Thread: The beginning

These are some truly great stories, and I find it amazing how I can relate to each and every one of them to some degree or another. With that said, I'm going to add more to my story.

We (my family) returned from a tour in Germany in 1969, it was that year when my beginning took place. Like Butch, my mother had to whip me to get me to come in the house, not like the kids nowadays, who have to made to go outside.

All the neighborhood kids got together for sporting events, we played everything from football and baseball, to kickball and basketball. I hated to lose at anything I competed in, and my desires to win fueled my abilities to practice until I was good at whatever the event was.

We had a couple of nearby ponds, and when ball games were not being played, those ponds were where I could be found. Bream and bass were the species of choice back then, we would dig our own bait when bream fishing, for bass, the artificial lures being used were mostly plugs that were found snagged in trees and stumps.

Plastic worms became the go to baits for bass, so I begin cutting lawns and cashing in returnable soda bottles for money to buy more and more fishing stuff.

A new couple moved in two houses down from us, Charles and Linda Hallman. Charles was an avid outdoorsman and took a liking to me and my brothers. He would take us deer hunting and fishing in the many private lands and ponds he had access to. He was also the first person that I fished in a boat with.

Bass fishing was his thing, and a purple spring tail worm was his bait of choice, so it became my favorite bait too. I eventually changed to Jelly worms, then to Mr. Twisters. Though I enjoyed bass fishing, the action was never fast enough for me, so I evolved into a bream fishermen.

The miles I traveled on bicycles to the many, many ponds I found would surely be in the thousands. Every chance I would get, I'd be sitting on the pond bank fishing. I absolutely loved it, and to this day nothing makes me happier than being on the water.

My dad started me fishing when I was four years old. Loved it from the start. We fished for bream, crappie, and catfish. He left home when I was seven. But my mom and older half brother who would take me some. However we didn't get to o to often so got away from fishing. Then, when I went to work in the furniture industry, I met a man we called, "Steel" Keller. Steel, who never had any children, took me under his wings (I was 16 at the time) and re-introduced me to fishing by giving me a Zebco (black one) reel and rod. That was 52 years ago and I haven't stopped since and whenever I can, I take a child fishing.