Cermele: Sticking It Old School

Nowadays, every tackle manufacturer under the sun makes stickers in the hopes that you’ll pick one up at the tackle shop or use the one that came with your new reel to advertise on your boat or truck. I’ll admit, I’m actually a sucker for stickers. So imagine how excited I was (yeah, I get excited over such things) when I found a vintage DSC Sportcal striper decal buried behind some paint cans at the little hardware store near my marina. If you were alive and fishing or hunting in the 70s and 80s, I bet you remember these over-size fish and game stick-ons.

Tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure the company no longer produces them, but I can’t remember the last time I saw them in a tackle shop and Net searches come up empty. The price tag on the one I found is dated 1985. Even though she sold it when I was three, I vaguely remember being enthralled with these in my grandmother’s tackle shop. DSC made everything, and I mean everything. Catfish, crappies, trout, bluefish, deer, elk…there are about 30 species listed on the package.

They even list appropriate places to stick the decal, including my favorites, dune buggies and den walls. If I stuck this on my den wall, my wife would stick my head through the den wall a minute later. As of this writing, I’m not sure if I’ll stick the attacking striper anywhere. Maybe I’ll just hang onto it. So have you ever rocked one of these stickers on your dune buggy or den wall? I know some of you can picture these in the tackle shop back in the day. Which one was on your pick-up? – JC