It was defiantely my dad. He loved to fish on the lake where we still have a cottage in southern New Hampshire. I don;t remember the first time that he showed me how to fish but I remember many days fishing with him when I was very young. These are some of my favorite memmories with my Dad (lost him in 2006). He loved to tell peole how I would sit on our dock for hours at only 4 years old waiting for a fish to bite. Here is a picture he took of my first trophy at that very same age (yellow perch, 1972). Quite the lunker hey?!?!?!

I guess there were several people who were responsible for making fishing what it has become for me. Though I lived on the water on Long Island and spent my entire summer on Cape Cod, as a kid my father never took a great interest in it so my first fishing rod was basically a bamboo pole with a nut for a weight and whatever hooks I could scrounge up. He was content to dig clams and had a nack for getting fiddler crabs and removing the claws for bait. I used birthday money to buy my own first little rod and reel from Sears. Then one year an uncle presented me with a bigger setup and a tacklebox with a few plugs and jigs and I was off. In any direction from West Dennis I could get to salt water on my (no speed, balloon tire) bike I would. I caught my first striper when I was about 10 on a small Atom, that's probably when I was truly hooked. All the while, my grandfather was an avid fisherman, mostly after myself and the summer crowds had left the Cape, but he would write me long letters telling me about fish he'd caught at places like Bass Hole or Hemenway Landing, even just down by the Fingers, behind the WDYC. I could only imagine the scenes and long to get back. Then as a teenager I think my father finally did realize how I loved to fish and while he still had little desire to fish himself, when he wasn't working his summer job, he'd take me anywhere on the Cape I wanted to go, and showed me a number of "fishy" places I didn't know existed. It wasn't surf fishing to begin with, but that's sort of what set me on my way.

My dad gave me the love of fishing and even on a skunk day I enjoy it! The most important thing he taught me was PATIENCE and it is true. I passed this to my three daughters and as they got older they found out how important it is with other things besides fishing. Thanks for your patience dad, miss ya!---LOUIE

My dad opened the door, but I walked into the world of fishing.
He taught me one of the most important lessons in fishing: that the lessons never end. If they did, then you'd have given up long ago.
He taught me, without really knowing it, how to enjoy even days when you don't catch a thing, to "live in the moment" as it were.

I learned (fine tuned my tactics) more on my own, but he gets credit for the introduction to the sport, and fostering the desire to keep learning.

I can only hope that the people I have introduced to fishing will carry on in their own ways.