First Fishig Memory

[5-Cents]

I am a little bored at work today... I am sitting looking at my peg board in my office which happens to be covered with fishing pictures. One of them stands out to me, a real old picture of my dad with a nice stringer of trout from the Deschutes... must be mid 60's vintage. Got me thinking of my first fishing memory. :smile:

My family did not have a lot of money when I was young so we went fishing and camping a lot. I still remember my first fish. I was with my dad on the Deschutes. When you are a kid your dad is so big and stong. He had his jeans tucked into his socks and was wading wet by camp. It was a warm evening. He took his spining rod and cast it for me. He told me to let the current work the spinner until it went down under the tree below and then WHAM! I got my first trout. It was probably only 10" or so but it was a trophy to me... and probably to him too now that I have kids and have gone through the same thing. [img]graemlins/hearton.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/hearton.gif[/img] I have been a fishing fool ever since! :grin:

What are some of your fisrt fishing memories?

I remember going fishn with my dad and coming home with my mom :shocked: :grin:

[Chacal]

The year was 1979. I was 9 years old. My dad loaded up our Datsun 1200 with the poles and headed for some rocky river toward Mt. Hood (probably the Clackamas).

He teaches me how to cast and reel back in. I stand on the fallen trees and cast -- losing a lure with every....single...cast. Looking back it was probably a $170 fishing trip just in lures.

Of course it was pouring down rain and I was complaining almost as much as I was losing lures. We were fishing for steelhead. Of course being 9 I pictured these fish that looked like bullets.

When I started to get hungry we headed back to the car and sat in the back seat where my dad presented us with a great lunch -- of peanut butter, baloney and mustard sandwiches.

I promptly opened the wing window and threw my sandwich out. At which point, my father, having lost his entire collection of lures, listened to me complain all day and now throw a sandwich out the window, drove us home.

My dad and I laugh about this trip to this day. Everytime we are out on the river, I always ask what is for lunch. He always answers "Peanut butter, baloney and mustard."

We both giggle.

Chacal.

[Bait O' Eggs]

I was all snuggled up in a nice warm place. A little wet, but warm none the less. I was really quite happy and then I got this feeling of claustrophobia and needed to get out. This was a new feeling for me and I new right off that I needed help over coming this feeling, this was not something that I could accomplish myself. The first thing I did was calmly tell my mother that I was having one of my first panic attacks. :shocked: Things were really closing in on me. Mom knew she couldnt handle me alone as I had been known to throw a fit once in a while and I usually ended up doing a lot of punching and kicking at an early age. Mom had to find a flashlight to walk down to the river to get dad to come help her, help me. Dad was doing a little fishing for springers at the time. He had one on the bank and was looking for another one. Dad came up to the house and put his rod away. Dad assessed my situation, and decided he couldnt handle me and they needed some professional help and loaded me and mom in the car. About 2 miles later dad hit a nice 4 point buck in the road with car. He had to run over to the neighbors and borrow a gun to finish off a crippled buck laying in the ditch. Then he hurried off to the hospital, I was born 19 minutes later. I still remember that fish laying there on the bank, glistening in the moonlight.

[ 08-29-2002, 03:42 PM: Message edited by: Bait O' Eggs ]

[Spot]

Nice Story Bait O'!
You've been reading the River Why again haven't you..... :tongue:

[Bait O' Eggs]

have yet to read it, its a true story!! :shocked: :shocked:

.....well except for the memory thing, I cant remember where I left my glass of milk at the dinner table when I am eating.

[crabbait]

Roy - Do yourself a favor. Read it.

[Steelie Ben]

My first fishing memory stands out rather dramatically. My grandmother had some property up on the Salmon river and my dad would take me camping up there in the summer. He finally got me fishing when I was about 4 or so, that was 18 years ago so things are kinda fuzzy! We were fishing for stocker trout the the ODFW had just dumped in the river. I had the skin of a worm left on my hook, no guts were left inside due to the hundred cast this worm had seen. I was reeling in my worm when I noticed a little flash right behind where it was. All of a sudden I had a fish on, dad just about killed himself running over the rocks to help me. I landed a nice 8" rainbow trout, the only one of the day. I had seen dad carry steelhead back to camp by holding their gills so I insited thats how I had to hold it. I walked into camp and everyone fussed over how big my fish was and how good a fisherman I was. I don't think I set the fish down till an hour later when rigamortis(sp) had set in and all the praises had stopped. Anyways, that was my first of many fishing memeories.
Ben

Bait O,
I got you beat by 9 months :grin:

[Navigator]

My first fishing memory was catching sunfish with my Dad. It was part of an Indian Guides outing. Indian Guides was scouting type organization (southern California). All I remember is that when we cast out, we caught fish. My Dad was never a fisherman - mind you. The fever was established tho'.

Other early memories at the time (I was 5 or 6) was my fascination with trying to scoop up stocked trout in one of the streams at camp (I did not have a rod). Then, there was the bullhead (staghorn sculpin) I caught with my grandfather on a frozen pea .

My grandfather kindled my fishing interest when he retired (took up fishing to keep him busy). Years later, my neighbor (Mr. Tracy) cemeted it when I was a teen. He needed someone to back the boat down the ramp and park the truck because his legs were bad and his kids had grown-up and off to college.

I am very thankful for these people and experiences.

[ 08-29-2002, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: Navigator ]

[KingFisher85]

This is not my first fish buts its the one that's I can't stop thinking about. Well its the only fish that I remember ever getting be sides some small trout and chumming over the side of my grandpas boat out in the ocean. It was about 5 years ago in the summer time. I had been doing a lot of trout fishing in small creeks and ponds. Well, one really nice day my Mom and a few of her friend got to all go down to the North Fork of the Lewis River down at the Cedar Creek fishing hole. Well, I did not know what to do. I did not have any idea on how to steelhead fish or fish down there so I just started tossing out spinners and divers. I was standing up on the Cedar Creek rocks tossing out divers and as I was reeling in I seen one good size steelhead right behind my diver, well at the time that fish was a monster. I keeped walking up the bank trying to get it to bite, it seen me and took off out of there. Oh I had my hart a pumping, I could hardly cast good. A few more cast later one more fish came in right be hind my diver. I did the same thing but I just seen me and took off out of there. Well, I did not get any thing that day, but I really wanted to go down there the next day really bad. Well, to my luck they took me down there and I got to fish. I fished all day tossing out the same diver. Just a few more minutes and it was going to be getting dark. All sudden, POW, the fish hit but I missed it. tossed back out did the same thing started to reel in at the same speed, POW, S**t missed it. One more time, tossed back out there, POW, FISH ON, YA, yelling and doing everything that some young kid would do, they keeped telling me shut up your going to get everyone over here. The fish took some line out but I put a stop to that :shocked: . My hart was pumping so fast that if a doctor was there he would have thought something was wrong with me, well there is now :grin: . I banked the fish. It was a very small steelhead, but to me at the time it was a monster, like only 20 inches but back then, ya. From that day on I can't stay out of that river. I can't stop fishing. That is one that I will not and have not forgotten.

[ 08-30-2002, 06:39 AM: Message edited by: KingFisher85 ]

[Wright Angle]

The year was 1959 my Dad, Mom, moms sister and her husband were fishing on the south Santiam at Cascadia state park. My Dad and my Uncle Andy are catching some fish but Im not. Now at 4 years old Im not paying to much attention to what's all happening around me, all of the sudden everyone starts telling me Im getting a bite and to reel up so I do and I have the biggest fish that I've seen that day (about a 15" trout) well after I land the fish and I get all calmed down my uncle Andy starts telling me that the fish that I caught is really his and that he just put it on my line so I could get a fish and he wants it back. he tells me that when I was getting the bite that the fish wasn't even in the water, he was right I remember seeing it laying on the bank I tell him no way and keep the fish. To this day he still talks about that fish when I see him.. :grin:

[Drachir]

My first fish memory came in the fall of 1955, I had just had my 3rd B'Day. I was fishing with my parents, trolling U-20 Red Flatfish, that's when they were brand new on the market!! :shocked: We were fishing the Siletz just upstream from Coyote Rock. My Dad grabbed my rod when it went down, handed the rod to me, and helped a little, as I landed my First Salmon!! :grin: It was a beautiful 8# Coho, and I have the photo to prove it!!

[Wright Angle]

My Dad was killed in a car wreck in the summer of 1999, two years out from retirement. After writing the (first fishing memory) story this morning I started thinking about my Dad and all the fishing stories I could tell about him and I over the coarse of my life.

The first one that comes to mind, when I was 18 (1973) Dad and I were fishing Canyon creek a tributary to the south Santiam, in the lower reaches of the creek it's very narrow and deep, well Dad try's to jump it carrying his big metal tackle box and doesn't make it, now I'm 30 seconds away from helping him and all I can see the whole time I'm making my way over to help is his arm and tackle box sticking out of the water, when I get there I can see his face holding his breath looking at me from under the water waiting for me to take the tackle box, it was so funny. That tackle box about did him in more then once, I don't remember if it was Smith or Carmen reservoir but he fell off a dock or walk way carrying that box and didn't come up, well we started to worry but about a minute later he came out at the shore he had been walking on the bottom, said he would drown before he would loose that box, very funny.

When I was a teenager we spent alot of time fishing together, I think it helped keep me out of trouble, Instead of being out getting in trouble I was fishing. (my first love) taught to me by my Father. Taught to him by his Father and so on and so on, I'm a Sixth Generation Oregonian my great, great, great, great grand Father homesteaded at Sweet Home Or. in 1850.

My Dad and I had alot of good times Plunking for summer Steelhead in the Columbia the last 20 years. Oh the stories I could tell.

The day I was born Dad was summer Steelhead fishing on the S. Santiam some place above Sweet Home and had C&R over 20 fish so he was out of eggs, he went home to get more eggs and Mom told him she was in labor and needed to go to the hospital and he still wanted to go back and fish some more before he took her to the hospital, she said no and he was mad. So I guess I come by my fishing addiction honestly.

Dad and I were going to do some serious fishing after he retired but we didn't get the chance. I miss him very much. My first and longest fishing partner.

Sorry for the long post I guess I'm reminiscing out loud.

The picture is my Dad, Grand Father and I in July of 1956.


[ 08-30-2002, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: Wright Angle ]

[5-Cents]

Wright Angle,

[5-Cents]

Wright Angle,

I am sorry about your dad...

That was a wonderful post. I think that is what is great about fishing is the life long memories that it creates for all of us. Memories of family and togetherness!

Thank you for sharing that with the rest of us. I can tell your dad was very dear to you.

Shane

[get hooked]

All these stories remind me of a trip I took with my dad one winter to fish for steelhead on the Sandy. It was a clear morning, but cold. As my dad baited up the poles an casted them out for us, I gathered some wood for a fire. I was better at making fires and throwing rocks than I was at having the patience to fish. But that morning a nice steelhead decided to take my eggs and run. Of course my dad was right on top of things and hooked it for me. Now back in those days we didn't have things like star drags on the reels and our poles were at least upgraded from steel to fiberglass. My dad handed the pole to me and tried to coach me on what to do. The fish ran up stream and the down stream. I think my thumb was getting hot from trying to keep some sort of tension on the line. Finally the fish headed for the other side of the river. That's when I thought enough was enough and I clamped my thumb down on the reel. Well, you can guess what happened next. That's right the line boke and the fish was gone. I know at that moment my dad wanted to throw me in the river, but he didn't. Thank goodness for star drags reels. My dad continued to take me fishing and later in life I took him fishing. He's gone now too, but the memories will always live on. Thanks for letting me share this with you. It helps with the healing of losing someone close like this. Happy fishing!!!!