Fishing Is Good Times
When I was just a kid, my dad took me fishing several times each summer. I don’t recall my first time going but I do know that I loved it and it was what I looked forward to at the end of each school year. The end of the summer, when talks of going back to school began, were always really depressing for me. If I recall, it was my only real passion. Strangely, we never went fishing any time of the year but the summer. Ice fishing was foreign to me.
I was taught one fishing technique only, which I later called “still fishing”. Basically you pick a spot at the river and cast in your line and wait for a bite. The line had either a pickerel rig or a spreader with a couple of hooks and a sinker. We used worms usually but occasionally we would go get minnows as well. Those days are unforgettable. We didn’t specifically target any particular type of fish, but in a way, that was the exciting part. We never knew what we were pulling up. It could’ve been any of almost a dozen different species of fish. It wa always morning fishing that we did and we always used the same exact methods. It’s all I was taught, and all I knew existed.
Well, eventually we stopped fishing together and I started fishing with my cousin who shared the passion. That’s when I bought my own fishing rod and tacklebox. My cousin and I even designed our own rigs which we called KayBee Rigs, which were just some sort of spreader. We got the name from taking our initials. Mine is K and his is B. We learned of other ways to fish but figured we could only try them from a boat or in a pond (yeah very naive) so we continued to “still fish” and had a blast.
Anyway, we watched lots of fishing shows and mailed away for all the free offers where we got magazines and free lures. We really had no clue how to use lures really but we were excited to get them and not have to pay anything for them, not even shipping!
Over the course of a summer I ended up with a huge collection of surface bass baits, worth hundreds. For some reason, topwater lures just appealed to me. It wouldn’t be until years later that they even seen the water!
To be continued…
Tags: fishing, fishing magazine, fishing shows, free lures