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Where it all began

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ASrod

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So long ago.  Details fuzzy.  I was close to a self-starter though.

 

I know my Father had zero interest.  I recall him taking me only once..

 

I got my first rod/reel combo through S&H Green stamps. 

 

Any credit goes to my maternal Grandfather and my uncle on that side.  I'd go out to the Poconos for a week each summer, and a highlight was always a trip to Paradise Trout Hatchery.  We used antique equipment I wish I could get my hands on.   It probably came from Great-Grandfather and surprisingly Great Grandmother, as I know they fished the Delaware River.  I have very old pictures of her with fish, and my Grandmother used to tell me about how they prepated the eels they got in the river. 

 

My Uncle had a fancy reel...a black Zebco 202, and he would take us bass fishing at some ponds in the area.  

 

But most of my early exploration was alone.  My brother got into it a little bit, but not like me.  I took care of all the equipment, bought the lures and stuff.  Never fished with a partner either. 

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My dad and my great uncle. My dad got me going when I could barely walk catching perch, that grew into fishing derbies and ice fishing. My great uncle taught me how to fly fish when I was 8 or 9 and then how to tie flies. My dad also introduced me to saltwater fishing starting on jetties on vacation, then the Bunny Clark out of Perkins Cove. He also got me started on the ditch when I was 10 or 11, he caught the first cow I had ever seen and I was hooked. I’m lucky enough to fish with my dad 3 or 4 days a week when I’m home. 

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever~Jacques Yves Cousteau

 

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my grandfather. took me fishing every chance he had. i love him to death and would do anything for him. unforuntatly he is in hospice care in florida and tested positive for covid. im here in new jersey just waiting for the call from my uncle. 

i can remember him driving me to the bait shop every morning to buy me worms and drive me to the local park to fish off the bridge for sunnies. and damn it, he never left until every worm was gone. some of my best memories. i remember holding a fish for the first time in my hands, unhooking my first fish. hooking and loosing my first fish i never got to see. and also remember his air conditioner in his car always blasting on high and as a little kid i was freezing but never said anything. i was just happy he drove me to get worms, until one day he looked at me and said " if your cold say something" he said that with a laugh, and kindly turned the air off. 

 

im sure his number is coming up quick and just want to say how much i love him and thank you for making me fisherman. 

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I lived with my parents and grandparents at a small resort in Wisconsin. When I was 2, my grandfather had me fishing with a bamboo  pole. To this day I can close my eyes and see the black rock bass being hauled up. We trapped crayfish and minnows and had a dirt pile for worms. Bait was sold to the renters. We also rented boats.

 

When I was older I would go out fishing with the city people to show them the spots. The green and white cardinal was the hit reel. Most people from the city borrowed our Zebcos and Johnson’s. We had piles of those and I still have a row of them on my rod rack - wife reels :)

 

I don’t have a time in my memory when I was not fishing.

 

For ocean fishing, we went to Clearwater and visited sanibel. We also had lots of family in Southern Georgia, most are dead or moved on. We fished live shrimp off piers. I fished for barracuda off bridges around Miami with my sisters boyfriend.

 

i had no idea how to fish off a beach until I joined SOL around 11 years ago. We still go to Georgia to see family and fish off the beach.

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1 hour ago, Birdsnester said:

Great thread.  My Dad passed a couple months ago.   So this one is difficult.  I’ll take some time and think about this and post.  Good stuff.  

That’s sad, my dad passed away about the same time I joined SOL. He went to the hospital, to have his lungs checked, I was fishing on his pier with his Mitchell when he came down and told me he had lung cancer and six months to live.

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1 hour ago, kype said:

my grandfather. took me fishing every chance he had. i love him to death and would do anything for him. unforuntatly he is in hospice care in florida and tested positive for covid. im here in new jersey just waiting for the call from my uncle. 

i can remember him driving me to the bait shop every morning to buy me worms and drive me to the local park to fish off the bridge for sunnies. and damn it, he never left until every worm was gone. some of my best memories. i remember holding a fish for the first time in my hands, unhooking my first fish. hooking and loosing my first fish i never got to see. and also remember his air conditioner in his car always blasting on high and as a little kid i was freezing but never said anything. i was just happy he drove me to get worms, until one day he looked at me and said " if your cold say something" he said that with a laugh, and kindly turned the air off. 

 

im sure his number is coming up quick and just want to say how much i love him and thank you for making me fisherman. 

God Bless you and your grandfather. Do you have time to mail him a thank you card? Send him a letter with what you said.

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My father starting taking me fishing when I was very young, my earliest memories are of fishing.  Then when I was six I broke my spin rod falling off my bike and he asked me if I wanted to be a fly fisherman - so replaced the rod with a fly rod.  A couple weeks later we took classes on fly tying at Stoddards and my father became a commercial tyer (but joke was on them because my dad hated doing anything by rote so I ended up filling most of the orders - never asked about homework it was you need a gross of elk wing caddis.)

 

He passed away when I was ten. 

 

These days I take my daughter out - she fly caught her first trout before her third birthday (Echo Practice rod rigged with a few feet of fly line and a leader is much easier for little hands than those push-button abominations.) 

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Started on golf course ponds and grandpas boat every Saturday all summer. I think I was really hooked after I saved up and got a inshore setup and taught myself to catch speckled trout. Being in FL when I grew up we all fished almost every day after school. I still can fish every day of the week if I feel like it so I just keep fishing.

(*member formerly known as 'Badtothebugs')

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My ol’ man. He died this past winter.
 

I guess it started at the very beginning of my life. When I was a new born baby only days out of the hospital, I was apparently car seated into the surburban, along with my mother, and the boat being towed behind us.  On our way for what became our yearly trip while I was a kid from Jersey to Key West Florida for a winter of fishing.
 

I learned to walk on the boat. I learned to ride a bike at the marinas parking lot. I probably said my first words out there on the water while fishing I bet. I go through the family picture albums, and it’s Little me on the boat with either a rod or fish in my hands.


All my fishing was always on the boat tho pretty much for over 20 years. Wasn’t till the last maybe 10 years Or so I met some people who introduced me to surf fishing. 
 

I never got to surf fish with my father though. I wish I had that chance. I don’t know why, I guess it’s cuz we had the boat, now my boat, the same boat I learned everything on, which I haven’t even put in the water yet this year, makes me depressed I guess which is why I’ve put that off. 
 


 

 

“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”

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Many years.....ago, i got no money to buy foods when i was still in University. My housemate and me decided to go fishing for free foods on the table. We only using handline n earthworm as bait. Manage to caught some bream, tailor & KGW.

From that day on, fishing been part of my life till today.

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I’m sitting here in my way to work into lower Manhattan on the LIRR.  Thinking how disgusting it is down there now and how I have to walk past so much destruction and filth.  But then I remember times renting a wooden Skiff out of captain Eddie’s, digging up some bait, putting the 1962 Evinrude 5.5 hp on the back of the Skiff and heading out.  Dad would wake me up at like 4:30 am, lol lots of times it was on school days.  He would have already made me breakfast and lunch.  Usually a bunch of cheese sandwiches.  He was always so excited to go.  He couldn’t sleep the night before because of it.  My parents told me that I was casting at 6 months old.  I honestly don’t know how that’s possible but they swear it’s true.  They said I was casting like an adult at 2.  Still don’t get it but they swore to it.  So many years on those wooden skiffs with dads old motor and a bunch of cheese sandwiches.  Lots and lots of Flounder, Fluke, Blackfish and of course Sea Robbins mall and Bergals.  Dad passed April 3 of this year after a long battle with dementia.  He was 85.  I wrote a lyric to honor him called

 

Memories in my Heart.

 

Dug up some bait

by the Throggs neck Bridge

Headed out to Freeport 

Cause’ Captain Eddy rented skiffs 

Filled up with gas 

and we were in our way

Headed down the Grand Canal

On the Great South Bay


Chorus

Those were the days
Memories in my heart

Me and Daddy playin’

The bay was our park

All those summer’s fishing

Spending time with him

Those were the days

that put memories in my heart
 

Well back home in Levittown 

With more than a bucket full

He showed me how to clean em’

For our backyard barbecue 

Man those were good times

Oh I’ll never forget 

As long as I’m still breathin’

As long as I’m still breathin’


Repeat Chorus


Bridge

well we’re much older now

And the miles do separate 

but we still hold on to all our memories 

 

repeat chorus

Edited by Birdsnester
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