What/who did it for you? - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

ThrowingTimber · 08-19-2005, 12:33 PM

Who took you and what was your first fish?

For me I think it was when my uncle took me smallie fishing for the first time

I must've been like 5 or 6.

JohnR · 08-19-2005, 12:56 PM

Vaguely remember my parents and extended family taking us up to NH (we lived in MD at the time) and my sister and I catching sunnies - fuzzy memory

First stripers, or Rockfish as we knew them at the time, were when I was about 5 in my dad's Wellcraft V-20 off the Chesapeke Bay Bridge pylons (near Sandy Point).

Sweetwater · 08-19-2005, 01:06 PM

My dad used to take me fishing (even though he didn't like to fish -- I found out later) for sunnies and such. What got me "hooked" was when I caught a 3-4 lb largemouth bass on some cheepo spoon on a Zebco 202. The reel was so old, lame, and poorly maintained that I couldn't reel it in. My friend and I hand-lined it in .... I was 8 I think. We had it weighed at a local small town grocerette. This was back in the mid 60's in the south.

Never looked back

chris L · 08-19-2005, 01:16 PM

3 things come to mind ( only 2 ) .
when I was around 5 my Mom brought me to the local pond to catch trout . I left with a 5 year old girls phone # . fished with her a couple times at the same pond . Wish I could remember her name and # .

the other is
when I was around the same age fishing in maine . my brother was trying to catch a catfish off the boat dock for a little while with no luck . we were called to lunch and as sson as he put the handline down I picked it up moved it a little and the catfish was mine for dinner . thats when the people in my family knew I was a fisher .

I remember doing some bait fishing with my grandfather at the local park on LI sound . But I cant remember too much about it . damn brain cells !

tynan19 · 08-19-2005, 01:20 PM

I think I was about 5 in California fishing for macs and sea bass. 1st stripers were from the marina at Onset. My friends father had a slip there.

Vogt · 08-19-2005, 01:25 PM

i was about 3or4 when my dad took us to a pond a few times for sunnies. First striper was on a little kastmaster while snapper fishing.

GBOUTDOORS · 08-19-2005, 01:26 PM

I would have to say I was 4 or 5 with my dad on Nashawena Island as we lived there. But I realy got "hooked" by my uncle who was a charter capt. out of Cuttyhunk in the 50s and 60s boy those were the days. And I also fell in love with boating there as I can recall my mother pulling me and my brother behind her in a very small skiff as she dug shellfish to ship back to the mainland to market. Oh for the GOOD OLD days.

RIROCKHOUND · 08-19-2005, 01:47 PM

It was always just in my blood; we got a boat when I was young, and grew up fishing as long as I can remember; mostly with my father and occasionally my brother (he golfs now) it's been something his father did etc.. we've always fished, sometimes commercial, sometimes charter/head boats, now just for fun....

Notaro · 08-19-2005, 03:45 PM

my friend, jason and cher who took me to sweetwater fishing. i climbed up to saltwater fishing on my own and found this site. thespecialist taught me how to fish. then fww is becoming more of my fishing mentor. i got two good teachers.

justplugit · 08-19-2005, 04:04 PM

I was about 5 when my Grandfather took me to a little pond for sunnies. It was a cloudy rainy day and i remember it like it was yesterday.

My very favorite time to fish is still a cloudy rainy day.

Rappin Mikey · 08-19-2005, 04:16 PM

Can't remember my first fish. Pretty sure it was a cod though. I do remember waking up every weekend morning @ 3:00 am and jumping in the truck. My brother, grandfather and I would sleep in the back of the Suburban, while my dad would tow the boat from western MA to where ever the fish were at at the time. Great memories. I am surprised that I kind of fell out of the fishing loop for about 15 years. We used to really fill that boat up. My earliest memories are more of watching people bring fish in because I was to small. I got a fish hook up the nose. I remember that. My grandfather had this weird method of keeping his gum fresh. He would stick it behind his ear. He said it saved the flavor, and saved money on not wasting gum. To make a story thats getting longer shorter, my brother, grandfather, and I would all sleep in the back of the truck on the rides home as well. Anyway, I remember all of us chewing gum, and my grandfather recommending we utilize his gum behind the ear technique for the ride home. When we woke up back in Western MA all of our heads were stuck together in the back of the Suburban. My brother, RickBomba, got me back into fishing, namely striper fishing, about five years ago. I haven't looked back since. I think I flipped on some primitive survival light switch, because striper fishing is all I really think about.

basswipe · 08-19-2005, 04:29 PM

My mom before she died(I was 9).But most of my memories come from my dad taking me to the Melville piers.Everything that swims in RI waters could be caught from there.But my fondest memory of fishing there was when my dad caught a 9lb doormat fluke on a head from a snapper blue that I caught.

Vermonter · 08-19-2005, 04:32 PM

My first time was visiting the grandparents in Ct when I was 5 or 6. Went to Crystal Lake with my grandfather and caught smalls and sunfish as I recall. Been in my blood ever since.

hooked · 08-19-2005, 05:15 PM

I was too young to remember the first time but I saw pictures from Baxter State Park when I was a toddler with a rod in my hand and a brookie on the other end.

Earliest fishing memories were hand lining flounder in Salem Harbor and hauling yellow perch from a dock in Ossipee. Probably 4 or 5 at the time.

I need to get my kids out more.

MAC · 08-19-2005, 05:29 PM

A long, long time ago my grandfather took me fishing. I was about 5 and we were catching sunnies with worms. Later in the 60's we went out of Caldara's in the rental boats and caught stripers with sea worms. Been hooked ever since.

RickBomba · 08-19-2005, 05:50 PM

Must've been with the old man at some point (Dad Bomba); first memories of fishing with him were from a boat...we had one for as long as I can remember.
Lots of cod and blue fishing in those days...#^&#^&#^&#^&ie only fished from stripers from shore, so I was to small to go with him until the late seventies.
I remeber him buying me some kids waders in seventy-eight or nine and walking out to Naps. For an eight year old, that's kind of scary!!!
He used to nail them good in those days, lots of fish breaking rebels in half...never took one home because it was too long to walk with a forty or fifty pounder.
Me, I never caught a blessed thing out on the rocks...did catch a lot of other fish, though. Fished every day for two summers straight in 84 and 85...Never started catching good fish until I moved to the Boston Area in '96. Mikey and I lived at the Cape for '95, and all we caught were schoolies.
Anyhow, when I got back into striper fishing (I have always been an addict, just misdirected to the fresh for about fifteen years), Dad Bomba would have nothing to do with any kind of fishing, and believe it or not, Mikey hated fishing more than almost anybody I know.
So anyhow, Mikey moves into my swinging Cambridge apartment for the summer of '97...somehow in between the walking distance to Harvard Square bars, I convince him to go striper fishing with me...He didn't even own a rod, hook, or lure!!!
What a day we had, went out to Bass Point in Nahant (never been there before) and drove around the wonderful city of Lynn looking for a Shaws to buy some mackeral from the fish department(not a very well thought out trip). So we find a tackle shop in the back of a Chinese convenience store (it was hidden in the back of the store, how we found it, I'll never know). We got hooks and herring, and some old rummy's advice to head to red rock in Nahant.
Being half in the bag to begin with (neither of us were driving), we head towards Nahant, and being the consummate Bombardiers that we are, we don't stop to ask WTH red rock is, somehow we end up at Bass Point, throw our herring in, and did pretty well.
This may be a little long winded, and a litttle hijacked, but this is just how I created the fishing monster that my little brother is today. It was one stupid trip, which in retrospect didn't even go that well, but that day we felt like absolute kings of the world. We called Dad Bomba, and boy was he stoked (I still want to remind you guys that at this time I was 25, and still hadn't ever caught a keeper).
I feel that this moment, even more than the first twenty-five years of my hardcore fishing life, rekindled in myself, my brother, and my father the day-to-day fishing lunacy that rules all of our lives to this day.
One day, no big fish, herring chunks...who would've thought???
Rick

nightfighter · 08-19-2005, 06:00 PM

my Dad worked for Buehler Turbocraft for a bit and one of the perks was they gave him one of the jet boats! (Same ones that went down AND UP the Colorado River) He took us out to Great Pigs breakers for cod a couple times. I knew he didn't really care for fishing, but I do remember those cod! We sailed as kids since there weren't many fish to be had (36" min for stripers) but there were enough bluefish caught in late summers of my youth that now I don't ever eat it anymore, even smoked.

THANKS DAD. Wish you were here......

RickBomba · 08-19-2005, 06:15 PM

Oh yeah,
I din't finish the story...anyhow, it's 97 and I'm catching a lot of fish, just not big ones, so I'm a little embarrassed to let anybody know that I obsess about stiper fishing.
Three years and like two keepers go by, and I decide to have knee surgery which will keep me out of work for two months. What do I do in my convalescence (while the ex is working 80 hours a week, me on painkillers the whole time)...surf the net.
January 14th (I clearly remember the date) 2001, I logged on to SB.com for the first time!!! Oh boy, when I went back to work two months later, I had a game plan for boats and shore, Dad Bomba bought me a rat boat, and what a great four years it's been.
The Nahant trip did it for Mikey, but it really was this website that did it for me...A lot of you early guys really helped me (even bassmaster, who I though hated me until about two months ago), and I'd just like to say a long-winded thanks.
PS-I remeber ellman before he left!!!

Later,
Rick Bomba

Saltheart · 08-19-2005, 06:41 PM

My father took me to Scott's Pond in Central falls and we caught sunnies which we called roaches at the time. I remember we had a green and yellow bobber that I watches closely and had a hard time not yanking the line if that bobbers twitched even a hair!

Raven · 08-19-2005, 06:58 PM

grew up as a tricycle riding little dude on the charles river in Newton....
so i was introduced to fishin at a very young age....but what did it was fishing out of a row boat in Mattapoiset where we rented (late 50"s) @ Crecent beach. We would dig clams at low tide and then using a RED drop line fish just off the Local beach. My first fish nearly pulled me over the side and pulled the boat around. Thats all it took. After that i was a little fisherman.

pmueller · 08-19-2005, 07:23 PM

Dad taking me to Mashpee/Wakebe, DW field park in Brockton, and my friends to the reservoir in Randolph, along with the cemetary on North street.
Man, we caught some decent fish in the resy and cemetary.

Backbeach Jake · 08-19-2005, 07:23 PM

Way,way back in the 1900's, the 1950's my Grandfather took me fishing at Pilgrim Pond in North Truro. The pond is at the bottom of a hill on top of which he lived. I must have been 4 or 5 years old. We caught horned pout. I learned my first real swears when a 'pout stabbed him! When he and my Grandmother passed and the house sold I missed my chance to get one of those old cane poles.Tarred line, cork bobber... I'm still kicking myself for that.

CANAL RAT · 08-19-2005, 10:21 PM

when my mother was carrying me she was fishing with my father off the plymouth harbor jetty.my first striper was a schoolie and i caught it using clams. then my mothers frend bob when i was 6 fishing in his 25ft boat in boston harbor we were throwing sluggos at dock pilings and thats when i saw my first big striper 25lbs if i remember right.bob also introduced me to hunting and i have never looked back.bob also taught me catch and release and i still get a wierd feeling when i catch keeper i just have to release it

thefishingfreak · 08-19-2005, 10:37 PM

grandfather.
zebco 33.
the rest is history.

CAL · 08-19-2005, 11:00 PM

In the late 60's my grandfather would take me to fish for flounder from the pier in Hull, I was probably 4 or 5. Back then you could toss over a spreader and catch 2 at a time and fill and old laundry basket in no time. One time I caught a lobster that refused to let go.

A couple times a year we'd go out in my great uncles boat and handline for flounder and maybe fish for bass for a bit. I got my first striper around '71 and I remember thinking it was a monster, at least compared to a flounder. My dad says it was only around 26" or so

Bass Babe · 08-20-2005, 03:30 AM

First time fishing was with my sister. I must have been 4 or 5. We took worms down to the river across the street from my house, and I don't know how she did it, but somehow we both caught fish, the hand-dug worms didn't crawl away, and I didn't nosedive into the water. Good old sister Ray. Then I got into fish at school, and now I have a degree in fisheries conservation from Umass Amherst. My first striper was thanks to Rob Rockcrawler, and it was only last season. He's a wicked awesome teacher, because I've gotten a couple keepers this year already. And I am SO hooked.

pmueller · 08-20-2005, 08:38 AM

Oh yeh, I forgot about the times Dad took me down to the Canal as a kid, along with trolling worms in Plymouth Harbor. Never really hooked up too much, but it did the trick.