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I think I was about the same age as Jenn, but it was 1973 or so when I got my first keepers. OF course, the rulz were a little different back then. And I don't actually remember the first keeper as much but I saw some pictures about 15-18 years ago that showed me with "keeper" "Rockfish" . I do remember several times fishing with my father on his '71 Wellcraft V-20 cuddy off the Chessapeke Bay Bridge, Sandy Point, and Annapolis when we would land 50 plus "keeper" "Rockfish" in an afternoon. Of course, those keepers were all "legal fish" in the mid to high teen, low twenty inch range at that time... Does that count :P ??
Now my first "real" keeper was somewhat more elusive as I fished alot in Camp Ellis, Maine when the minimum lengths kept moving around. One year, when the limit was 34" plus, my friend and I caught several fish that were about 33-34" (depending on how we measured them) that we released because the local DEM fellow that was always hanging around the pier would bust our hoo-haas if they weren't an inch over the minumum. He would ALWAYS measure the fish short. Well we had several that summer that were arguably over 34 inches (there was a mangled yardstick nailed on to the floating dock) that we did not keep for fear of getting busted by this guy. He always seemed to be hanging over the upper pier railing whenever we got fish larger than schoolies. I had a "keeper" at 34.5 inches and when I told him to come down to look, he just shook his head and told me to throw it back in >( . We never did get a 35" fish. The next year, we were catching fish to 35" practically all summer long. Of course the minimum was 36" at that time. Fortunately, the DEM fellow was not along as often that next year as he was the summer before, and we did manage some 36" fish that season.
I remember one day that we had just run out of herring and had started to switch to bucktail jigs when a friend had brought down some fresh dead mackeral. But in our experience that year, the mackeral was nearly useless we live-lined it on the boat. After many weeks of fishing one rod herring and one rod mack, nearly all of the fish we ever caught were on the herring. We wouldn't even touch the mackeral, we called it "Fish Reppellent" because it even seemed to slow down our catches on herring. So when this fellow brings down this fresh mackeral, I didn't even want to give it a try. He puts on an unweighted 3" long chunk of mack, casts out 60 feet into the river current
and the INSTANT that chunk hit the water, he was on with a big fish!! We all thought it was a blind luck. The fish came unhooked, he reeled in, rebaited and cast out to the same spot. Whamm!!! Another fish about 34-36 inches (these are big fish for Maine during the daylight). Everyone is razzing me about my term of "Fish Repellent" while all 6 of us race to tie on a hook the fastest and bait up. It's really funny to see a bunch of guys scrambling to tie hooks after using bucktails and then to see everyone alomost simultaneously pull out their bait knifes and attack the same mackeral on top of the pile to get lines out the fastest. We must have looked like the Six Stooges as we got our collective buttocks in gear. Well, we all casted out roughly at the same time, and all of us, as soon as the baits hit the water, give or take a couple seconds, ALL of our rods were curled over on - keeper and near keeper fish. Stripers were reeled in, lines tangled with alot of sharp but still friendly banter amongst us. Fish were quickly measured and released. Casted out again, WHACKED, reeled in and released. For the next 4 casts and catches each, nearly all of us had keeper fish or ones that just missed. I think I had somewhere between 2 to 4 keepers that day as they were all cookie-cutter fish between 35-37 inches with the odd fish at 34 or 38. This was all on cheap K-Mart and Wall-Mart rods with cheap reels. Of course when the people on from the upper pier and the down river dock (Camp Ellis commercial dock had a high fixed pier and two other floating docks attached) they grabbed their rods and came to the dock we were on. Just as it got really crowded (the dock was maybe 30 feet long), the blitz stopped with just a few more fish caught. It was truly a blast :-D
**** Oh, almost forgot, then I met #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& and found out what BIG FISH was all about when I saw his "Wedding Album" full of fish between 30 and at the time 48 POUNDS
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