Boy I had to think about this. I was born in 1942 and lived a short walk from the Ohio River. My Dad and brother and I used to go there 2 or 3 times a week. They had metal rods with some sort of casting reel and black line. I don't know what they were but they had to be cheap because we were poor. I used a branch cut from a willow with string from the grocery store that they used to wrap meat with and a small hook. While they fished for catfish I fished for shiners. I can't remember how old I was the first time 4, 5, maybe 6. I can remember using the Pflueger tandem spinner and the Shannon twin spinner, Flat fish and Lazy Ikes. An old neighbor gave me a tackle box with some Pikie minnows, Go Deeper Crabs and some kind of Oreno plug. I caught bass on all of them. The guys with money used solid fiberglass rods and Pflueger Supremes and everything was made in the USA, anything from Japan was just junk. I went from sitting on a muddy river bank to wading creeks in my bare feet to my first johnboat and then my first bassboat. I fished tournaments for some twenty years including the Ohio Bass Federation state tournaments. I got so tired of the tournament crap I won't even go to a weigh in now.
Through it all I had fun, learned a lot, made a lot of friends and got to watch all of the technological advances. It has been a sweet ride and I ain't done yet.
