One of the things that I have loved ever since I was a little kid was fishing. I remember catching that first trout, and after that, I was hooked on fishing ! Of course, I couldn't bear to hit its head on a rock and kill it, so I ran around holding that poor trout until it finally died. My folks went fishing almost every weekend during the summer months, and I loved the campfire meals with fresh trout pan-fried in Mom's old cast iron skillet. When I had children of my own, we also went fishing whenever we could, and all three of my kids love to fish as a result. My oldest son and my two grandsons will even go to some of the high mountain lakes where they have to hike into the lake to fish there. I have not fished for several years now, but we keep talking about it, and one of these fine mornings, Bobby and I will load up the fishing poles and tackle box and at least go down the road to the little fishing pond and see if we can catch anything.
Beautiful photo. My dad was an avid bass fisherman. He taught me how to cast lures around stumps and logs in the water without getting snagged and tangled. And, how to get unsnagged without losing the lure. I had a pretty shaky start though. It went like this. In about my seventh year, I wanted to practice my bait casting skills. Actually, I had no bait casting skills, nor even a fishing rod. But my dad did and I saw him toss bait and lures out and reel ‘em back in and wanted to do it, just like he did. How hard can it be? So, one fine day when dad was at work and mom was busy, I got dad’s rod and reel out of the workshop and went behind the barn to practice. After fastening a weight to the end of the line, I made my first ever cast. The weight sailed out a ways, jerked to a stop in mid flight and fell to the ground. I glanced at the reel and, Horrors! There was my problem. Something resembling a bird nest, right there on the line spool. Well, only thing to do was sneak back to the workshop and get this mess untangled. Using a pair of scissors, I snipped and pulled line until I got down to straight line. Then I tied the longer pieces back together, wound it on the reel so that most of the knots were out of sight, and put the rod back in it’s corner of the shop. It was about a week before dad had enough time to go fishing with a pal of his. By then I had forgot all about the incident, until dad returned home, yelling like a mad man and I knew I was in for it. For some reason mom found humor in the whole thing. Her laughter at dad’s rage had a calming effect on him, and saved me from a good thrashing. And, it had an added bonus. Dad bought a new spinning reel and rod that was the new rage then, and gave me his old rod and bait casting reel. It came with lessons on how to cast and avoid backlashes, and how to remove them should one occur. After much barnyard practice, I got to be pretty accurate at plopping lures right where I wanted. I still have that reel. It’s a Pflueger Akron, still in good usable condition. Every time I look at it I think of those days spent bass fishing with my dad.
My first husband loved fishing for bass. I grew up with parents who normally only fished in lakes where they caught trout, so I had no experience with catching bass at all. I tried learning to use a lure; but after fishing for all of those years with just bait and hook, maybe a bobber, I just didn't do very good with lures. Plus, I always got the durned things caught on some underwater log and then lost them because I was useless at getting them un-stuck once they caught on something. Unfortunately, when you fish in the still waters of a slough or lake that has bass, and you use a bait and sinker setup, what you often catch is a catfish. We didn't have the regular catfish in Idaho, and even those are as ugly as a fish gets. We have what is called a bullhead, which is a blackish-brown catfish with a sickly yellow-green belly, beady little eyes, long whiskers, and the sharpest spines on the side of his gills. When you catch one of these nasty fish, they will have invariably swallowed the bait clear down into their tummy, and there is no easy way to get that hook back out again. After trying (painfully and unuccessfully) to get a bullhead of of my hook; I would not even touch the hideous creatures again. I threw them back into the water and waited until my husband came back to the tackle box for a different lure, and then he would remove the catfish off of my line.
I think I could enjoy fishing now, but the fishing laws in Maine are so complex I'd probably be arrested on the first day, Maine requires specific licenses for different lakes and waterways, with the rules differing from location to location. Understanding the tax code would be easier so, for someone who probably wouldn't even known what species of fish I caught, I wouldn't stand a chance. As a child, I wasn't very interested in fishing, except for ice fishing and smelt fishing, neither of which involved a lot of idle time. Fish are very hungry during the winter, when there aren't any insects flying around, and they wouldn't be able to get them through the ice anyhow, so they bite at pretty much anything, and are willing to wait in line waiting for the next hook.
That is one thing that is really great about living in Alabama. Once you turn 65, fishing is FREE ! No license is needed , regardless of where you fish, or what kind of fish you catch. Of course, you do still need to know what kind of fish you are catching, so that you are only catching ones that are legal, and only the amount that you are allowed to have each day. As far as I know, we do not have any fish here that are not legal to catch, like some areas have. I looked at the fishing guide, and there are fish here that I had no idea ever existed, so I would definitely nee to have the book with me if I were fishing in the Tennessee River, or anywhere that some of the more unusual species might be found. I think that the little lake near us, called Brahan Spring is only planted with catfish and maybe bass, and something that is called bream, which I have never seen.
Bream, or panfish are almost everywhere. A bluegill is a bream and pretty common. Fun and easy to catch. They put up quite a fight for little guys. Good eatin too, if you catch enough of the bigger ones. I've never caught any weighing more than half a pound or so, but a neighbor caught a bluegill that went well over 1 1/2 pounds.
I have nothing to share in this thread since I was born and raised in the city and had never seen a pond or a lake when I was young. But may I share the anecdote of my husband. He was 5 when they moved to the nearby town of Mandaluyong (just beside Manila) which was a rural area at that time. Their house was situated in between man-made ponds that were planted to water spinach locally called kangkong. His eldest brother who was 12 would catch mudfish and catfish using the hook and line method. His catch would be their food for the whole day. And there are times that the fish, would jump out of the pond and right into the dirt road. So all they need to do was to scoop the fish. In the 3 years they lived in that first house of theirs, the fish and the water spinach were usually their meals. It's a good thing that his mother would cook the fish in different styles like frying, broiling, sauteed so they wouldn't be bored. I was really amused upon knowing that episode in his life.
I've fished all my life but never as often as I'd like. Now we have a lake of our own right behind the house and we still don't fish very often Fishing and hunting are free here too for us old folks. Crappie is my fish of choice for good eating of the fish in the lake. Bass and Bluegill are good too. Catfish are okay but I hate to fillet them...
Wife and I use to go trout fishing on our 16' bowrider boat every weekend, during the summer months, while living south of Denver, CO. Chatfield Reservoir was our favorite lake to go on. She had done very little fishing before whereas I had done some lake and saltwater/pier fishing in So. Calif. After buying this boat, I installed three rod holders and we had a Fishfinder. We'd be out in the No Wake area by 9AM, with lines in. She learned pretty fast how to "bring one in", especially when we got bites on all three lines at almost the same time! Shoot, my wife was still in bed sleeping on a Saturday morning while I was hooking the boat up to our Durango and loading fishing equipment in it. We got some descent size Rainbow Trout! When we got here to northeastern Florida, we didn't have the Colorado boat anymore, but kept our freshwater rod/reels/tack. My wife wanted a good saltwater rig for fishing and wanted me to get one also. We thought about "pier fishing" here, but never did it. We got interested in a Pier Fishing Group and I won a nice saltwater rod/reel on a Raffle. We ended up buying another boat (19' Cuddy Cabin w/good size V-8 I/O engine) a few months after moving here in 2009. We also bought three rod holders and I installed them.........last year I took them off! Why? None of the three saltwater rigs/tackle have ever hit the water here! Turns out, we don't want to saltwater fish like we thought we would. Going to sell the saltwater stuff in our next apt. complex community garage sale. We will take the freshwater stuff with us when we move back to Denver, CO later. Before we do leave here, I would like to take my wife out on a 1/2 Day Offshore Fishing Boat, just to let her see what saltwater fishing is like. Below: This was an "Ok Sunday Morning" on Chatfield Reservoir, CO. What do you think of these Rainbows?
As a way of popping up an old thread, I want to say that I am not alone. I was reading the local newspaper today and there were two pages of people being fined or arrested for one thing or another, and one of the most common was fishing violations.
Fishing here is really the state pastime. At age 60, residents can receive a permanent license that allows you to fish for free for the remainder of your life (or residence in Alaska). Salmon is now dominated by commercial interests out of Seattle, and that leaves little for the individual fisherman, but there is still ice fishing, Dolly Varden, rainbows, and a number of other fish that are not commercially important. I haven't fished recently, but I would go if I had some company.
Maine has something similar, but for hunting as well. The other thing that Maine has is that a parent can buy a lifetime hunting and fishing license for their children if they buy it before the kid turns eighteen. I think the idea is that many of them won't use it because they leave the state, looking for work that isn't here, but that the lifetime license encourages those who do hunt to return to Maine from time to time.
I like fishing streams or rivers more than from a boat. It's more about relaxing along the stream on a nice day than catching fish, but people wonder what you're doing there if you don't have a fishing pole.