What/who did it for you?

[Rappin Mikey]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[RickBomba]

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

[nightfighter]

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......