new tablescape on my blog every week so please check back!

If you live in Southern California join our Facebook tablescaping group Southern California Tablescapers BTS Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/440356398581157 We are planning a gathering for tablescapers in January 2025.

This blog post was featured at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage, https://www.mizhelenscountrycottage.com/ Lots of great recipes there, check it out!