My dad took us at an early age. I was about 6 or 7 and he taught me and my brothers to catch sunfish and small catfish using bobbers and night crawlers in Western New York. I was lucky enough to live about 5 miles from Lake Erie.
He worked at a large steel plant and was what you call a part time junkman back then. He collected, broke down and separated then recycled all types of scrap metals to make extra money for Christmas and his yearly vacation time in the summer. We always went some place to fish and I loved it.
On weekends when we weren't in trouble he would get us to go and help him go "junkin" and then take time to fish a farm pond afterwards. I have my father to blame for putting this curse on me..... A passion to fish. A curse which I'll never regret, a passion I've had as long as I can remember.
As I grew into my teens, I was buying fishing magazines that had anything to do with BASS fishing. Somewhere in the early stages, I grew a passion for Bass. I fished for other species, but Bass was the king to me.
Our yearly camping trips were always memorable, as dad would rent a boat for us to have while fishing and we always had contests for the first fish, the most and the biggest. My favorite place was going to Sidnem Lake in Ontario Canada. It was there that I actually was able to repay my dad for all he taught me and planted the fishing bug. I had by them become fairly good at catching bass on a Texas rigged worm in ponds.
So used it while we fished in this huge lake and my dad was surprised that I was able to catch Bass like that (He grew up using night crawlers). I showed him how to rig it and gave him some extra hooks, bullet weights and purple 6 in rubber worms. Then I pointed out places to toss the worm into and how to work the worm back.
After a several frustrating minutes and many missed hooksets.... my dad caught his first Bass on rubber worm. It was only about 13 inches long, but it might as well have been a 10 lber in our eyes. The look on his face when he lifted the Bass into the boat was priceless...... I was able to teach my dad something about fishing and was I feeling 10 ft tall the rest of the day.
When I was only 17, he was diagnosed with spider cancer. . After a few months, the cancer took over and he turned mean and we had a falling out. I didn't realize it at the time, but the cancer was the cause of it. My father passed away 6 months after the cancer was discovered. Then after we was gone a year.... My mother found a poorly written letter to me from my father. He wrote it, hid it in papers he knew she had to look at and also knowing he wouldn't see me graduate high school. To this day I still have that letter, 30 yrs later.
I always loved my father and miss him dearly. As I grew older, knowing he'll never be able to come and visit me so we can go wet a line together. That hurt deeply.
I'm sorry I got off track with this. But even after I spent 20 yrs in the Air Force and retired..... All my vacations someway involved fishing and the target was mostly Bass.
I tried dearly to help plant that same bug into my one and only son. I some how failed the task. As he grew into his teens he lost the urge to fish anymore. Our last trip was wade fishing / swimming the Little River in Lakeland, Ga.
A trip I'll always remember with pride as he used the techniques and things like how to read the water I taught him. He even out fished me, 6 Bass to my 4 that afternoon and he also caught the large Bass of the day to boot!
Now since moving here to Tenn in Mar 2006, I feel like once again I am being taught how to fish all over again as the Tenn river and lakes are a bit different than the small swampy lakes near Valdosta, Ga where I lived since retiring in 2003.
Thanks Dad and to those of you I've met and learned from..... To the posts here on the forum and to everyone in the future I'll be meeting and fishing with.
