posted
When I was a little bitty girl, I used to catch the minnows for my Mom and Dad. I would sing, "Minnows come from Minnowsota".
I used to love to watch my dad clean fish. I would poke at their squishy eyeballs. And then, after they'd been flayed and were still flipping, I'd ask if we could let them go.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
When I was 9 or 10, we visited my grandparents in Virginia Beach, VA. We went fishing off the pier. Nobody was catching anything except blue crabs (which are extremely tasty). But then I threw my line in the water and caught flounder after flounder! I reeled them in until my arms got tired.
All the old fishermen who came every day were staring at me in jealousy and astonishment. My gramps asked me what my secret was, and I said I could hear them when they hit. It was true! There was some sort of a vibration, and I could hear it.
So I was the only one who caught fish that day. But I was pretty tired out by then!
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Gosh, I haven't been fishing in forever... My dad and my grandma used to take me and my brother to the wharf in Monterey--not the Fisherman's Wharf, where all the markets and touristy restaurants are, but the 2nd wharf, where people actually fish--and we'd catch mackerel. It was lots of fun, but I never really developed a taste for mackerel.
Sometimes we'd go lake fishing, too. The place we most often went was this little lake just south of San Jose. It was hardly fair, since it was a stocked lake, but it was fun as a kid.
When I was really little my dad and his 3rd wife used to take us to Lake San Antonio for the weekend. My stepmom's parents had a motorhome; for a short time I thought that was "roughing it." One time--I think I was about 3 or 4--when we were there my dad caught a perch with his bare hands, just grabbed it and threw it on shore. Only I wasn't looking, and I wanted to have seen it, so I asked him to put it back and do it again. Sadly, the fish got away.
My mom's boyfriend from when I was in kindergarten through third grade was a big fisherman. We lived with him in Big Sur for a year for part of first and second grades. He sort of disdained the sort of fishing I did with my dad; we used bait and he was a fly fisherman. He never actually took me fishing with him, but he taught me how to tie some flies (I still remember how to make a black leech), and we would feed the rainbow trout that lived in the creek in his front yard. In the summer we would catch crawdads and then barbecue them. He wasn't good with kids, and many of my memories of him are scary, but fishing--and other outdoor stuff--was one place where I was able to connect with him.
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posted
I fished a lot as a kid. My most memorable experience is reeling in a catfish, getting it out of the water and having it poo all over my shirt. o_O
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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It was this <-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----> big
This thread is really close to my heart - a couple of the best stories in my childhood are fishing stories. And some of the most relaxed times as an adult.
Trouble is, this thread just became really hard to read (I don't have large monitors at home or at work) and the quoted arrow you put in has really made reading this thread hard work.
Any chance you could edit the post to get the visual formatting to the usual?
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I intend to write some fun, noncontroversial, fluffy stuff here and hopefully read some.
Like...
My first time fishing was when I was four years old. My dad took me. I had my own bamboo pole. We were fishing on the shore of Lake Ontario. Well, somehow or other, my first fishing trip was wildly successful. Dad helped my pull in four good sized silver bass (I'm not sure how big they really were - they looked really big to a four-year old).
Of course, I wanted to eat them. Trouble was, my parents had some big concerns about the pollution in Lake Ontario. So they told me I couldn't eat them right away.
They had to take them to the "fish cleaners."
So the day after, we had fish filets, fresh from the "fish cleaners."
It was a couple of years before I that particular lie was exposed.
And, luckily, I hadn't gone around telling my friends about the fish cleaners. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:All the old fishermen who came every day were staring at me in jealousy and astonishment. My gramps asked me what my secret was, and I said I could hear them when they hit. It was true! There was some sort of a vibration, and I could hear it.
This reminds me of the summer my family took a cross-country trip. I was 11 or 12. We spent a few days at Yellowstone Park. My dad and I fished at Yellowstone Lake.
We'd already been told that simple still fishing wouldn't work there. So dad bought us some spinners. We attached worms to the hooks.
Well, no one was getting anything that day. Except me. I caught five trout - 4 cutthroat and 1 rainbow - all about a foot long. Dad caught 2 cutthroat.
A lot of the older fishermen were frustrated and a little peeved that I was having all the luck. The main difference between what they were doing and what they were doing was my bait.
My worms were a little past their prime. In fact, they were rotting. They would come, inspect my worms and walk away shaking their heads.
It was my first experience with fresh trout.
It was also the last time I had any luck with a spinner or lure of any kind. I generally use worms, and cast out to likely places. I've pulled in some good stuff that way too.
More on that later...
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Seems to be a common theme, but I'll share anyway. My parents had some friends that lived near Lake Bosworth (if you've never heard of it, don't worry, few who don't live on it have either. When I was four or so my dad and his friend took me out in his friend's boat on the lake to fish for trout. I caught 3 fair sized Rainbows while they were catching nothing at all. After my third fish they put in to shore, handed me my rod, and told me to go back to the house. They stayed out there the rest of the afternoon, but they didn't catch anything other than my three fish.
More recently, when I went home for winter break I didn't get much time to spend with Dad, so I cleared one afternoon and went over there to spend time with him. We ended up going fishing for Steelhead in the river by my house. It was just above freezing and raining, and the river was high and swollen from recently melted snow, as we stood on the narrow shelf of rock between the water and the cliffs behind us. We could barely hear each other talk, and we certainly didn't catch anything, but it was nice to spend time with Dad, but it seems like through fishing there can still be a connection between a forty-year-old industrial mechanic and his nineteen-year-old daughter.
Posts: 349 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Imogen and I both love fishing, and have spent many a pleasant evening dipping a line in the Swan river while watching the summer thunderstorms rumbling in across from the coast. However, it has always been my personal ambition to catch something big and feisty - you know, kind of Old Man and the Sea style of thing.
And so, a couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to get a few days work up in Broome, in the WA Northwest - one of the most *gorgeous* places in Australia, and also, co-incidently, the home of some of the best fishing. Imogen came along for a break, and we spent a couple of days having a ball - sipping cocktails at sunset on cable beach, generally living it up.
But of course, the lure of the lure grew too strong, and on our final day we chartered a very nice man with a very fast boat to take us fishing for barramundi in the local mangrove creeks. (For our American friends - barramundi (or "barra" = Prized Australian saltwater fish. Grows anything up to nine or ten kilos, beautiful eating, and best of all, a real fighter - they hit the lure like a fright train. Anyway...)
"Excellent!" Thought I, who had by this point in my life spent literally hundreds of dollars on fishing gear to catch nothing larger than a (very small) herring. "Today is my 'big fish' day."
And so out we went. For six hours.
During that time, I got one bite, which promptly managed to throw the lure. And that was that.
Except that Imogen managed to reel in a nine kilo threadfin salmon, a smaller (probably four kilo) Bluenose salmon, and a reasonably large queenfish.
(did I mention that I caught nothing?)
Luckily, though, it was a *fantastic* day for both of us, and still, despite my lack of catching, one of the best fishing days of my life. Just the look on 'min's face when the threadfin came over the side of the boat made it all worthwhile. (Actually, there's a story there, too, but I'll let her tell you about that.)
Posts: 466 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I love fishing; it is my way of stress relief and relaxation. During my summer break, I will spend literally every evening fishing local ponds for bass, bluegill, and catfish. I go trout fishing in the North Georgia Mountains, and when I lived in WI, I would hit the salmon runs every year.
I recall that I was at a BSA camp a few years ago, and spent my evenings fishing the spring-fed pond for rainbows. One night, I tied on a small red and white Dardevle spoon, and made my casts. For the next hour and a half, I hooked a fish on literally every cast that landed in my intended area. And I cast pretty accurately. It was all in the motion...I would cast out over a hump where the water was less than two feet, and reel steadily over a deep spring. In the middle of the spring, I would stop for less than a second...it was then that you could see five or six streaks of silver under the water homing in on the lure. The other fellows were...not the type that I would share information with. They had no respect for the environment, nor the typical code of ethics accepted by sportsman. It was entirely sad to me. I wound up with over 40 caught fish that night, and I released 34. The rest we grilled over an open fire.
Posts: 515 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
When Jane and I went on our road trip to visit Human, we stopped in Arkansas for her mom to fish, and Jane taught me how to fly fish. I tried until I learned that we were just trying to catch fish, we weren't going to eat them-which I couldn't do. Either eat them or don't put a hole in their mouth to begin with. So I went into a little side pond with some trout caught in it and swam around, trying to catch the trout with my hands. It was really hard.
Edited to add that I looooove fishing, I just feel too guilty trying to catch fish I'm not going to eat
posted
I love newbie fishing. I've caught some really good newbies for us that way. CalvinMaker is one, or so he says. I thought it was the writer's camp that did it but I'll take credit.
Lissa and I used to make a really good newbie fishing team. Though sometimes we amused ourselves so much that we scared off the newbies. You should have seen some of the ones that got away!
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm like Scythrop; every time I take my wife fishing she catches the first fish, the most fish, and the biggest fish. Her fishing pole is the lucky one. She has a nice closed-faced reel that's easy for her to cast.
One day my buddy and I took a day off work and headed to Strawberry reservoir. I took my wife's lucky pole. We drove the boat to our secret inlet on the far side of the lake where some beavers have built a lodge. We dropped anchor and threw in our lines. I wedged my wife's lucky pole between the seats and started rummaging through my gear. Then wham! My wife's lucky pole jumps over the edge of the boat and disappears beneath the surface.
My buddy said that he had seen that happen before and suggested that I try dragging the bottom with a huge treble hook that he had in his tackle box. I tied it onto my spare pole, and on the second cast I snagged something. Up came my wife's lucky pole. I retrieved the pole, reeled it in and found a 4-pound rainbow on the other end.
My wife wasn't happy that I had almost lost her pole and forbade me from ever using it again.
One day I took off work and took my retired neighbor with me to Strawberry. Of course, I took my wife's pole. We went to the secret inlet, and my buddy had his line in before we even dropped anchor. In my hurry to get my line in, I cast too hard and my wife's pole flew out of my hand. It was 8 feet down before I caught up with it. I emerged on the surface jubilant, and my buddy asked: "where are your glasses?" Well, at least I didn't lose the pole.
Until I start beating my wife in the fishing contest I'm sure her pole will keep finding itself at the bottom of the lake.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I went back to Michigan with my family 3 summers ago, for the first time in 8 years, and I loved it. There is something about northern MI that is hard to explain. It's not just the water, although that is probably the largest single aspect of the state that I love. There was a smell, particularly near the Great Lakes, that permeated the very air. I knew that we were getting close just by the smell and the feel of the air, and that was something I had forgotten until then.
We have a family cottage on a small inland lake named Indian Lake, in Kalkaska county, MI, and it has very good fishing. It is a shallow lake, and very narrow in places, so the Department of Natural Resources (DNR for short) ruled it a "No Wake" area, so there is no jet-skiing or waterskiing, just swimming and fishing and the occasional pontoon boat.
Indian Lake use to be great fishing. I remember fishing with my dad a lot of evenings, usually for only and hour or two, and catching 6-8 bass, and that was just the keepers. You had to be careful where you cast or you would be bothered by all the "small fry", that is to say all the bass under the legal limit. I never had a night where I didn't catch something, even if it was just perch or crappies.
When I was there 3 years ago I found to my dismay that our lake had become a well known fishing spot, and had actually become "fished out". The DNR had put in a boat ramp years before, but with the large influx of yuppies that flooded the Traveres City are in the mid to late 1990's our lake had become a favorite place to visit. The DNR had closed a number of fishing spots due to over-fishing (and raised the legal keeper size) to fight the problem in other parts of the state, but our little lake was hit pretty hard.
I went out 4-5 times, for 2-3 hours each, and I was lucky to catch 3-4 fish each time. That was including the small fry! I was pretty bummed out, and I started talking to my dad about it. He said " Don't worry, this happens from time to time. There are still big ones out there, but they don't come in until later. I haven't caught any in a long time, but they are still out there...".
So I went out the last night to fish off our dock, which I used to do all the time when I was younger. It was about dusk, and twighlight seemed to go on forever. I caught more fish than I had all vacation, but still not as many as we use to in years past....and they wre all pretty small, even the few keepers I landed. I was having fun, so I stayed out a little later than I usually do, but only a little past sunset.
All of the sudden I get a few really good hits while casting way past where I usually cast. My dad had said, before he went in "Rob, you're crazy. Didn't you pay attention all those years? The beds are all along the shore, not in 20' of water! You won't catch any bass out there!", but I didn't care. I was having more fun my way, in part because I was doing the opposite of what he wanted me to do!
Then I hooked one good. He started pulling against my reel, ant the line started playing out. I had the best fight I've had in years, but it was over all too soon. I landed a HUGE largemouth bass, and I ran up th hill yelling. My whole fist fit inside his mouth, and he was longer thanmy whole forearm.
I put it down and noticed that he had 2 tines of the hook through his lip, and on the second tri-hook he had 1 tine in, so I went to ask my dad where his pliers were, and when I walked into the house I noticed that all the lights were off. I looked at the clock on the microwave and was shocked....it was 1 am!!! I had forgotten how far west MI is compared to Mass, where I live now. In MA, dusk is around 8:30; MI is 16 hours further west, so dusk is hours later. It is still light out at 10:30 sometimes. Also, MI is flat, while MA has mountains, so the sun sets much faster in MA.
So here I was, with the largest bass I had ever caught, and nobody to show it to. I wanted to release the big guy, because we wouldn't have time to cook him the next day, so I had to move fast.
I tried to measure him, but when I held him up to the tackle box, he was too big, and the tackle box measured up to 22 inches!
So I took a picture of it hanging off the box, with my hand in the frame to give it proper scale. Then I pried the hooks out and let him swim away.
I am taking JenniK to the cottage on the lake this summer, and I can't wait to try and catch the cagey bastr*d again. He eluded me for the first 18 years, but I think I have his number now.....
posted
Anyone like to fly fish? My dad and brother are experts and I go out with them quite often. We have a yearly trip out to Montana to fish the awesome rivers for Trout.
Posts: 115 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Grew up fishing the streams in the Uintahs (looking for cuthroat and browns, not the farmed ones - though the albinos were cool to look at, if easy to spy and catch).
Last year had the fishing experience of a lifetime for tuna in mexican waters.
how does one post photos? I tried foob once, but he was messing around with his servers and whatnot.
posted
There's an e-mail address on the hatrack photo thread, mike -
As to fishing - as a child I caught more suckers in the Gros Ventres than anyone alive. Subsequently, I enjoyed the other simple pleasures of lugging my fathers' fishing gear around - I talked to the numerous brds around me.
Which worked until my screeing at the hawks and golden eagles and having them circle low investigating, scared the poor troutsies into deep dark holes . . .
(Chuckles remembering dad's disgruntlement)
WARNING: DON'T READ IF YOU ARE FLISH, A FISH, OR PARTIAL TO HAPPY, LIVE FISH-------------------
My other favorite part was thwacking the fishies on a rock and then practicing dissection. You wouldn't BELIEVE the things a fish eats! And I found some interesting lures, too. Amazing!
Ahhh - small town kids - we sure know how to have fun, don't we?
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This reminds me of the summer my family took a cross-country trip. I was 11 or 12. We spent a few days at Yellowstone Park. My dad and I fished at Yellowstone Lake.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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