Too many memories come to mind. Some that stay at the top though are...
-My 2 1/2 year old daughter caught her first fish. I casted out a tube jig and handed her the rod to keep her busy. A few minutes later she reeled in a bass all by herself without me knowing it! I was shocked! Of course she screamed when it jumped at the boat and she got scared and didn't want it in the boat! (I told her it was jumping to say hello, but she wasn't convinced)
-I caught my PB Lake trout when I was 7 years old on my very first (real) fishing trip. The handle of the fishing reel kept getting caught in the loop of the knot tied in the lifejacket I had around my neck. Still managed to get that fish in that was almost 10 pounds.I've fished that small lake for 30 years since and I have still not beat it! Caught a monster brookie a foot from the boat on the same trip, and I've been hooked ever since.
-A year later, same lake, trying to "cast" with my Penn 309 reel and leadcore line. Massive birdsnest ensues. As I'm trying to clear this mess with my 8 year old fingers and have 100 feet of line bunched up just off the end of the dock, a nice trout grabs the worm and takes off. I pull that fish in by hand and show it to my grandfather.
-My sister catching a huge bass on her "Snoopy" rod when we were kids, and that rod getting completely destroyed! She graduated to a real one after that fish!
-Memories of doing portages with my Dad. The kind of guy to drag an aluminum boat over a mountain to fish a lake with his kids, (me trying to help but probably just in the way) and them him going back and carying the 6HP evinrude in one hand and the gas can in another. Of course I had the fishing rods and the line gets caught in a tree and half of it is pulled off the spool before I realize it. I can be using the same lure, same depth, same everything, and that man will still outfish me.
-Taking my nephews out for bass fishing when they're biting like crazy.. getting a bunch on, setting the hook, open the bail and casually asking them to hold my rod while I look for something in my tacklebox....and ask them to close the bail to stop letting line out. even after a dozen or more they reel in for me, they never caught on to what I was doing.
- Hitting my first salmon run when no one was around. Get to a pool as light is breaking and my first cast nabs a monster and it takes off. That was my first time using a fly rod... and I catch a 30 lbs salmon.
- Out fishing with one of my ex girlfriends, and she catches a bass, as it's splashing around at the boat a huge pike grabs it at takes off, peeling like off the reel. THought she was going to jump out of the boat. Managed to get the pike. The girlfriend was released though..
-For me fishing isn't nearly as fun alone as with someone else. As long as someone else is there to share it with me it makes it memorable. Sometimes it's not the fish itself but the things around it. For me, I have the most fun when those fishing with me are having fun.
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