Most memorable childhood fishing experience

[Bankbeater]

It was back in 1972, and I guess I was 8 or 9.  My Dad was catfishing, Mom was in the car reading, and I was finally started catching sunnies.  My Dad was cutting up the sunnies and using them for bait.  He told me to go over to the rip-rap on the dam and see if I could catch some more.

I was using a three piece, screw together cane pole that was about 9 feet log.  It was baited with a nightcrawler, and a bobber.  When the bobber started moving fast I knew I had a sunnie on the line.  This time the bobber just went under, and my line started moving.  I pulled back on the cane pole and it was heavy.  I slung the pole around and had a channel cat on that went about 2 pounds,

Every day for the rest of the summer, as soon as my Dad got home from work, I asked him if we could go fishing.

[Torn Thumb]

The description on the Polaroid has faded so I can't figure out the weight. The mount has definitely seen better days as some mice have chewed on it and some fins have been broken off in storage but every time I look at it I want to go fishing.

I have my dad and grampa to thank for my love of fishing. I just wish I learned how to bass fish sooner.

[Fisher-O-men]

Unfortunately my most memorable experience is not a good one. I was probably 10 and we were camping at the Salton Sea (in its hey day).  A guy walked past our camp with a heavy stringer of Corvina.  He gave up all the pertinent intel, and we were off!  My dad had bought me an old baitcaster at a swap meet.  We no sooner got to the spot than everyone was hooked up!  3-4 pound silvery fish were being dragged onto the shore all around me. I was sitting in the sand with an impossible backlash, crying!  I did not catch a single fish in that feeding frenzy, and, as you can tell, I remember it to this day!

That did not deter me from continuing to pursue fishing.  When its in your blood, there's no getting it out.

["hamma"]

 Mine was actually my first fishing outing, and it turned into a nightmare,...literally

I was about 4 and dad rented a lakeside cabin and took us all to Sunapee Lake in NH. I finally got to fish as my 3 older brothers used to go often with dad and I was obviously eager. Well it was springtime so the bluegills were bedding and I caught about 2 dozen or so that day, and come dinner time I was extremely excited, and a pro by then of course,..

That night I had "the" nightmare that someone stole all my fish. I was sleepwalking at 2:30 am ransacking the whole cabin while crying out loud, "someone stole my fishies! where are my fishies" I woke everyone up, went thru every drawer, closet, cabinet,... kicked everyone out of bed so I could check under their covers to make sure my fish werent there,.. even went thru the car and boat, (yeah at that hour) under all the furniture and under every cushion on the couch,..... when I realized that my fish were gone I finally laid down and went back to a "calm" sleep,;;;lol

next day I heard all about it, and still do sometimes when the family gets together.,.. Maybe I'm sub-consiously still searching for my fishies within my obsession with bass fishing

[the reel ess]

I have so many. But one of the earliest was me finally big enough to go out with my dad and his buddy in his friend's boat. We didn't have a fishing boat a that time so it was a big deal. They were crappie fishing over brushpiles with minnows. You know how young kids are. They need to be casting and reeling to stay engaged. My dad gave me a white Mr Twister grub on probably an 1/8 oz. jighead and I proceeded to outfish them the entire day at every stop. They only had poles, no rods. We stopped at a store on the way home and the men bought the store out of small grubs. I had fished for panfish with a cane pole and worms before them,but I was hooked on gamefish thereafter.

Another time, my dad and I with his same buddy, happened upon a guy as we were trolling down the bank who told us to leave his spot alone because he was fishing a bass tourney the next day and needed that spot. We cleaned it out.

My dad and I got into white bass, stripers and white perch many times. One time the action got so fast and furious, we rigged multiple rods so we could catch one and drop it in the boat, pick up another and cast. My dad got so excited he fell in the boat trying to put some in the livewell. We caught 60, which was a limit at that time of the whites and several stripers to boot. We just started throwing them back after we thought we had a limit. We could have kept fishing, but we ran out of daylight.

I caught 5 nice keeper bass on five casts with a Spook one morning in front of a guy who told us he was fishing a tourney and would love to have those bass, insinuating he wanted to use our fish. I kept them.   BTW, the 6th bass broke me off and took the only Spook we had because I didn't retie. I had other topwaters, but didn't get another bite after that.

[jr231]

1 hour ago, the reel ess said:

I have so many. But one of the earliest was me finally big enough to go out with my dad and his buddy in his friend's boat. We didn't have a fishing boat a that time so it was a big deal. They were crappie fishing over brushpiles with minnows. You know how young kids are. They need to be casting and reeling to stay engaged. My dad gave me a white Mr Twister grub on probably an 1/8 oz. jighead and I proceeded to outfish them the entire day at every stop. They only had poles, no rods. We stopped at a store on the way home and the men bought the store out of small grubs. I had fished for panfish with a cane pole and worms before them,but I was hooked on gamefish thereafter.

Another time, my dad and I with his same buddy, happened upon a guy as we were trolling down the bank who told us to leave his spot alone because he was fishing a bass tourney the next day and needed that spot. We cleaned it out.

My dad and I got into white bass, stripers and white perch many times. One time the action got so fast and furious, we rigged multiple rods so we could catch one and drop it in the boat, pick up another and cast. My dad got so excited he fell in the boat trying to put some in the livewell. We caught 60, which was a limit at that time of the whites and several stripers to boot. We just started throwing them back after we thought we had a limit. We could have kept fishing, but we ran out of daylight.

I caught 5 nice keeper bass on five casts with a Spook one morning in front of a guy who told us he was fishing a tourney and would love to have those bass, insinuating he wanted to use our fish. I kept them.   BTW, the 6th bass broke me off and took the only Spook we had because I didn't retie. I had other topwaters, but didn't get another bite after that.

Lol this is funny. Nice 

[WRB]

Growing up in a shoreline cabin on Big Bear lake in SoCal there are lots of childhood fishing memories, learned to walk and fish about the same time. I remember catching Mosses my 1st big bass. It took 3 years of trying to catch Mosses a bass that lived under our neighbors dock, I was 8 years old catching crappie with a cane pole bare hook with a piece of red chemise when Mosses grabbed a small crappie and I mamaged to beach the big bass. I ran back to our cabin carrying the bass about half as big as I was. Lesson learned was Mosses died and that changed me forever starting my catch and release of bass decades before the practice became common.

Tom

[whitwolf]

Like scaleface me and my buddies would hop on our bikes and fish various places. It was a different time In that you could ride your bike most anywhere and never have to worry about traffic, never had to worry about being abducted, and when it was 95+ with humidity in the 80's you could stop most anywhere and get a drink of water. 

Those days brought many catfish, bream, bass, gar, bowfin, and shad. It was a simple time with simple gear but It was durn cool. As for the favorite memory; most anytime I got to fish with my daddy, special time(s) to be sure.