My dad's fisherman but he's always preferred saltwater. Dad taught me how to tie a clinch knot and how to cast while fishing for blowfish in the bay. When I was about 10 we purchased a cabin at a lake in northwestern NJ. I remember fishing with my dad and his friend and his friend was casting his lure toward the shore. I equated deep water with big fish and shallow water with small fish and asked him why he was fishing in shallow water. He told me the big fish come in to eat the small fish.
That was about the extent of my formal instruction. I started going out every morning at sunrise alone using the old Creme worm rigs with the propeller spinner and beads, and floating Rapalas. My first catch was a 26 inch long monster of a pickerel and that was it, I was hooked. I read books and magazines, watched what other fishermen were doing. There was an old guy who had a cabin near ours. He had an old wooden boat and he caught a lot of bass. He wasn't talkative so I really couldn't pick his brain, but I would fish near enough to him to see what lures he was using, where he was throwing them and how he was retreiving them. I learned a lot that way. I'd go out with dad once in a while, but I quickly knew more about bass fishing than he did.
I fished that lake almost exclusively for nearly 40 years. I know every rock, weed, underwater spring, dropoff, submerged island and could catch bass when nobody else could (well except for old Mr. Reynolds, my unwitting tutor).
It was a few years ago when I bought my boat and trailer and started fishing other lakes that I became humbled and then I discovered these forums. I've probably learned nearly as much here in the past year as I learned the previous 40 years.
