Thread: Who or what started you fishing? What keeps you fishing?

My dad loved to fish and we followed in his footsteps. When we were young he would come home with a stringer of crappie and leave them in the sink for me and my brother to clean. We would grab the spoons and start scaling and removing the head/innards. We then got our own Zebco 202's and started crappie fishing around the age of 8. We played little league football and a city park that contained a pond. After practice we would fish for bream using can biscuit dough for bait. Dad then bought a 1978 Raycraft bass boat and we really got heavy into crappie fishing. Night fishing with Coleman lanterns tied up to either flooded timber a bridge pilings. My dad used Ambassador bait casters with 17lb test and double minnow rigs. During the spring we would take bamboo cane poles and with some metal clothes hangers and electrical tape would make jigging rods. We would sometimes drift fish for catfish at night but my dad fished for crappie 95% of the time. He fished to put food on the table and I don't think he ever caught a crappie with a jig. I still have his original metal minnow bucket. I bought my first boat when I was 28 and we would go fishing all the time. I evolved into light spinning jig/plastic crappie chaser but my roots came from dad. I miss fishing with him dearly but even as a inner city kid he taught us to enjoy the outdoors. One of his favorite saying was a man will never starve as long as he owns a 22 rifle and pocketful of bullets

My dad took me fishing when I was just walking good . Mother said he sat me on the boat seat next to him . She said he must of beat it into me with the sculling paddle. Not many kids around alot of my younger years and hung out with old retired fishermen. Good times out in the woods and water .

I don’t ever remember not fishing, my brother and I walked many miles to fish the ponds around us.

My Dad only took my younger brother and me 3 times when we were little and my brother didn't really like it much but my Uncle!! He always picked me up and we'd go fishing all the time!!

My parents had me in a baby carrier on the bottom of a jon boat when i was a newborn they say. My mother told me on one occurrence, I'd laugh or chuckle when my dad reeled in an itty-bitty crappie. 30 odd years later, he reels in a small crappie or unintended species, I still laugh at him. When I became a toddler, I was still too small for a life jacket, so my dad tied a fish stringer to my belt loop and the other end to jon boat rib. If I fell overboard, he'd pull me in like crab pot.

Started when I was a pup ... my Maternal Grandparents were the single biggest factor, not only in getting me started fishing, but mainly fishing for Crappie. There were also forays to the "riffles" of our local lake to fish for White Bass on their spawning run. My childhood buddy furthered the deal into Bass fishing (as well as Crappie). His older brother & my roomie for about 7-8yrs furthered my Bass fishing trips, got me into Bass fishing tournments (ABF), and out of state trips (Tenn & SC) as well as to state lakes other than my home lake. After that, my two current BFF's have kept me on the hunt for Crappie (here in KY, as well as Tenn & Ala).
I basically got the bug when I was a young feller, and my long term friends were pretty much chosen because of their love of fishing.

(I actually had Crappie fillets for Dinner, tonight )

I might add my dad and is buddy use to run trotlines out of a old leaking wooden row boat. As a 10 year old my job was to scoop out the water with a old Folgers coffee can.

Originally Posted by Grainraiser

I might add my dad and is buddy use to run trotlines out of a old leaking wooden row boat. As a 10 year old my job was to scoop out the water with a old Folgers coffee can.

LOL !! Yeah, my first "boat" fishing adventures were in rental wooden flat bottom row boats. My job was to sit in front and use a sculling paddle to ease the boat down the bank while my Grampa dipped Silversides that followed the light of the gas lantern hanging over the side, with a wire mesh basket "dip net" that he'd made.