Thankful !!

[gim]

I think fishing is a sport, but the participants are definitely not athletes. I don’t think John Cox is going to be running laps after practice.

 

Specifically referring to bass fishing, it’s something I learned completely on my own.

[Deleted account]

2 hours ago, WRB said:

Hell no it’s called sports fishing for a reason. 

To do it for sport, or to sport (verb) is to do something for amusement and recreation.

 

It just occurred to me that SPORT is a good WORDLE starting word...

[Chowderhead]

4 hours ago, MacJig said:

So, I take a moment to thank the person who introduced me to the sport, my dad.
 

What is your story and who do you thank?

I was 11 years old and had just moved to the outskirts of the city. Next door neighbor family had a boy my age and over the next year I learned fishing from him. I remember catching my first fish and how excited I was. I convinced my Mom to let me get money out of my savings account to buy a “good” rod & reel. First bass from that same little Pond came on a rubber frog, and quickly learned the hard way that pickerel have very sharp teeth. Thank you John - hope life treated you well!

[slonezp]

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

My Dad too . I fished with cane poles at first with a bobber and worm . My Grandpa took me some to. I have a cool picture grandpa   and a pal with some carp from the Mississippi river . Thats him on the left .

 

I still have the carp bait recipe him and all the other old timers swore by . I might be the only person  that has it . I wrote it down as a kid . 

If the recipe doesn't include Dr. Pepper..

[TnRiver46]

3 hours ago, GreenPig said:

I may be doing it wrong then.?

? 

[Trox]

My step brother got me into the sport when we met at 5yrs old and it's turned into the family thing to do in a hurry... Funny though, as we grew up we both kind of went our own ways in the sport. My brother went the catfishing/striper/whitebass route, and I went the largemouth route... Both die hards in our own rights, but one definitely has more in the freezer than the other lol

[islandbass]

6 hours ago, Deleted account said:

yeah, but....

Wife thinks she wants to take up pickleball...

Pickle ball is actually a lot of fun. It was invented in WA State too. Try it. I myself was quite surprised how fun it was to play. 

[GRiver]

My grandparents……trout fishing, then it progressed into all kinds of fishing. 

[GANGGREEN]

Definitely my dad.  He wasn't really a fisherman himself, but he recognized that some of his children, especially me, loved to fish, so he made an effort to get me out there.  The strongest memories for me are wading the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River with him and catching Rock Bass and Smallmouth on live bait (crayfish and hellgramites) or on soft plastics.   

 

The PA Fish and Boat commission had an essay contest about this topic years ago and my article was chosen and published in their PA Angler magazine, I'll have to see if I can find that and post it sometime.

[MacJig]

29 minutes ago, GANGGREEN said:

Definitely my dad.  He wasn't really a fisherman himself, but he recognized that some of his children, especially me, loved to fish, so he made an effort to get me out there.  The strongest memories for me are wading the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River with him and catching Rock Bass and Smallmouth on live bait (crayfish and hellgramites) or on soft plastics.   

 

The PA Fish and Boat commission had an essay contest about this topic years ago and my article was chosen and published in their PA Angler magazine, I'll have to see if I can find that and post it sometime.

Yeah that's a real blast from the past. The best memories are created when we are children. Unfortunately we tend to lose that talent as we grow older! Cynicism can take the place of adventure, sadly.

[GANGGREEN]

16 minutes ago, MacJig said:

Yeah that's a real blast from the past. The best memories are created when we are children. Unfortunately we tend to lose that talent as we grow older! Cynicism can take the place of adventure, sadly.

 

I'm fortunate to still have a good bit of "inner child" going on.    Sadly, my dad's been gone for 30+ years.  God how I'd love to fish with him again.

[gim]

8 hours ago, islandbass said:

Pickle ball is actually a lot of fun. It was invented in WA State too. Try it. I myself was quite surprised how fun it was to play. 

 

I gave it a try about 2 weeks ago for the first time.  I've always been good at sports with a racquet or paddle and I had a hankering to try this.

 

I picked up on it immediately.  The problem is that everyone just wants to play doubles.  I insisted on playing solo.  Not a big fan of the doubles.

[Bluebasser86]

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

sport

/spôrt/

 

noun

 

1. 1.

   an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

    

   So by the dictionary definition, I think fishing is certainly considered a sport.

    

    

   I'm thankful to my parents for taking me, both my mom and dad. Dad took me actually fishing the most, but my mom use to take me to the lake a lot and drop me off before I was old enough to drive. 

[Catt]

Being a Cajun I started fishing at age 4 with a cane pole, moved up to a spin cast by age 7. While my dad taught the the fundamentals many people though out my life taught me the details. Mostly I learned on my own by walking & wading the swamps, marshes of Southwest Louisiana.

 

I have a God given gift; when

I look at a one dimensional topographical maps along with the one dimensional view on a depth finder screen I turn it into a three dimensional image in my minds eye.

 

As a teenager I worked as a first mate on my Uncle Joe Addison's charter fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico where he taught me to understand what structure is, how to truely identify it, interpret it, and the fish it effectively.

 

During the early 70s I attended a 5 day seminar under Elwood "Buck" Perry. Before class, during breaks, during lunch, and after class I questioned him relentlessly. What I gleaned from Buck I added to what Uncle Joe taught me and completed my understanding of how fish relate to structure.

 

While y'all see the obvious structure humps, ridges, points, ect, I see little subtle pieces of structure y'all over look. In my thread on Toledo Bend I've shown guys "honey holes" that were right under their noses and they had fished around them for years.

 

1972: Started bass fishing seriously on Toledo Bend at my father-in-law's camp on White's Point in the mouth of Lowe's Creek.

 

Joined two bass clubs whose members included John Torian, John Hall, John Dean, Villis P "Bo" Dowden SR, Harold Allen, Larry Nixon, Tommy Martin, & Zell Roland all guides at Toledo Bend's Pendleton Harbor Marina.

 

Since then I've had many members here teach numerous different things along many subjects.

[DitchPanda]

I thank my dad for instilling the passion of fishing in me. He claims he started taking me when I was weeks old...but he said he remembers me standing there holding a rod starting around age 3. Growing up we didn't do a ton of bass fishing ...we spent our time chasing inshore saltwater species like redfish,black drum, speckled trout,flounder, sheepshead and several others. But we always had bassmasters and in fisherman so my love for freshwater fish was there before I really even pursued them.

 

[throttleplate]

16 hours ago, GreenPig said:

I may be doing it wrong then.?

Try it this way instead, you may like it as its kinda like eating a burnt big turkey leg at the county fair. In the philippines these are fish sticks, enjoy.

[scaleface]

16 hours ago, GreenPig said:

Are those white bass fillets ?

[GreenPig]

3 hours ago, scaleface said:

Are those white bass fillets ?

 Tasty Invasive Spotted Bass 

[scaleface]

2 hours ago, GreenPig said:

 Tasty Invasive Spotted Bass 

The meat looked red like whites .

[detroit1]

My dad got me started when i was around 8 years old - fishing for crappie and then later for lm with a small minnow under a pencil bobber. That was ok for a couple of years, but we wanted more. Some good fishing magazines came out in the early '70's, and i got all of them. Fake lures! Mepps size 0 plain agaila was my first lure. Then a hula popper. I was hooked. A friend of my dad showed him a Kelley's Plow Jockey. For those that don't know, it was a pre-rigged skinny worm with 3 hooks. That was it. Bass killer. We caught them for 3 years using nothing but those. After that, i wanted to fish differently than dad, so while he casted towards the shoreline, i was throwing deep. Dad never gave up his plow jockeys until he couldn't fish anymore. (health and passing 20 yrs. ago) I would love to fish with him again and show him you can catch bass in deeper water than 8'. Magazines and tv shows had the biggest influence in me. Oh, and you guys too...

[Bankbeater]

I was around 7 or 8 when I started fishing with my dad.  He started me out catching bluegill with a cane pole, and then got me an ultralight rig.  We would go catfishing and my job was to catch bait.

About the time I graduated from college I quit fishing on a regular basis until about 2002 when I started up again.  I know my dad was happy when I got back into fishing.

Below is a pick of my dad from 1980 down at Lake of the Ozarks.

[BrianMDTX]

22 hours ago, Deleted account said:

To do it for sport, or to sport (verb) is to do something for amusement and recreation.

 

It just occurred to me that SPORT is a good WORDLE starting word...

 Nah. Only one vowel lol. 
 

It’s funny that my dad got me into hunting and fishing, yet he was never really a serious angler or hunter. I think he did it more for the camaraderie than anything else. He did teach me gun safety and how to tie an improved clinch knot, but I pretty much learned how to hunt and fish on my own. 
 

And it is a sport. No one would fish for a living selling their catch like we do lol. 

[Log Catcher]

My dad got me in to fishing when I was around 6 or 7 years old. Started out with a cane pole fishing for bream and crappie.  He got me my first spincast combo with either S&H Green stamps or Top Value stamps when I was either 10 or 11.

 

We didn't have a way to get a lot of fishing info back then. We would go with what we heard from the members of the fishing club there where we lived.

 

He worked for the water company and we lived on their property. We had 3 lakes to fish anytime we wanted to. When he retired they gave him an Ambassadeur 5000 reel and a Pflueger rod. This was the only baitcaster combo he ever had. He never owned a spinning combo either.

 

Later on I learned on my own or I learned a lot fishing with one of my older brothers. We used to fish together for quite a few years.

[Mobasser]

My dad fished whenever he could, but was busy working much of the time. So my older brother was the one who got me going on bass fishing. Fishing in the evenings on our grandpas farm here in Missouri. We stayed on the farm in the summer helping with chores. There wasn't a whole lot of things to do in the evenings, so fishing was what we always did.           I've been grateful for the experience ever since.

[fishhugger]

my mom. we'd go to a public pier, back in the 1960's, pacific ocean. i remember casting my little spinning rod --- not out to the ocean, but over everyone's lines! soon enuf, i was casting ok.  i was stupefied by the guys, on their bellies, fishing under the pier... wow! we'd go with my various cousins. #6 hooks, mono line, hot cocoa from the little trailer serving food.

back then, guys would catch huge fish, occasionally. they'd walk them down the pier, to the beach, to pull them in. isn't that illegal now??? (without a license)

anyway, that was our introductions to fishing.....