Tell us about your first fish.

In the mid 50's my dad took me on a party boat to Catalina Island for Barracuda, with a group of men from his work. Everyone put $2 into the pot, except me. I was the only one to catch a Barracuda, and won about $30. I also caught a seagull out of the air with a lousy cast.
 
My first fish was a monster. A catfish of at least a pound...sitting on a pier on Southeast creek near our home. My father was a waterman and I went with him to pump water out of his boat after a rain storm. He was a few minutes pumping his and a friends boat and I got to fish...I still have that old Penn fishing reel...I was a few days shy of 5 y.o. 70 years ago. I no longer fish...the average fish caught here was bait back east...esp off-shore for tuna
 
I have to admit....

Skeet 028 said:
My first fish was a monster. A catfish of at least a pound...sitting on a pier on Southeast creek near our home. My father was a waterman and I went with him to pump water out of his boat after a rain storm. He was a few minutes pumping his and a friends boat and I got to fish...I still have that old Penn fishing reel...I was a few days shy of 5 y.o. 70 years ago. I no longer fish...the average fish caught here was bait back east...esp off-shore for tuna
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I like salt water fishing more than fresh and I like the fish better, too.
 
5 years old in 1959 I remember coming back from fishing with Dad and my brother. I know I caught at least one fish. We had a mixed bag of catfish and perch and I think I caught a cat and got stuck with a spine. I remember we ate them that night and I was one happy boy.
 
I was ten when we took a trip to Yellowstone and I fished for the first time. I don't remember catching one but I was hooked. A few years later a friend of my dad offered to take me fishing and on a camp out with his son. We drove down near Deckers on the South Platte and got to fishing first. Dr Bob was a fly fisherman ,pipe and all, and that really stuck with me. I caught a rainbow on salmon eggs and then the storm rolled in so Bob thought we should maybe head home. I talked him into driving further into the mountains where my dad was building a house and we could camp there (If he took me home I'd have to work the next day)We set up camp in the living room (it was a shell) and were surprised when pop and Dave showed up at 7 am the next morning.We ended up heading home,but I was happy with my day off from the old slave driver lol
 
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My first fish? 😂
It was way too long ago, no one took a picture, we probably ate it.

At my age I can almost remember the last one. A bluegill in breeding colors a couple of weeks ago.

Not my biggest, or coolest, nothing to brag about, but boy it was pretty.

 
arjay said:
I was ten when we took a trip to Yellowstone and I fished for the first time. I don't remember catching one but I was hooked. A few years later a friend of my dad offered to take me fishing and on a camp out with his son. We drove down near Deckers on the South Platte and got to fishing first. Dr Bob was a fly fisherman ,pipe and all, and that really stuck with me. I caught a rainbow on salmon eggs and then the storm rolled in so Bob thought we should maybe head home. I talked him into driving further into the mountains where my dad was building a house and we could camp there (If he took me home I'd have to work the next day)We set up camp in the living room (it was a shell) and were surprised when pop and Dave showed up at 7 am the next morning.We ended up heading home,but I was happy with my day off from the old slave driver lol
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Things have sure changed in that area. Fished there many times.
I was raised in South Park and went to high school in Fairplay. Lived outside of Bailey for many years. The South Platte is an old friend.
Thanks for stirring up some memories. 👍
 
My first? You always remember the first.
My first snook , 13 years old, caught it with my brother on a Saturday morning.
Two boys and a Boston Whaler.
Love my youth.
Thanks Mom and Dad for trusting us.
Glamour shot of a Sailfish
Again with my Brother

Papa
6f27e542ebffddeeb68799045f548da2.jpg
 
That is asking a lot. We fished a lot when young. Didn't fish saltwater until high school now and then. Went on to be offered to be first mate trolling way offshore. What a fishing life.

However, my first fish tonight was a fried redbreast, followed by three bream and another redbreast. The gals and my friend made hushpuppies, pork and beans with bacon, cole slaw, fried squash, mac and cheese, fried potato chips. God furnished the river-caught bream and redbreast I was blessed to catch and clean last week. Good food. Good friends.

Yes, thought about my Father and brother eating Vienna sausage and cheese crackers while mainly fishing with crickets, Shysters, and Firefly Shimmies. Also thought about my Stepdad catching catfish and crappie from teenage on up until he passed, too. We caught some of everything the rivers offered.

I remember my Mother taking us crabbing in a rented boat at a young age. It is well...
 
I was very, very young but I think it was a small spadefish caught off the Isle of Palms pier back in the late '50's sometime. I remember a stingray went right past my line, too, like he was flying through the water in slo-mo. We went crabbing more than we fished. My dad rented a rowboat at Andre's dock and pulled up blue crabs like crazy. Andre' also owned a restaurant and sometime in the 60's his wife shot him. o_O

We went fresh water fishing when my Dad got a motor boat, but we used cane poles to keep from paying the license fees. Caught mostly Bream. I caught a mudfish one time and my Dad threw it in the bottom of the boat where it breathed and gasped for about an our. I asked my Dad if we couldn't just throw it back in and he said, "Nah, well just catch him again in a few minutes." Dang if that wasn't ok with me but he was on a meat hunt and I didn't argue.

I used to LOVE to go to the 'grillage' behind Fort Moultrie and catch Flounder. My friend caught a trophy Flounder and trophy Sheepshead there. The Flounder trophy had a little gold Flounder on a pedestal. We went to Bull Island to a freshwater lake and I caught a very large bass but being the time of the year it hadn't been eating well and was kinda skinny. I should have thrown it back.

My first sport fish was a Dolphin (Dorado) I caught in the Gulf Stream. Man that thing was gorgeous, it looked like a jet propelled rainbow going back and forth from one side of the boat to the other. When it came out of water all of the color drained away and I felt bad. It was the only decent fish caught on the trip, but she tasted really good.

I've been on some other paid expeditions but none of them were very productive for the outlay. In Key West we caught one Grouper and had a restaurant fix it that night for us. YUM!

I REALLY prefer saltwater fish for eating. Mackerel is a real treat.
 
I'm pretty sure it was a Flounder
Taken from Quincy Bay MA
I was about 4 & dad rented a rowboat

We had Sardines & Ritz Crackers
(It became our Traditional Fishing Snack)

I still eat them & think of Fishing with Dad
 
I definitely don't remember my first fish. Nobody in my family fished, but I've seen a picture of myself holding a "Pufferfish" on the end of my line. I was probably 6-7 years old fishing off a dock behind our rental house in Garden City, SC. My grandfather and little brother were in the picture too.

My fishing didn't really start until I was in college. My best friend's family had a lake house and he, his brother, and his uncle loved fishing. They taught me and I then made up for lost time! I spent most of the weekends for the next forty years fishing, buying 3 bass boats, and spending thousands of dollars on fishing equipment. In fact, most of my special memories involved fishing. Many vacations were spent fishing in Canada, the Florida Keys, the Outer Banks, 3 trips to Costa Rica, Lake Fontana, and ALL lakes in South Carolina. I wish I was able to still do it.
Larry
 
how about my brother's biggest catch ever. He's 12 and I'm 10, when one nice calm sunny day go out in a rowboat on a pond in the Adirondacks trying to catch lots of Perch. All of a sudden without bothering to look he launches his rod backwards to start another cast and sets two of the three hooks on his treble lure into my upper lip. Gives a mighty heave-ho and launches me out of the boat and into the ice-cold pond. So, back to camp we go where our dad pours a bit of cheap whiskey in my mouth and had me swish it around then spit it out. Pours a bit more on the outside of my upper lip. Then gets a pair of needle-nose pliers which he sanitized with a little more cheap whiskey, and one by one proceeds to push the imbedded barbs the rest of the way through my upper lip. Finally has me take another swig, pours a bit more over the holes and tells to go catch some more fish and to behave. If kids today only had a clue..... 😅
 
I was about four or five. My grandfather owned 500 acres in Arkansas. We visited from Texas for a few days.
We fished for catfish and perch in a little stock tank. Cane pole.
Was told to pull when I got a bite. Pulled a bit too hard. Pulled the small catfish out of the water and wrapped it around a sapling on the bank. What a jerk.
Remember writing a story about it in grade school. Titled it "My Flying Fish."
 
Remember my first deer but not my first fish. First memorable fish was on opening day of Trout season when I was very young. Ten inch native brook trout across the road, it came off the hook and my dad jumped into the brook to get it. We had a ball fishing the small brooks for those little native brook trout, which normally would be 6-8 inches. That was a whopper then and now for a brook trout from a brook you can fish both sides of without getting your feet wet. We ate about everything we caught, still do.
 
My first was a pair of bluegills I caught on a worm when I was around 10-11.

Lots since - black bass, catfish of several varieties from both fresh and salt water, crappie, walleye, striper, white bass, rainbow trout, salmon, speckled trout, sand trout, redfish, sheepshead, croaker, skipjack, and a few I have no idea what they were.

Caught one black crappie when I was about 15 that was probably a state record. Had to be close to five pounds, but I had no idea at the time.
 
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My first fish came out of a swampy bog in Virginia when I was a pre-teen. Bank fishing with my dad and another father son. The drag on my line was intense for my age and I just knew I had a 15 pounder hooked....it faught hard and it was all I could do to reel it in close to the bank but when I got it close I made one massive heave ho to jerk it out of the water and on to the bank......It was no fish.....but rather an eel...which I had never seen so I thought it was a water moc.....it landed close to my feet.....My dad found me about a mile up the path leading to the fishing hole...never did live that episode down......
 
My grandfather also used to take me to an estuary in the late afternoon to set his eel pots. I would then go with him the next morning to gather the harvest.

Slimy business that.
 
Don't remember the first. It was probably a Sunfish-Perch, cane pole, worm and bobber, farm pond.
But later on - we stopped at a nice Jackson Hole RV Park.
They had a stocked fishing Pond, free to Paying Customers!
Where's my Rod?
So I join the multitudes dipping hooks into the water.
Pretty soon, I have one!
I start to reel that monster in!
Then it happened. My Rod broke!
This was a cheapie closed face spinning rig. It broke just in front of the reel where it was a good inch plus in diameter.
My adoring fans yelled 'Look. He caught one so big it broke his Rod!'
Now everyone there is looking at me.
I grabbed the fractured fiberglass and reeled in the befuddled 10 inch Trout!
Unhooked it, threw him back in.
So he would swim over to his Buddies, 'You ain't gonna believe what just happened to me!'
 
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I'm not exactly sure about the first fish but the earliest durable memory I have is when I went trout fishing up in Potter County, PA with my dad and granddad when I was about 8. I caught a brook trout and I still have the framed picture of my granddad and me with my trout.
 
I honestly don't remember. In all probability, I was about 5 . It was likely a Brim, caught on a cane pole in my Grand dad's farm pond.
I spent a lot of time fishing farm ponds as a kid. ;)
 
I remember once when I was about 12 or 13 I was fishing in a floating "crappie house." Had baited one pole and dropped the hook in. I set it down to bait another one when I got a bite. I lunged for the pole just in time to watch it disappear over the railing. Learned an expensive lesson that day,
 
I remember my dad taking a small fish off the hook for me when I was 4 or 5 years old but don't remember if it was a red eye or a blue gill. We were fishing on the Au Sable River.

My best memory of fishing was wading out into the Greenbrier River one rainy day and catching 5 fish on my first 7 casts. I still like fishing on rainy days 57 years later.
 
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