B’n’M Poles takes jig fishing to a new level.

Winter 2024

By Jimmy Jacobs

Regardless of your age and how long you have fished, there are few sights that offer the pleasure provided by watching the float attached to you line disappear beneath the surface. Some of my earliest memories of angling revolve around sitting on the lakeshore with my maternal grandfather and swinging out a line with a cane pole. Having a panfish snatch the cork beneath the surface was an electric moment.

Cane poling! Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.

In the ensuing years, much has changed about fishing, most of it for the better. Today the cane has been replaced by more modern equipment. That is especially true when it comes to the new, redesigned Buck’s Gold Jig Pole from B’n’M Poles.

The redesigned Buck’s Gold Jig Pole. Photo courtesy of B’n’M Poles.

Constructed of 30-ton, IM8 graphite, the redesigned Buck’s Gold provides added durability, stiffness and sensitivity like no other rod on the market. Silicon carbonate spinning guides provide smooth casting and line retrieval and allow this rod to be used in a number of popular techniques.

The shock-absorption reel seat provides outstanding feel and sensitivity to match perfectly with the split-grip genuine Portuguese cork handle. No, they don’t use the fake stuff. The rich, gold color indicates a rod of high quality and that’s exactly what is delivered

These poles come in 10-foot,  6.3-ounce and 12-foot, 6.6-ounce models.

You might be surprised to learn that these quality fishing rods originate from a company that started off making brooms and mops, thus the B for broom and M for mop!

Returning from World War II, Woodrow Wilson Simmons began a business making brooms and mops. He incorporated it in 1947 as B & M Company. Woodrow, however, was also a crappie angler who preferred fishing with a bamboo pole. “I realized pretty quickly that folks would much rather go fishing than sweep the porch,” he discovered.

B’n’M’s founder was a crappie angler. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.

By 1949 the company had abandoned brooms and mops and in the 1950s had become the nation’s largest supplier of bamboo fishing poles.

When his son William “Buck” Simmons returned from military duty in Korea, he rejoined the company, having virtually grown up in the business. Latching onto current trends, he developed fiberglass, telescopic poles that were lighter, more sensitive and more transportable. Finally in 1979, they again transitioned, this time into graphite, which spawned the Buck’s Graphite Jig Pole line of rods.

Which brings us back around to the new design of those poles.

For more information and pricing visit the B’n’M website.

Jimmy Jacobs is the editor of Georgia Outdoor Adventures, as well as being editor/publisher of On The Fly South. He also is a member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. He makes his home in Marietta with his English setters, Luke and Lulu. He can be contacted at jimmyjacobs@mindspring.com.