First fish you've ever caught

[TnRiver46]

22 minutes ago, galyonj said:

The first fish I ever caught was a catfish. I wanna say I was two or three years old.

 

We had gone to this restaurant called the Crosseyed Cricket (locals like @TnRiver46 probably remember it), and you could catch your own fish in their pond, they'd take it, process it, fry it up, and bring it out to your table.

 

I don't remember anything about it, but to hear my parents tell it, they paid more than it would've cost to just order one off menu to have one of the employees throw fish food out and help me keep a hook in the water in that cloud of fish food.

 

So there you go.

 

I guess the first fish I ever caught for-real by myself was a bluegill or something like that on a relative's dock when I wasn't but a few years older than I was in the story above.

I think you can still camp there 

[galyonj]

1 minute ago, TnRiver46 said:

I think you can still camp there 

AFAIK that's all you can do now. The restaurant closed a long time ago.

[OCdockskipper]

The first fish I ever caught by myself, start to finish (no one handing you a pole already hooked up) was a bluegill in 1969.

 

We used to vacation at the Sacramento Delta in the summer, at Hopes Landing just down a spot from Wimpy's restaurant.  One evening at dusk, I went down to the dock by myself (6 year olds could do that in the 60's) while the adults wrapped up dinner.  I don't recall the details about catching the bluegill, but I do remember running all the way back to the cabin, about 100 yards, with the poor fish bouncing on the end of the rod. 

[BassFishinBrandon]

I believe I was maybe 8 or 9 years old.  I used to have to go to a day summer camp with my younger brother.  The park had a small pond that some guys would fish every now and again.  One day we found some tangled fishing line around a branch and there was always hooks on the bank.  Well one day we untangled the probably 9 or 10 feet of line and tied one of the dirty rusted hooks on from the mud.  We would use the bread from our lunch sandwiches as bait and catch sunnies all day.  We hid our line and hook in a storm drain tied to a pole so it wouldn't wash away.  We fished that line for a good 2 weeks until the camp counselors noticed us fishing and took it away because of the hook.  So for 2 summers in a row we would always search for line and hooks along the bank and instead of swimming up at the pool on the other side of the park, we'd sneak in some fishing in the afternoons before the bus came to take us home while everyone was swimming which requires the counselors supervision.  

[MIbassyaker]

I don't remember the first fish I caught.

 

But I remember very well the first fish I almost caught.

 

I was 7, maybe 8. Dad took me to the river to fish for the first time.  Dad is...not an expert angler, and I'm not sure he's ever fished except socially. We dug up some worms in the backyard and fished them under bobbers. I had a cheapo spincaster, and I learned how to cast it.  I was supposed to watch the bobber, and if there was a fish, it would make the bobber go under, and then I should start reeling. 

 

For awhile my bobber didn't do anything, and then it just tipped over on its side. Dad said, "oh, you're on the bottom -- reel it in and recast"....but as he was saying that the bobber started moving, and when I reeled it felt pretty heavy. "I think you got one!" he said, excitedly.  Sure enough, as I got it up toward the bank, it boiled and splashed in the shallows....and got off.  I remember a big tail seeming to wave at me as it got away. A channel catfish, dad said, and "a pretty good one" too.  In retrospect it was probably around 14-16 inches, pound and a half, or so.

 

A little later dad caught a smaller one and showed me, "yours was like this, but yours was bigger". I don't think we stayed very long, but that was all we caught.

 

The first fish I actually caught was probably a subsequent trip to the river, on a day where we probably caught a few. But whatever it was, it never came close to making the impresssion that first cat that got away made. To this day, that first fish getting away still feels like unfinished business.

[Zcoker]

First fish that I ever caught was up in northern Mass. I had just moved there and met an old timer who invited me out to a lake to go fishing but said, “first, we have to get up very early to get the bait—the crawlers.” Wasn’t sure what he meant but next morning very early we were combing the wet grass lawns for worms lol. We sooner trekked up to this mountain lake, laid out like a dream amid a backdrop of sleepy mountains. There was a silent fog hovering over the water. We baited our hooks and before I cast out, the old timer said, “wait, you need to do this...” He then tipped my hook with a single kernel of corn. Said “it gets the bites.” I casted out with a “whatever” attitude and within a few moments my rod bent over and I sooner reeled in one of the biggest rainbow trouts that I’d ever seen. But, wait, something odd—the fish had a strange looking tag on it. I informed my fishing companion and he went crazy, kept on saying, “can’t believe it! can’t believe it...”

 

Turned out to be a big deal, indeed! 

 

Apparently, they’d tagged a single trout years prior as a contest and whoever caught it would receive all kinds of prizes. I was amazed at all the rods, reels, fishing tackle....even made the local paper! The whole town literally went nuts. The news traveled like wildfire, to all the churches, stores, and the barber shops...It was one of the craziest adventures I’d ever been through over a single fish! 

 

My first fish. 

 

[Spankey]

20 hours ago, West Coast Angler said:

What, when & where was the first fish you caught?

What setup were you using and what lure was tied on?

Feel free to tell a story, I'd love to read them!

 

P.S. Your pet goldfish and fishtank don't count ?

This can be interesting, I'll start.

 

1 lb~ largemouth bass

2014 bank fishing Sycamore Island (San Joaquin River) - Madera, CA

$40 Shakespeare Ugly Stik SPL 1102 from Walmart

ZOOM wacky worm

 

I still have that Ugly Stik I bought in 2011. I plan on buying a Shimano Stella for it in honor of catching my first fish and in hopes of it catching me my first double digit largemouth bass ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for making this post. Off and on all day while working today I had a bunch of old times go thru my head that I’d love to relive. Thanks. 

[West Coast Angler]

 

31 minutes ago, Spankey said:

Thanks for making this post. Off and on all day while working today I had a bunch of old times go thru my head that I’d love to relive. Thanks. 

Of course! I'm enjoying the read on all these stories, and if it takes even one of you back down memory lane, then I would say I did a good job asking! 

 

It seems for a lot of you, that first (or that one) fish experience really influenced you to become fine fishermen. Thank you fellas for sharing your stories! 

[Log Catcher]

My dad worked for the water company and we lived on water co. property. We had three lakes there to fish. The first fish I caught was around 1957 or 58. A bream on a cane pole fishing with a bobber and a worm. This was the first time my dad took me fishing to teach me how to fish. 

 

If we fished out of a boat we had to go with someone else as we never owned a boat.

 

I don't have any idea about how or when I caught my first bass.

[Koz]

I'm going to have to guess here, but odds are it was a yellow perch in my hometown of Newtown, CT. Yes, THAT Newtown. But it was a small, quiet New England town back then.

 

I was probably 7 or 8 and we used to bike everywhere at that time. There was a pond of of Castle Hill Road (not Taunton Lake) and what I remember about it was that there was an old, white pump house and a few GIANT boulders where we would sit and fish.

 

I don't recall catching any bass there, but there were tons of yellow perch and sunfish. Tackle was almost non existent for us kids. We bobber fished with worms for the most part, but I also remember using a Mepps inline spinner and a small Red Devil spoon.

 

My first bass was probably at Bantam Lake in CT or Lake Bomoseen in VT. We did a lot of camping in those places when I was a kid.

[Sphynx]

Trout at a trout farm with my maternal grandfather in diapers to hear my folks tell it, grandpa was proud as a Peacock in full strut, as to the nuts and bolts it hardly matters,, I have seen fish at that exact same place munch a bare bait holder on braid, that led to summers mostly spent camping and chasing rainbow colored fish for the next couple of decades, bass didn't become a thing until my late teens when my brother from Bama used to drag me all over Ft. Hood in his Ford 500 "Pickup" chasing largemouth, camping, and consuming beverages that will remain nameless for legal reasons in perhaps the best few years of my life, not that I knew it at the time, it wasn't until after the Army that bass became an addiction.

[Teal]

 cant remember, but it was probably a bream in a small creek in nash co. NC with my dad and brothers on a home made cane pole.  

[NYWayfarer]

Bluegill on a Snoopy fishing pole when I was a toddler. My mom has a picture of it somewhere in her house.

 

We never forgot the day. It was at a reservoir and my dad didn’t know you needed a special license to fish there. He got a hefty ticket and we went to the local court. Those were the days before ATM’s and he didn’t have that much cash on him. The judge let us go with a promise to send the rest of the money by check.

[LrgmouthShad]

I learned a little about fishing from a man who lives on a private lake. He had me troll around in a kayak backwards with a sinking fly attached. I would catch a lot of fish like that before I learned anything about spinning gear and such. Once I fell in love with bass fishing, I was on my own. But this man got me started ?. This is the fish I caught about 4 years ago. My first.

[Koz]

This thread got me thinking. Remember when you were a kid and you would reel in your lure and say, "Oh man! Weeds again!"

 

How times have changed. Today you go looking for those weed beds.

[Hammer 4]

From what I can remember, I'd have to say a trout. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, my dad took me to one of the pay to fish trout farm places. Don't recall how many I caught, but I do recall going barefoot, and getting a nice sized hood stuck in my foot. Lucky for me, the guy running the place knew how to remove them, almost painlessly.

 

First bass..hmm, cannot for the life of me recall that one. Old age might have something to do with that..lol

[Alex from GA]

Sometime in the mid '40s, I was 5 or 6, a neighbor took me to the Santa Monica pier.  We fished with a cane pole and a piece of shrimp for, what we called 11 perch.  They weren't very big, 4-6" long.  I don't remember eating any but I'm sure we did.

[J._Bricker]

I remember first fish I ever caught was when I was about 3 years old, in the Philippines from a little creek on a cane pole.  My first bass was a couple years later from a pond outside of Cherry Point, North Carolina on a cane pole, bobber, and a hook baited with a worm from a coffee can full of freshly dug up worms....

 

 

[TnRiver46]

On 12/26/2020 at 2:52 PM, J._Bricker said:

I remember first fish I ever caught was when I was about 3 years old, in the Philippines from a little creek on a cane pole.  My first bass was a couple years later from a pond outside of Cherry Point, North Carolina on a cane pole, bobber, and a hook baited with a worm from a coffee can full of freshly dug up worms....

 

 

Hillsboro brothers coffee can? 

[J._Bricker]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Hillsboro brothers coffee can? 

Maxwell House