Where did it start?

Three of my four grandparent's families were long-time Scots/Irish sharecropper stock that settled in Georgia a ways south of Atlanta. The fourth grandparent was a Swede/Finn but that's a whole 'nother tale.

My mother got married at 18 right after highschool as that was the primary option for her back then/there and had me at 20. Unfortunately, she was divorced by 21 and trying to support the both of us on a secretary's pay. The only way she made it work was by dropping me off at my paternal grandparent's house while she worked so in my early year's I spent a ton of time with my grandmother. She's the one that taught me to fish and built those neural pathways that led to a lifelong obsession. Other hobbies have come and gone but fishing has been a constant.

We would drive all over the countryside in her old car going to various farm ponds to which she had somehow brokered access. Bait was a combination of crickets, night crawlers and what she called 'Catawba Worms' which were a gooshy sort of tent caterpillar that we harvested from a neighbor's tree. The target was bluegills and shellcrackers.

I bought my first fly rod and reel at 12 from K-Mart with my lawn mowing money because I saw it in a magazine and thought it looked cool and that was that although the target was still bluegills. I still have the rod, a 5wt Browning Silaflex.

Here's one of me in front of their garden with the day's haul - barefoot redneck kid with a stringer of dead 'gills.

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Started fishing around the age of 4. My mom has most of the pics of me fishing at that age but I do have this gem. First steelhead. Mullet game was strong back then.

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Searching thru pics I came across this one that my mom was kind enough to send to my boss in Westport. Naturally him and the crew had to turn me into a meme.


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Very similar to your start @Shawn Seeger , but no old fishing photos of when I was a kid (unless there's an undiscovered petroglyph in a SW Montana cave somewhere) . . .
 
My best childhood fishing memories were our family camping and fishing trips in the Beartooth's.
No fish or me in these pics but Jeepin' into some of the lakes could get quite adventurous.
My guess is that this was around 1959-60 when I was 10 or 11 years old.
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Gotta love Mom's fishin' hat and sunglasses.:)
 
Growing up the youngest of 7 kids in MN, the only vacations we ever took were to fishing resorts "up North" - i.e. a hundred miles outside of the twin cities with all 9 of us piled into a Plymouth Fury wagon.

It got lost when my folks passed, but they used to have a pic of a 2 yo me crouched on a dock, fishing for sunnies with a line tied to a yellow plastic beach shovel. Canned corn still smells like bait to me!

I do have Dad's old pike lures. Torn between framing them and trying to catch a pike for him. Miss you, Dad! 20200329_124352.jpg
 
Opening day was April 1 in NY state when I was a kid. This must have been ca. 1962 or 1963. Just this side of the wooded hill on the horizon was Callahan Creek, a headwater tributary of the Susquehanna river and a reliable source of a trout or two on opening day if you drifted a worm down into the pool from upstream.
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My what great pics and stories.
I started at a very young age at Mason lake, a family place bought in 1941, still in the family. Bass, perch, brown bullheads, bows, cuts and kokanee. Very busy place now and seldom fish it anymore. Great times with my grandfather and dad.
BTW - beavers don’t like to be hooked with bass plugs.
What a place to have growing up.
No fuel on the lake growing up. We could have 55 gallon drums delivered and we made our own pre-mix.
 
Growing up I was blessed to have my maternal grandfather be obsessed with flying small planes and fishing. He flew me all over the west, but the place that sticks out is Nimpo Lake up in BC. We went several summers in a row for a few days at a whack, probably from the time I was 6 until about 10. Grandpa would load his son in law (my dad) and us 3 shits and fly us up to a little dirt strip up there.

Up early and in the boat, trolling pop gear with nightcrawlers for awesome trout. Limit out by noon and head back to the cabin. Us boys would spend the rest of the day removing squawfish for the resort owner at a nickel per fish.

After dinner (always trout) grandpa would grab the flyrod and head down the shore. He was missing his whole thumb and half each of his index and middle finger on his casting hand from an old blasting cap incident. How he gripped the rod is a mystery to this day. But he'd be out there for the risers, pointing to a rise ring like The Babe calling his shot. When there were ample targets to choose from hed let me tell him which fish to catch. I always chose the splashiest rise.

I caught my first flyrod fish up there with grandpa. He let me know that we were only "fishing" when we had the flyrod out, otherwise we are just reeling and filling coolers. Which he also loved to do and always got first priority in the day. But man could that dude throw a tight loop with 2 fingers and some nubs.

Pictures will have to wait until I can get to my moms place!
 
Northern said:
Growing up the youngest of 7 kids in MN, the only vacations we ever took were to fishing resorts "up North" - i.e. a hundred miles outside of the twin cities with all 9 of us piled into a Plymouth Fury wagon.

It got lost when my folks passed, but they used to have a pic of a 2 yo me crouched on a dock, fishing for sunnies with a line tied to a yellow plastic beach shovel. Canned corn still smells like bait to me!

I do have Dad's old pike lures. Torn between framing them and trying to catch a pike for him. Miss you, Dad! View attachment 4536
Click to expand...
Mom and Dad were born and raised on farms near Red Wing. To the day Dad passed he pretty much thought a walleye was the only fish worth catching.:)
We did take some vacations there and rented cabins at Mille Lacs and Lake of the Woods. Good times as well.(y)
Oh, and I remember one of the boys from another family putting a plug like you posted into his brother's ear.:oops:
 
It started with my Great Grandmother, Carrie Hocker. My Great Grandfather was a conductor on the Southern Railroad...He would leave their home in Danville, Kentucky, and she would go fishing on Lake Herrington in Boyle County. Nanny, as I called her fished with cane poles and at one time held the record for the largest Crappie caught on the lake.
She made the best fried chicken you ever ate, and lived to be 106.
 

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circa '81 or '82...edit: this was '81 I was informed...

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I was searching for a better one from the year prior to this, but couldn't find it.

Every summer when we lived in Texas, we'd do a week long camping trip to Colorado. This was from one of those trips....In fact, this trip is especially memorable because I managed to sprint into the large family tent (it was raining) where all of the food was set up (on the floor of course)....slip n slide...
 
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