Got a Fishing Story as a Kid?

[Will Ketchum]

I grew up on the edge of a valley only two blocks from the woods. There were water company reservoirs where we hiked up the mountain to fish with a roll of fishing line in our pocket and one hook and a split shot, and on the way up we'd find a suitable tree branch for a pole. We fished the 1st dam of the three mostly from the dam itself where it was deepest and only required dropping down the line. Bait was grasshoppers picked from the tall grass around the area. Caught were bluegills, perch and bullheads. 

 

Our nemesis was the reservoir watchman. He was called Scatter for possibly two reasons. It was thought he was a scatter brain, or scatter is what we did when we heard his old jeep struggle as it made its way up the hilly dirt road.

[TnRiver46]

Too many to count! My buddy’s neighbor had a koi pound, bout the size of a baby pool. We were always trying to fish it, but our friend’s mother that lived there made it known that was a big no no. Well we snuck in and did anyhow. Obviously the koi bit first cast (haha) and lots of splashing ensued that alerted the mother to our presence. We ran like crazy but I kicked a ceramic duck over into the water and broke it on our escape. We were in trouble on two counts now, fish harassment and ceramic duck battery 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Lots of memories of being kicked out of golf courses, and neighborhoods 

55 minutes ago, Will Ketchum said:

I grew up on the edge of a valley only two blocks from the woods. There were water company reservoirs where we hiked up the mountain to fish with a roll of fishing line in our pocket and one hook and a split shot, and on the way up we'd find a suitable tree branch for a pole. We fished the 1st dam of the three mostly from the dam itself where it was deepest and only required dropping down the line. Bait was grasshoppers picked from the tall grass around the area. Caught were bluegills, perch and bullheads. 

 

Our nemesis was the reservoir watchman. He was called Scatter for possibly two reasons. It was thought he was a scatter brain, or scatter is what we did when we heard his old jeep struggle as it made its way up the hilly dirt road.

Or he fired a scattergun at folks......which I've actually had happen while night fishing a private lake me and friend had permission to fish.    That prompted my friend to grab the "snakecharmer" .410 in a compartment and proceeded to fire his own warning shot in the air.  

 

It was wild lol, and I was like 14-15 maybe. 

[Captain Phil]

There is a county park in N. Miami named Greynolds Park.  It's actually an old rock pit.  When we were kids, we would get up before dawn to sneak into the park and fish the small lake where they rented pedal boats.  The pond was brackish and connected to the inland waterway.  It was also loaded with snook, baby tarpon and a few bass.  The caretaker came on duty about an hour after dawn and would run us off.  Great memories. ?

[bulldog1935]

the best are two with kids

My younger daughter was not quite 3 when she caught her first fish.  Took her, mom and sister to picnic and fish Shoemacher's Crossing on the upper Guadalupe.  We began the morning in the back yard, adding grasshoppers to a plastic coke bottle.  She played in the water while her older sister fished through most of the grasshoppers.  Finally, she took over the rod and caught a nice, fat cichlid.

Her eyes got big as saucers watching me bait the hook with the next-to-last hopper. 

She grabbed the coke bottle and ran. 

"Daddy - Don't - I love him"

[bulldog1935]

Older sister was 4 when she caught her first fish.  Completely different, though an equal Texas treasure - just after dinner and sunset from a boat dock on Lower Laguna Madre.  The Zebco UL-1 and Eagle Claw Featherlight glass rod were also common to both stories.  Calm evening, and the most important part was a spray with Cutter to keep the mosquitos from eating us.  When Taylor caught her nursery  trout, realized I left the camera upstairs, and ran back to get it, just keeping the fish in the water.  After the photo, when we tried to release the fish, it went belly-up.  Didn't make sense because we were generally kind to it. 

"I didn't want the mosquitos to eat the fish, so I sprayed it with Cutter"

[12poundbass]

I spent many spring nights with my friends driving from river to river sucker spearing. Back then you’d carry a Coleman lantern in one hand, a spear in the other, and have a grain bag around your shoulder. We’d go all hours of the night. Those were some good times! 

[scaleface]

So many stories . I asked the neighborhood bully if he wanted to go fishing with me . A strategic decision on my part . He accepted and I never had any trouble with him . He got into a lot of fights , got into a lot of trouble , went to prison but he was always happy to see me when we would bump into each other . 

[Spankey]

I have a lot of great times and stories as a kid  also. Most center around trout fishing but I have a lot of that posted. 

 

When I was 12 to 14 years old, a farmer that a neighbor hood buddy and I worked for had told us that there was a couple of Jewish doctors in town that wanted some live younger carp but they wanted them alive. (I mean no disrespect by calling them Jewish, they were, and they had some special ritual and process to taking care of them.) They would pay us for them. We knew at a young age that we could not truly sell them and at that time we were to young to even need a license. But those Doctors made sure we got compensated for them. 
 

They went as far as hooking us up with this real old local guy who made strawberry, vanilla and corn dough bait for us to use. Canned corn was all you really needed. The creek was fairly close by, catching a few each time was not real hard to do but lugging your gear around and carrying a big old galvanized wash tub around to boot was a real PIA. Some times we would thumb a ride back to the farm. Something you would not even think of doing these days. No cell phones back in those days. Riding our bikes was of no help. But we got back one way or another. The farmer drove us over to deliver the carp. Those doctors thought it was great. 
 

Now I never seen it with my own two eyes but I was told that they (Docs) would put them in the bath tub or some bigger tub and flush them with fresh water. ???????? Maybe a day or two? To this day I wish I would have said to one of them guys “show me what’s gonna happen with them”. I was not comfortable asking but was in my mind to. 
 

It got us a few bucks each time back in the day. Most times we would go get more fishing stuff at the hardware store. 

[fishhugger]

my mom enjoyed taking a bunch of us out to 'the cement boat' to fish. it was an old cement boat, permanently grounded, near santa cruz in california. it was pretty adventurous to fish, either on the boat, which i viewed with suspicion, because there was water in it's hold... the ocean.  

i prefered the pier. you could, being adventurous, cast under the pier, to try to get that structure...  a lot of the older people in my family fished - usually for stripers, in the california delta. 

that was when it had more fish than it does now.  i've just started fishing the delta now, and had my first striper outing friday. no luck, except had a nice day on the delta. the weather was good

[scaleface]

An uncle and I "we were the same age" use to ride  little 20 inch sting ray bikes , eight  miles in the sweltering summer heat  , to fish an irrigation ditch for bullheads . When finished we put them in a gunny sack and headed back . We made three stops on the way home , soaking the gunny sack in   creeks and  the Mississippi    . Upon arriving at my house , the fish were dumped alive on the lawn ready for cleaning .

[Spankey]

On 10/16/2022 at 11:43 AM, scaleface said:

An uncle and I "we were the same age" use to ride  little 20 inch sting ray bikes , eight  miles in the sweltering summer heat  , to fish an irrigation ditch for bullheads . When finished we put them in a gunny sack and headed back . We made three stops on the way home , soaking the gunny sack in   creeks and  the Mississippi    . Upon arriving at my house , the fish were dumped alive on the lawn ready for cleaning .

Sounds great. My uncle would only take bullheads from us. All he wanted. We’d catch them on farm ponds and at the quarry. But they never had great size to them. They got delivered in the old wash tub more than a few times. 
 

Don’t know what ever happened to that old galvanized tub. Would love to have it as a wall hanger today. Had the floppy handles on it with the wood grips. Thanks for the great thoughts.