In the beggining!

[shallowist]

you need to flyfish saltwater, pure bliss there...

Good thread FishingRed.

My earliest memories are with my grandfather and with the rest of my imediate family
as a little boy.
Gramps would take me freshwater fishing for cats and bluegill at Duessen and Eisenhower parks and the places along the trails to behind the dam at Lake houston
I fished with cane poles and Yo-Yo's.

Once I was deemed big enough by my Dad, I cut my teeth learning to fish the salt on the second sandbar at San Luis Pass at a very early age.

Once I got a car, no body of water was safe from me. This was about the time I learned to catch anything at will using a fly rod. I also even went to jail for tresspassing on the private lakes behind Hooks Airport.

As I've grown older I've dabbled in everything but saltwater fly fishing and catching pelagic species.
I have found I like hunting fish more than fishing but thats just me and thats my current path in life.
It's the thrill of the hunt, using a specialized machine, the solitude and cool tempatures of a calm summer night that makes me the Gigger I am.

[plugger]

Interesting stories !! 2112, it's all beginning to come together for me . Feeling more at ease in the black of night, fascinated with stabbing living things with what amounts to be a spear, roaming law abiding citizens 's property in the dead of night, doing jail time........ no wonder we get along !!

[reeltime]

wow... were do i start. my mother went into labor with me on the old fishing barge in port mansfeild. My dad stayed fishing i kid some times that i wanted out to go fishing...anyways one of mom girlfriends drove her all the way to houston i would have rather been a mansfield baby. In my family fishing was a way of life i guess i still love doing it to day.......bank,boat,wading or yak..........i think in the end would be greatto be bowed up with a big one on the other end would be a great way to end it.

[plugger]

What did mom say to dad when she got home with little bouncing baby REELTIME ? I hope he caught some fish to make it worthwhile. My wife would have clobbered me to death with a hardhead catfish- my only catch wouldn't you know.

[kenny]

Started in East Texas creeks and oil field ponds stocked with seined fish the roughnecks put in for me to catch. We had a place in LaPorte on Bayshore from 1905 until it was sold in the early 70's, so I cut my teeth in the '50's fishing "local talent" from Dad's 16' wood boat from Helton's Boat Works with a 40 horse Evinrude from RedWing. I was the depth finder using an old cane pole to locate shell. Upper Galveston bay down to the dike was our territory. Seabrook and Kemah flats were covered with grass, trout, and Redfish. Clear Lake seemed to always be full of shrimp . We cast netted ice chest full there, and off the old pier at the park in LaPorte.
On weekends and holidays we went in old trucks down the old road to San Luis Pass, pitched huge army tents, put up cots and mosquito nets and fished. We also used to run out 300 foot seines with a rowboat and catch everything imaginable.
By high school I was too interested in chasing women, so I almost quit fishing until my early 20's.........to be continued.

[Torque]

I didn't really start fishing until I was 14 or 15. Even though my dad had the gear I didn't get the bug until late. But at that age, the bug caught me. I fished a local pond in Missouri and caught some bass. I was hooked. I started reading everything and then I subsribed to "Fishing Facts." Those were great mags, all about how to catch fish. I still have them 30 yrs later.
A year later I was catching 4 - 6lb bass and releasing them out of this local pond. Catching native bass this size was a big deal. These were huge for up north. I can still remember seeing the faces on folks who were fishing live bait. Especially when I released these big bass. Yes, I was caught in the beginnings of don't keep your fish, release them. This was mid/late-70's.
To this day I still remember fishing with my new Red Garcia with Ivory handles and having a bass on that was probably 7-8 pounds. It jumped out of the water, pulled and put up a great fight, finally pulling lose from me. I was so pumped that I dropped my rod which bent the handle .
I lost that rod to a fast moving fish behind SLP bridge in the mid 90's.

When I moved down here in 79, I didn't fish until 8 yrs later when a friend at work started taking me. The guy was a fisherman. He had an old 16' cobia we took everywhere. Even tried to fish out of Freeport, going offshore, and almost died at the jetties.

That's all she wrote and now I have my son who I take fishing. I may take him wading for flounder this weekend. First time for him.

[Nwilkins]

Can't remember the age I started wading, my daddy would take me down to POC in the 70's in a boat that we'd have to push half the time, man that boat needed alot of water. My dad is 80 still loves to fish, he'd chew beechnut and tell me "boy you ain't holding your mouth right"

I can remember going down to POC in the early 70's in the afternoon, launching the boat at the fishing center, we would head out to an old production rig and get there just befor dark, dad would place a couple of car batteries on top of the rig with q-beams shining down in the bay, we'd back the boat up, anchor up and catch trout all-night long on tout tails. We would wade fish the Army Hole in the winter and catch stringers that were sinful on Johnson sprite spoons. We'd fish Conti, Pringle and Panther Point areas also, seemed as if spoons were always the tackle of choice, in fact, I thought it was cool when I put a pink skirt on my spoon the first time.

We aso made a few trips to the Chanduelier islands in the middle 70's that were epic, impossible to explain how many fish were caught.

Thanks Dad

[Trainwreck]

Started in East Texas creeks and oil field ponds stocked with seined fish the roughnecks put in for me to catch. We had a place in LaPorte on Bayshore from 1905 until it was sold in the early 70's, so I cut my teeth in the '50's fishing "local talent" from Dad's 16' wood boat from Helton's Boat Works with a 40 horse Evinrude from RedWing. I was the depth finder using an old cane pole to locate shell. Upper Galveston bay down to the dike was our territory. Seabrook and Kemah flats were covered with grass, trout, and Redfish. Clear Lake seemed to always be full of shrimp . We cast netted ice chest full there, and off the old pier at the park in LaPorte.
On weekends and holidays we went in old trucks down the old road to San Luis Pass, pitched huge army tents, put up cots and mosquito nets and fished. We also used to run out 300 foot seines with a rowboat and catch everything imaginable.
By high school I was too interested in chasing women, so I almost quit fishing until my early 20's.........to be continued.

Kenny- My dad grew up in Seabrook. He talks about how there was always tons of big shrimp that they'd catch with seines and how easy it was to just paddle out in a small boat and tear up the specks. Wish it was still like that.