From a New York angler. I started slinging plugs (as they were called back in 1960), with a Jitterbug my first lure ever. Amazingly, they still catch the tar out of 'em in low light. Most guys that fished then only had a few lures. My grandfather would roll over in his grave if he ever saw all my tackle and rods today, let alone my bass boat. Back then, most guys learned fishing from their dads or granddads like I did, not by reading about it, nor seeing it on TV, and we sure didn't have the Internet then. Times and things in those days were way simpler. There were only a few channels on TV, and at a certain time every day, programming was done, and all you could see until the next morning was a station's test screen. In 1960, our family only had one TV, and it was black and white. We had no air conditioning...in the family car or the house either one. However, we had a fan...and I might add, water coolers--both home-made and store-bought--were popular back then, too (LOL). I have fished intensely my entire life...have never put it down.
From a California angler. First time I ever fished was 1958, with a spinning rig bought at Thrifty Drugstore for $4.99...or thereabouts. At 10 years old, I hopped on a bus that took me to the nearest lake. The only lure I had was a Red Devil. I didn't even know how to cast the rig. I released the anti-reverse and slung it as hard as I could, only to end up hooking some man's arm. He popped the hook out (wasn't beyond the barb), then proceeded to teach me how to cast properly. I was in heaven and fished until the mid-80s. Then my folks got divorced, and that was the end of my fishing for several years. Luckily, I got back into it when my son bought me a nice spinning rig for Christmas in 2008. He's been fishing since he was about 9 years old.
From a Pennsylvania angler. I was fortunate that my dad and uncle were really into bass fishing throughout the 40s and 50s. My first dedicated bass-fishing trips began in the early 60s. I remember many Zebcos, Mitchell 300s, and old red Ambassadeurs. I spent a lot of time growing up on my uncle's cattle farm that had a private pond. It was my personal playground. I fished it anytime I wanted...day or night. Fast forward to the late 70s, when I got so wrapped up in fishin' that I lost a wife, a house, and two jobs, and developed a few personal problems. Started a guide service, then developed some more personal problems. Fished Jitterbugs, Johnson Spoons, Snagless Sallys, Bill Plummer's bass frog, Burke flex-o-lure, Storm Thin Fins, Dying Flutters, Devil's Horses, Dalton Specials, Buck Perry Spoonplugs, and No-Bo line back then. Caught many large fish on all of them. Used Herter's catalog to order 50 assorted lures from Sports Liquidators for $19.95...as I recall. Got some of those big ol' plastic worms that had ridges on them and two weedless hooks. Looked kinda like a piece of tire tread. That's when fishing was about fishing. Today, it's about fishing and money. I see guys on TV roughing up the fish, hootin' and hollerin', high-fivin' and screamin' at the fish...and G-man doin' a high-speed pass on Randy Howell whilst he's fishin'. I really don't understand it. To me, it's just all common buffoonery. I've been doin' it about five decades now...three decades at 150 to 200 trips a year. I'm wore out, my elbows and wrists are worn out, and my boat's wore out. I'm tired of runnin' and gunnin'. I do, however, still manage to squeeze in well over a hundred days a year. There are five lakes, all within 10 minutes of where I live.
From Massachusetts angler No. 1. I started fishing in the mid-40s, using a bamboo pole, kite string, a cork bobber, a hook, and a tin can to carry my worms I dug up in an old, long-neglected orchard on my way to the pond. The first rule back then was to make sure the worm hid the point of the hook, so the fish couldn't see it.
From Massachusetts angler No. 2. Caught my first largemouth on a shiner and a $2 rod, with a fly reel given to me by a neighbor. That got me hooked. Have seen a lot of stuff come and go. I still have a tubular steel baitcasting rod (Heddon Pal) and a Pflueger "Silk Cast" knuckle-buster reel. My dad bought me a Heddon Lucky 13 (the old wooden kind) for Christmas one year, and I still have it. Times certainly have changed...some for the better, and some for the worse.
From Massachusetts angler No. 3. Times have indeed changed. I'm not sure I enjoy it any more than I did as a wide-eyed youngster of five, but it sure costs a lot more to do it. I remember going to the hardware store, where the bamboo poles were standing in an empty nail keg. These kegs are long gone now. We tied kite string to the tip of the rod, leaving a long tag end, which was secured along the rod from the tip to the stouter portion of the bamboo with a series of half-hitches. When...not if...the tip broke, you still had your line, bobber and hook. The cork was slit lengthwise, about halfway through. We slipped it over the line, then slid it up and down to adjust the depth of the bait. The biggest fish I caught in those days was a 16-inch pickerel, but I didn't catch it on that pole. I had put a shiner on my home-made stringer, made with kite string and a twig about four or five inches long tied to the string. We slid the twig between the gills and the gill plate, then out the back side. The twig prevented the fish from pulling off the line. We'd secure the stringer to a bush, rock, root, or whatever. Keep in mind this stringer was about 20 feet long, so it was more like a leash, which allowed the fish some freedom to swim about. On this day that I had put a shiner on that leash, I pulled it up when I got ready to go home and discovered that a pickerel had come along and swallowed the shiner. To me, it looked like a world-record fish, so I took it home to show off. Along the way, the pickerel slid off the shiner, but I got it home, put it in a wheelbarrow full of water, pulled up some tall grass, and put it on the water. Somehow, I thought the grass would keep the water oxygenated. After everyone saw the pickerel, I put it in a bucket and released it back into the pond (just a couple minutes' walk through the orchard), where it had been caught. It had managed to survive that ordeal.
No comments:
Post a Comment