Your First Fish Story...

Wanted to hear stories of others first fishing experiences, after taking Quinn to Pinecrest this past weekend where he landed his first trout 

I'll have to start my own story with a disclaimer, since its not my first ever actual fish I caught, but yet the first ever fish that I caught that wasn't at a trout farm, or a dammed up creek where it was literally drop in and pull out fish.  To me it was my first real fish 

I was 9 at the time and had asked my dad to take me to a lake so I could go fishing.  So we ended up at Lexington reservoir in Los Gatos and I went to the shore and started casting out a small yellow jig. 

My dad wanted to go for a quick walk and I continued casting out and retrieving my little lure when I suddenly felt a tug and with such excitement reeled in my first ever fish caught from a lake, a nice crappie (and still haven't caught anymore since this day, lol) However in the excitement when I pulled it to the shore it started flapping and jumping and got off and away she went back into the water... 

I was pissed...  That got me determined though, and I really really wanted to catch that fish again! So I did like I did the first time and started casting out and retrieving the same spot and this time just as my dad came walking up I got another bite!  Reeled it in with all my might and this time once on shore put my foot on it so it wouldn't go anywhere   

Boy my dad was proud, and so was I, so we took it home and poached it and feed it to my 9 cats    No matter how many times I go out fishing and catch something, that excitement is still the same.   I wish my dad still liked to go fishing these days, but that moment in time will be forever with me. 

Now lets hear some of your first fish stories!!!

brannen island state park
 i was like 7
my dad let me reel in a huge carp that he hooked into using a piece of salami
i wanted to take it home and eat it but my dad said they wernt good
few hours later i got bit my a gopher snake that i picked up and named it 'brannen"
 and kept it for like 6 years

I was lucky enough to live two blocks from my grandparents. My daily trips home from school (yeah that was when kids actually walked to and from school) we're "interrupted" by pit stops at grandma's home made cookies. She'd have 4-5 coffee cans filled with cookies in the fridge. To this day I can't find a peanut butter cookie that even comes CLOSE!

Oh right fishing.

We'll grandpa was a fisherman. I actually think he just like to get away from grandma eat his potato chips and drink his oly or cheap ass red wine. He had a stash behind the spare tire in the man van in the pic below. As time went by I'd spend more and more time with him fishing and tinkering in the shed (he was a hell of a wood worker). The fishing was either at foothill park in the palo alto foothills. Grandpa was a dire hard bait soaker! Or more often at the old Palo Alto yacht harbor. We'd spend hours there sitting on 5 gallon buckets and staring at the water. He never got mad as I thew rocks in the water or ran all over the place. We'd catch jacksmelt, rays, sharks and some mud suckers. The topper was he'd let me eat and drink all the soda I wanted. Oh, his idea of soda was tonic water, really what 7 year old needs quinine in their diet. I never complained! He was exactly what a grandpa should be. ALL FUN! Pocket knives, pellet guns, fishing and playing with power tools! I hope to be that kind of Grandpa to my grand kids! Here is one pic, got a few more that I need to scan. One is a pig of a striper!

Nice kitty huh! prob worth 120 points!

 

First fish ever - 2yrs old, in tide pools with plastic cup, catching gobies.
First fish with a pole - 2 yrs old, tilapia, bamboo pole... with grandpa helping.
First unassisted fish with a pole - 3yrs old, tilapia... same bamboo pole.
First fish with a rod/reel - 4yrs old, tilapia... daiwa rod/reel combo.
First fish with a cast net - 6yrs old, tilapia... 6ft radius net.
... poor tilapia endured a lot in my formative years...

First bluewater fish - 8yrs old, Yellowfin Tuna
I was using a 8.5ft noodle rod and a cheap Daiwa rear-drag reel.  We were stopped at a buoy to switch trolling rigs and to play around, I threw my 1/2oz Krocodile spoon overboard.  I remember complaining that I snagged the bottom (not registering that it was a few thousand feet deep).  The scream of the reel was barely audible over my own screams...  fish spooled me twice, they had to back the boat down to follow the fish... and by some miracle, I was able to land it.  Took over half an hour to land, I was on such an unbelievable adrenaline rush... still remember shaking while trying to hold fish up for a picture.

First polespear fish - 10yrs old, 6" squirrelfish
First speargun fish - 11yrs old, 4" Sergeant Major (damselfish)
First kayak fish - 11yrs old, 2# trevally.



So many more firsts... so many fond memories...   

Great thread topic, Al!

My first was probably a trout from Austin Creek upstream from Polepole's pad.

The first one I really remember was from the Santa Monica Pier, probably a perch. I was so stoked I grabbed it and ran off the pier down to the beach to show mom who was sunning facedown on  a towel in her blue bathing suit and big hat.  I flopped the fish down under her nose, and when she screamed I realized it wasn't my mom.  Some other lady with a blue suit and a straw hat!

I guess I was 4 or 5 at the time.

Allen

 

  For me,  was at San Louis reservoir.   My dad was always an "Outdoors" kind of guy.  I remember seeing pictures of him as a teen holding wild turkeys, that he just shot, or full stringers of fish,  many shots of him holding up pheasant.  So being outdoors was a normal thing for me as a youngster.  I was probably 6 maybey 7yrs old when we went to San Louis reservoir.  There is a rather large rock (Thats out of the water 99% of the time now with low water levels)  thats easily reached by parking just off SB 129. 
   We sat on that rock and I practiced my casting a bobber with a nightcrawler on the end.  I remember this cuz I had to bait the hook and I was a little afraid to stab the hook into the worm.  I did it, and after that, no worries ever again.  So I casted out the worm, and the wind blew the bobber back in!  I was getting a little upset because I had just did what I considered a really good cast (Bobber probably only went a few feet) but, to me, it was a long ways out only to be blown back into the rock we were sitting on.
   My dad said just wait.  I thought he had some magical powers (that most dads do at that age) because the bobber sank!  I remember watching it go under like it was yesterday!
   Well I knew I had to yank up the rod, as I had watched dad catch many fish and that's what he did.  He yanked up, so I yanked the rod up and whamm O I was hooked!  That rod started to jig up and down and went crazy!    When I finally reeled in the whale on the end of my line, I had a nice trout.  Really don't recall how really big it was, but as a 6-7yr old it was a monster!  It was my first fish, that I baited, casted and hooked.
  Now a days, as I travel south on 129 past the one area that eposes the full lake view, I see that very rock sitting high & dry on the right side of the small cove just off the southbound side of hwy129 and remember, Thats where I caught my first ever fish!

Thanks dad! (R.I.P. 8-4-09)

Back when I was in the Philippines as a young schoolboy me and my friends would go to the flooded rice fields during rainy season and catch some tilapia using bamboo baskets.  Some rice fields have deep holes that we go in for a swim and catch bigger fish like catfish and mudfish.  My first fishing pole was made out of bamboo with a string attached to it and at the end is a safety pin.  Work well for those tiny tilapias and I thought it was fun just catching them and putting them inside glass jars.

Didn't get to try fishing with a real rod and reel till a friend of mine brought me to Monterey pier in the late 60's to fish for perch.  That was when you can almost catch anything at the pier and we always came home with buckets full of perch.  Now I have all this fancy rod and reels and can't even catch one perch for a long time till I went to shelter cove. 

Rey

I was about 8 years old, camping with my family.  I REALLY wanted to fish from a boat, and was trying to talk my dad into a rental.  Of course money was tight, and rentals cost money so Dad said no.  We scouted out a great rock on a point and tossed out salmon eggs.  I watched the boats trolling back and forth assuming all the big fish in deeper water were out of reach.  Felt sorry for myself, for sure. 

My pole started doing that cool tap, tap pull and had a planter trout on shore in no time.  As I take the hook out, my sisters pole goes bendo.  Then dads.  Then mine. Then sis again.  It was WFO 15 feet in front of this rock.  Of course all the boats are watching us crowding closer and closer but never did get into the skinny water we were fishing.  We limited out and proudly walked back through the campground with an epic stringer of planter sized trout.  I felt like a victorious gladiator.  Later in the day, all the boaters came in with skunks or a few fish on a stringer.  With a grin, my dad asked me if I still wanted to rent a boat.  Learned a lot that day.

RIP Dad

i can't remember the first fish i caught...i know i was small enough to take a bath in sink, and it was in the fall creek in Wyoming. The one i really remember was in winter 1973....29 1/8" 5# 3oz wild steelhead from San Gregorio creek. Caught on a meps spinner with 4lb test on my zebco. I remember my Dad thinking i had a snag and me telling him no its a fish. Then he hung over me while i fought her in.
38 years later i feel bad about keeping that fish...but i know it was a different time.

would you guys believe i caught a salmon in concord california in the creek that runs next to el torito?i was 9ish

huge carp that he hooked into using a piece of salami

Funny, my first catch also involved salami as bait.  Caught a turtle at Turlock Lake, or Modesto Reservoir...  Can't remember which, but we were always at one or the other growing up in Modesto.

I remember when I was 4, going to a pond with my older brother and his friend to try and catch sunfish.  My brother and I had new fishing poles and his friend brought a busted one from our garage that would not cast. 

My brother ended up convincing me that I was much better off using the broken pole and giving the new pole to his friend to use.  He also threw a Chewbacca action figure in as part of the deal.

I regretted the deal once I saw them lofting their bobbers out to the very middle of the pond while I could only dangle my worm off the side of the dock.  However, the deal was made and there was no complaining about it.

I ended up hauling a Large Mouth out from under the dock that seemed at the time to be the biggest fish I had have ever seen.  The tug on that line was the most amazing thing ever.  I carried my trophy home in a bucket and my mom let me keep it in the kitchen sink until my dad got home to show him the only fish of the day.

My brother held up his end of the deal and gave me that Chewbacca later that night.

I've been hooked since....

Shark_bait is busy studying for finals, so I can add his first fish story.  He was about 4 years old and we went water skiing with my sister.  We beached her boat and I got out 3 little zebco rigs.  I asked my niece where to cast and she points to the middle of the lake.  I ask my older son where to cast, and he too points to the middle of the lake.  Nathan aka shark_bait points to shore.  I figure what the hell and cast about a foot from shore.  About 5 minutes later, his pole goes completely bendo, then air borne and finally hits the water making a wake.  I dove in after his pole and eventually found it, alas no fish still attached 

Moral of the story my old man showed me fishing shallow is good.  My son proved it to me as well. 

My earliest memories I have involved Dad and Uncle Bill taking me to Hansen Dam.  My first fish was a bluegill on a bobber and worm.  Dad said "Reel, Reel!"  I didn't have any idea what he was talking about, I just ran up the bank dragging the little fish through the dirt until I ran out of breath!  They still laugh about that till this day.

First fish? Sometimes it feels like it could have been a coelacanth.
 I remember trout fishing with my dad, I must have been 6 or so, with a Zebco spincast rig (he fly fished).

First "real fish" probably a barred surfperch after Dad got into surf fishing, I was about 8 or 9. I got a legal calico bass around the same time. I froze the calico in a block of ice so that we could make a positive ID . I caught it on a salted anchovy off of the Goleta Beach pier, right where the fishing info shack is today. Around this formative time I was spending many summer days at Lake Cachuma, where I caught my first bluegill, crappie, and blue and channel catfish. I was a shorefishing lake rat until around age 11.

some surf fishing came after that, but by the time I was 19 I was sick of perching and pretty much dropped fishing altogether, although I did trout fish during backpacking trips once in a while. I didn't get back into it until my AK stint in 1997-1998

First kayak fish was another calico, winter of 1997 in a SoCal kelp bed, fishing from a closed deck Prijon river boat.
Second kayak fish was the real "hook", a 16+lb silver salmon in Whittier, AK, caught on trout gear & 10lb test. The fish peeled line, tailwalked (first time I had ever experienced that) and infected me with the madness.