Your oldest fishing memory???

I know it will take some pondering for some of us but I'd like to know what the first memory everyone has of fishing...doesn't matter the type...or who with...or whatever. What is the oldest memory you have. I ask this because my parents came down to visit last weekend and me, my dad, and the boys were sitting around talking and looking at baits at the bar...and he decides to tell a story that I THOUGHT I remembered...

My first memory was fishing around Mena Arkansas (where I grew up) at this stock pond. I remember there being a dam and a concrete spillway and docks with boxes. I remember catfish and my parents fishing for them. I remember that place like it was yesterday...although I was VERY young. The funny thing is...my dad told me the story of my first fish. He was good friends with the owner of this pond and they were talking and he told me to put my bobber in this box. He said I put the bobber in the box...a fish grabbed it...sucked it down...my dad said REEL IT IN...and I threw the pole in the water and ran off! :banghead OH what a fishing story for the 10 and 13 year old boys to hear! lol. It was great though. They have had a TIME retelling that story to the guy teaching them to crappie fish. lol Needless to say I didn't remember the throwing the pole in part...just the place and the joy I had being there as a kid.

Ok that was mine...have fun with it...It always enjoy thinking about and hearing others tell of the old days.

The oldest memory would have to be the first (& only) time I went fishing with my Dad. I would have been around the age of 9 or 10. My Dad, Uncle, and I went to a lock on the KY River ... probably Lock 9, just below Valley View, Ky. We had ONE rod/reel between us, and a box of earthworms. The rod was a 5' fiberglass, with a metal level wind (baitcaster) style reel, and spooled with multi-colored nylon braid. We walked out onto the concrete lock & put a gob of worms on the hook. We had a cork bobber up the line about 2ft. My Uncle caught a small Bluegill, on his turn, and threw it back. My Dad tired of waiting for something to bite, when it was his turn, so he gave the rod to me. I don't remember the bobber going under, but I think I remember them telling me to reel the fish in. I did, and it was a Bullhead Catfish, maybe 6-8" long. It, also, was thrown back in .... and my memory eludes me beyond that. I think I remember Dad & Uncle Johnny telling me I did good, but that may just be a case of pride on my part.
A couple of years later, after my parents divorced, & I went off to live with my Grandparents (my Mom's Father & Step Mother) ... my introduction to "fishing" took on a whole new level & meaning. They loved to fish, and introduced me to Crappie fishing. I've been rurnt ever since then :Rofl ... and loved every minute of it !!

... cp :kewl

My first fishing memory that I remember was the summer sometime when I was about 8, family was moving from Ark to E TN, and my parents dropped my brother and I off at our grandparents in Hendersonville TN so they could do the house hunting in peace and quiet. They lived on Old Hickory, and had a floating dock. Granny and I would go down and bobber fish for gill and cats everyday I was there. Mom and Dad came back for the fourth of July, and we were shooting some fireworks on the dock, and dad laid some bottle rockets on the railing and lit them. One bottle rocket went straight out/parallel with the water, a gill jumped at the wrong time and got broadsided by the bottle rocket. found that fish the next day with a big hole in its side. Granny and I would take the fish we caught up to the house for dinner. Granny was a good cook too.

I was one year old and caught a 10 pound crappie!
Or, was I 10 years old and caught a one pound crappie? Dadgum Anheuser's disease.

I have lots of memories of fishing with my Dad when I was very young (4 or 5). He used to take me to the Clinch River near Oak Ridge, Tennessee long before it was impounded by Melton Hill Dam. Not sure which of those trips was the first but I do remember when I fished out of a boat the first time. Again it was on the Clinch, the boat was wood and belonged to a buddy of my Dad's. I don't remember much about the fishing, but I do remember being scared and remember the motor being really loud.

Sometime around 1965. I had already been fishing for a couple of years, but don't have any memories of the earliest trips. I was 5 and Dad took me trout fishing in a lake out in CA where they stocked Rainbows in the winter. We were fishing minnows under bobbers and had been fishing for awhile with no action when all three bobbers went down simultaneously. I think two out of three reeled in a trout, but watching 3 bobbers spaced probably about 20 ft. apart in a line disappear at exactly the same time left an impression that stuck with me.

My first crappie memory wasn't long after that. My dad had read about a technique where you attach a balloon to a crappie you catch and then release it. The theory is that the crappie will head back to the school and the balloon would mark them. We went to the same lake as above and my dad rented a boat (also my first outing on a boat). Early on, my dad caught a crappie and tied a 20' piece of monofilament to it with a balloon on it and threw the fish back in. We followed the balloon for awhile and sure enough I caught another crappie soon thereafter. We never caught any more after that and only took those two home. We never tried that trick again. Thinking back on it now, I think the crappie we caught that day may have been black crappie and probably were not congregated in a school.

The first memory I have of fishing was back while my father was in the Marine Corps, and stationed in 29 Palms, California. My brother (6 years older than I ) was in the scouts, and dad was an assistant scout master. They went on a camp out down to the Colorado River for a week-end. I had the pleasure of accompanying them. Well to keep me out of the boys hair while they were busy earning merit badges, my father took me to this little cove not far from camp, and we commenced to see about catching dinner. Don't really remember catching very many fish, but I do remember catching my first. It was a small bluegill, but it was a huge fish for me. Thank you for rekindling a fond memory of a swell time spent with my dad.

Farm pond.

Catching bluegills with a cane pole and crickets.

My dad, brother and me.

My 1st would have to be when I was maybe 5. I really don't remember who all was there but I know my GrandDaddy and my Mom were there at his farm pond. We were using worms we had just dug at the barn and I was chasing and catching grasshoppers for bait. We all had cane poles that had been cut close by and those red and white bobbers about the size of a softball. We caught some tiny bluegills and one bass about a pound. That memory hooked me for life I'm afraid.

Like kyjohn & most all of you, I have memories to glory of fishing with mom & dad but one that I just recently found proof of was a trip to Lake Arrowhead, West of Wichita Falls where we would fish the oil derek's and often load up on crappie there. They actually started me crappie fishing a few years earlier on Lake Meredith, North of Amarillo. There too we loaded up on crappie many times. Here's the photo my older brother found shortly after my mother passed away. http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/t...psa8efb4b9.jpg Nov. 5, 1970 part of a catch of 36 crappie. BTW, that GOOD LOOKIN FELLER on the right is Pepop, LOOOOOOONG AGO!!

Thats an awsome piece of history there Pepop!! Thanks for sharing!! Did you catch the 2lber??

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Originally Posted by Scrapper

Thats an awsome piece of history there Pepop!! Thanks for sharing!! Did you catch the 2lber??

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Actually, I don't remember (th 70's took their tole on my memory LOL!) but my brother said mom caught it.

What do you mean the 70`s--I keep hearing this.I need:help

My first memory of fishing was not with line and hook. I remember when I was about 5 when my mom, sister and me had just moved to Long Beach CA, We were sitting on the beach around the fire and waiting for something. I didn't get it. Then the grunion started running and they were coming in with the tide. Each wave seemed to have them and when the wave went out they were left shimmering and flipping on the sand. Everyone ran around like crazy picking them up. That was my first memory but not exactly fishing. We moved to Las Vegas, Nev. shortly after and at around 7 yrs old I remember being with my friend Scott and we were out playing around Twin Lakes. These were really two ponds that were about 10 acres each. Water out west usually runs clear so you can see easily see the bottom and what ever else may be in the water. There were ducks and dragon flies and all of the things you would expect to see. We just wandered around looking for frogs or what ever else we could find. I found some discarded fishing line here and a hook there. We untangle the line and rolled it up on a stic. I cant remember how we tied the hook on to it but managed some how. Then we took part of a sandwich we had and made a dough ball out of the bread. We put it a small piece of that dough ball on the hook and we were ready to fish. We could see the Blue Gills swimming around their nests and we threw our line and hook out to them. Before long we had all the blue gills we could handle. I think we must have seen some other kids doing this and we just mimicked them. Those were the days. Twin Lakes was my daily hang out till I was about 13 or so. That was my Tom Sawyer oasis in the desert. I would like to thing its still providing great memories to other young boys...

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Originally Posted by pontoon

What do you mean the 70`s--I keep hearing this.I need:help

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It probably had as much to do with the music as anything (ZZ Top, Black Sabbath, etc), but I figure my brain ain't what it coulda been. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-whacky099.gif

My first real fishing memory is hounding my Dad to let me go out when he ran trot lines when I was about 7. We used to camp at Duck Creek in southeast MO and I remember just begging to go out cause I wanted to see what was on the hooks. Although he had rods and reels, my Dad mainly ran trot lines or netted buffalo and carp in the sloughs with my Grandpa. After he passed away, I went fishing with other family (grandma, uncles and then my 2nd Dad) I remember one trip fishing from the bank with my Mom, Aunt and Uncle. I guess I was about 11 and we were using chicken livers. Well, I didn't want to get my hands bloody, so I put a whole hunk of liver on my hook, flipped that rod behind me to start my cast . . . . and caught my aunt's leg. She hollered and when I turned around, there she was with a big ole chunk of liver stuck to the front of her jeans. When she bent over to try to get that liver off, her snap popped and her jeans started falling down. Luckily, she didn't kill me, cause I was laughing so hard I couldn't hardly move.

This is me (on the right) and my cousin/best friend, Shelly at the campground around 1973. I think we were "smokin" candy cigarettes.
Attachment 138957

Most were salt water fishing with pop.
He used to fish a lil stick steer in big water and when running it I'd sit on the floor btwn his legs. He'd get a kick out out of the waves coming over the bow and soaking me and the faces I'd make.

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Originally Posted by Pepop

Actually, I don't remember (th 70's took their tole on my memory LOL!) but my brother said mom caught it.

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:Rofl Well be glad you didn't experience the 60's. You might not have survived. Those were the dayz as they say.

Not saying I am old but my fishing memories started one time after it had been raining 40 days and 40 nights.fed our two horses and two cows went to the back of the boat and caught a couple of crappie. Just the two. Must have caught all of them. Thought about fileting them but figured they wouldn't feed the rest of the livestock so i chunked them back. Lots of water for yhem to spawn in. Now if they had been 'Nader slabs they might have.?

I have a strong memory of this as it was one of the few times my Dad and I fished together. I was no more than 6 and Dad took my brother and I to Mill Pond Park south of Wantagh on Long Island. Cane pole to keep it simple for me and my brother had a rod and reel. We waded out to knee deep and using dough for the bluegill feeding around our feet. Fish cooperation was very slow and I got bored quick and my brother wound up with the cane pole and put it out further than I was allowed to and in short order he had a catfish about a foot or a little more coming in. All were released and I can't remember if I caught a fish. I have always found fishing to be something that I can focus on and thoroughly enjoy. Thankfully I learned to catch more than I did that first trip.

I have vague memories of fishing with a cane pole with Dad when I was very young. We used the old braid from my grandpa's baitcasters on those poles. My most distinct memory was when I was about 5 or 6. I got one of my grandpa's old steel rods with a Zebco on it. I practiced casting in the backyard until I was pretty consistent. Dad and I and the neighbors went to Starve Hollow and were fishing an area with a steep bank maybe 50ft to the road. I was pretty proud of my new pole, but we fished all morning without a bite.

Some of us were fishing with doughballs and some with nightcrawlers, and when Dad had to rebait, he asked me if he should stick with doughballs or switch to nightcrawlers. I said "both" for some reason, and that's what he did.

A few minutes later, Dad had to go to the top to get the cooler for lunch and he asked me to watch his pole so a fish didn't drag it in. I remember thinking it was going to be hard to watch two poles. No sooner had Dad made it to the top, when the clicker started buzzing on his pole. I yelled at him, and the neighbor told me to reel it in. I was scared because it was Dad's pole, a Mitchell 300 which was strange to me, I had to leave mine unattended, and it was obviously a bigger fish than any of the bluegill I'd ever caught. I reeled it in, hoping somebody would take over, but I got it to the bank and did the classic walking backwards, dragging the fish onto the bank. 3 or 4 pound catfish. It was the only fish caught that day, and I must have told the story 25 times.

I was on top of the world. They took my picture with the fish, but the processor messed up the film. I'd give a thousand dollars for that picture!

Same thrill hits me every time I realize I have a fish on the line. I guess I'll never grow up!

I am told I threw my pole down the first time too.
My first memories are fishing Lake O Pines in the '60s when it flooded. I caught my first bass plus we fished in a flooded park around the picnick tables and loaded up on the bream.
DP

Staying all night at my grandparents (fifty some years ago). We'd look for night crawlers with a flashlight. Then we'd watch the Gillette Friday Night Fights on the old TV with the round picture tube or listen to a ball game on the big old radio. We'd get up way before sunrise. Grandma would make egg sandwiches for me and grandpa to take with us and pack them in a brown bag with some warm Coca-colas (those old small 8 oz glass bottles). No lunch has ever tasted better. Before daylight we'd head to the lake in Grandpa's black Ford Falcon pulling his little Sears boat (oars only). We'd stop along the way at some catalpa trees to pick catalpa worms for bait. Then we'd arrive at a farm where his favorite lake was and we'd put a dollar in a can next to the gate that led down the farmer's lane to the lake. We fished with cane poles and caught big bluegills all day long while Grandpa sang songs and told stories about everything, it seemed. Then we'd take the fish home and clean them on the counter next to the sink and grandma would complain about the stink in her kitchen, but then she'd fry 'em up, along with the fish eggs and fried potatoes (and maybe some mushrooms we had found, but that's another memory). I spent a lot of summer weekends doing that. I think about them both every time I fish. Great memories.

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Originally Posted by Knot2Bad

:Rofl Well be glad you didn't experience the 60's. You might not have survived. Those were the dayz as they say.

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Al's I can say is, I experienced just enough of the 60's to where I wasn't sure I'd make it thru the 70's.

Well, I believe it was when I talked a big whale to puke up Jonah.

First trip with my Grandad. I was 4 and he had just retired from running the little country post office in my home town in Oklahoma. He had never fished much and was just really getting started. We parked on an old country road and had to walk about a quarter to the creek we were going to fish. We had to walk through a cotton patch that was full of cockle burs. Remember getting them in my hair and crying while he pulled them out. Got to the creek had to fish off a bluff bank that looked a mile high to me. Hooked a catfish that looked like it weighed 20 lbs to me ( more like 2 ) and my grandad had to slide down this mud bank to land my fish. He made sure I landed my first ever fish. He was my Grandad and my father figure. He taught me to love fishing and the outdoors along with instilling the love of God by the examples he set every day. Sure do miss him and our fishing trips.

Gee, I feel old! My first memory is in 1953, in Three Rivers Michigan, where my father often rented a little cottage for weekends. The men had left in the boat and I wasn't happy to be left with the women, cause I was almost 5....so, I eventually slipped away , went down to the little wood pier and ended up with a small bullhead. Guess I wasnt the brightest then either cause I took it back to show the women, then got in trouble for sneaking away to the water. Someplace, I still have the picture they took of my crime.

I was six and fishing with my grandfather on the Tennessee River. I was proud that he would allow me to bait the trot line hooks he had in the trot line boxes. This was a wooden box that had slots cut in the sides to hold the hooks and the line went into the bottom of the box. When you set the trot line the line and hooks would smoothly come off the side of the box into the water.

We were using a wooden boat he built. It used a Model T engine for the boat motor. The motor set in the center of the boat, with a shaft running to the rear of the boat where it turned a propeller. He also had two wires running from the motor to through the shaft box to the rear of the boat. These lines would trail into the water at the back of the boat when he unrolled them.

If his trot lines were not productive enough to suit him he would connect the wires to the motor alternator and "telephone" the fish to come to the surface. Yes, this was illegal, even back then but I did not learn it was illegal until I was eight.

We were "telephoning" when a game warden caught him with the fish coming to the surface. The game warden thought he was using poison since he disconnected the wires when he saw the game warden coming.

I remember there was quite a shouting match and some of the other fishermen came over in their boats, with all of them shouting at the game warden that nobody on the river would poison fish as they could not eat nor sell them if they poisoned them.

Since the game warden could not prove what happened he finally left, after warning my grandfather he would be watching him and would catch him at it.

I remember this as I was quite frightened at the time it happened. I remember that my grandfather told me afterwards that he hoped that taught me a lesson. In the future we both need to look everywhere before we "telephoned" the fish. I asked him why the game warden was mad. He told me you were not suppose to "telephone" the fish but people had to eat, even when fishing was slow.

I fished with my grandfather until I was eighteen and left home. At the end he stopped commercial fishing due to age but we would still go out and fish with cane poles in wooden boats he would build, then sell to other fishermen. I helped him build a lot of those boats after school.

At the end he could only build one boat a year but it was always sold when he started building it. He would fish it for three months to ensure there weren't any problems before he would allow the buyer to take it.

I learned a lot from him, and not just about fishing.

My dad took me out in a row boat when I was 8 years old. We were fishing tree stumps for rock bass and whatever when my dad told me to grab the top of a big old stump. Something didn't feel right, all of a sudden several snakes came scrambling off the stump and some went into the boat. That scared the bejesus out of me but I've never had a problem with snakes. I will catch a rattler or cottonmouth alive in a heartbeat. I am darn careful though and have never been bit - - - Yet. I'm 73 now and still will catch one if the opportunity presents itself, but I do look where I put my hands.

B-

i remember my black with white stripes zebco202 being pulled over the side of the boat in about 75. still makes me mad too. lol

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Originally Posted by bhgammon

My dad took me out in a row boat when I was 8 years old. We were fishing tree stumps for rock bass and whatever when my dad told me to grab the top of a big old stump. Something didn't feel right, all of a sudden several snakes came scrambling off the stump and some went into the boat. That scared the bejesus out of me but I've never had a problem with snakes. I will catch a rattler or cottonmouth alive in a heartbeat. I am darn careful though and have never been bit - - - Yet. I'm 73 now and still will catch one if the opportunity presents itself, but I do look where I put my hands.

B-

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Dang didn't they they make a movie about that... Cape Fear!!!

I remember faintly my parents going down to the river fishing and having a big time. I wasn't quite born.