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Where you fished as a kid?

7K views 105 replies 82 participants last post by  Jon Brengan 
#1 ·
Iveflone's thread the big swirl and responses to it got me thinking about a place i fished as a kid and how fishing them was once an adventure but now are too adventurous.

I used to fish a little tributary to the middle section of the Washougal. It was a chore to get in and out of and even to fish. Bushwhacking through nettles and devils club, scaling waterfalls wading through log jams all for the pretty little dark colored native cutthroat who maxed out at 11 inches and then only in the biggest deepest pools which are few and far between. If I'd head far enough upstream you start running into ancient plank dams , sluices and a little debris left behind by miners and loggers. It always made me feel like i was really out in the middle of nowhere.
There was even a spot with a patch of logan berries. I wish i was a kid again, the sense of wonder and adventure isn't there anymore, at least not for myself, i get that feeling helping other people on their adventures which i don't get to do near enough.

You're turn.
 
#32 ·
Dad never took us anywhere that there were snakes.... he didn't like snakes either and decided it was best not to take kids into rattler country.

As a result, I found out later in life that we didn't fish a lot of rivers in the area due to the snakes.

Our camping trips would be up to the Eagle Creeks.... beautiful up there.
 
#33 ·
I never fished when I lived in Wisconsin. I only started out when we moved to Washington. But it was all done with hand lines. Could never afford a rod and reel so it was a spool of leader with a hook and some weight of some kind. We would dig up a few clams or use those small crabs as bait. If we collected enough bottles to trade in we would buy Prawns for bait. Could get a pound of Prawns for 10 cents.

I did get a somewhat Paper route for the paper the Red Line Special. It was an evening paper put out by the P.I. I got enough to buy my first rod. It was made by Tru Temper. It was a one piece rod and I think it was a piece of steel rod with eyes on it with a reel seat. It was a bait casting rod. I stuck a very cheap reel on it. I was 10 or 11 at that time.

My first skinny water was Chico Creek. When you were as young as I was you could walk through people's backyards and not get yelled at. We usually started out below Kitsap lake and wade downstream and fish it down to the Golf Course. I believed that they have moved the Gold Course since I've been a kid. That was 74 years ago. I think I hit all those small creeks out of the lakes in that area. I was hooked on skinny water since that time.
 
#35 ·
Grew up fishing for salmon out of Westport in the sixties. Vividly remember first time fishing in a 17 foot glaspar with my dad and brother by buoy 8 wondering why everyone was giving us funny looks. Obviously learning curve started slow but we learned fast. Trolling plug cut herring in ten to thirty feet of water on the north and south beaches was amazing. When the King salmon hit, we would have to strip line out of the reel to get the rod out of the pole holder....we called them reel screamers.....I been addicted to a click on a reel ever since. The fishiest rods on the boat was the bow poles, with only ten or twelve feet of line out, damn those fish hit hard.
 
#43 ·
West Michigan and the west UP. Dad was a fishing addict who believed in eating what you caught. We ate fish 3-4 nights a week. There were 3 lakes within walking distance of the house and it was cane pole, bobber, and worms during the week. Dad had old wooden rowboats stashed at several lakes. he kept the farmers who owned the access in fresh fish for his access. On weekends it was the Pere Marquette, Little and big Manistee, Betsie, and the AuSable. Fly fishing for trout. We spent 2 months every summer up at lake Gogebic and we fished every trickle around. My first real rod was an old Granger bamboo rod, a forgotton reel that had a level fly line on it that was usually topped with about 50 yds of mono. Spent a lot of time stripping line off the reel and lobbing split shot and worms for trout.
 
#45 ·
Dad got 2 weeks’ vacation every year. We'd go up to a resort with log cabins on Beaver Lake (Sammamish Plateau) every August. We’d have a great time swimming, fishing, feeding pancakes to the resident Black bear, and keeping an eye out for the Skunk family that was very adept at getting into our garbage can. At that time (70+ years ago), Beaver Lake had Bass, Perch, sizable Catfish and a few Rainbows. We caught them all but primarily the Perch. They were plentiful, fun to catch and really good eating. Mom appreciated the catch but only if they were cleaned and skinned.
 
#46 ·
I believe my very first fish trip was to Farrington Lake in Middlesex County, New Jersey. The first fish I ever caught was a brook trout on a bobber and plastic worm. I got the fish onshore by myself, but needed my dad to unhook it. Unfortunately, he was not ready for me to have caught a fish so fast, so when he came to me the fish fell off the hook and he tried to use his foot to keep the fish on land, but it wiggled back into the lake. The Rarity River flowed through my hometown (Cranford, NJ) and I fished that a couple of times.

Once we visited some relatives in Plattsburg, NY and fished Lake Champlain. What I remember about this trip was that I was using a kids fishing outfit my grandma gave me for my birthday. What made it more memorable, was that I was using the "hook" that came with the outfit. It wasn't really a hook, but more like a piece of wire that looked like one. I hooked a fish and as I got it to the surface, the "hook" straightened out and the fish came off. It seemed like it happened in slow motion.

As I got older (junior high), my dad's job relocated out to Whitehouse Station, NJ (he commuted) and when he worked a half day on Saturdays, sometimes he would let me come and he would drop me off at the nearby reservoir (Round Valley) or at a creek (Lamington River or Rockaway Creek) that was a mile from the office. One of his co-workers taught me a way to fish from the bridge that crossed the creek. Pull a big leaf off of a tree and drop it on the upstream side of the bridge, then as the leaf went under the bridge and reappeared, drop a worm on it and let the leaf take the worm downstream for a bit and then pull it off and fish it back. I also wet-waded the creek. At Round Valley, I would fish near the boat ramp or off the dam that was between the main reservoir and a swimming area. Sometimes I fished from the shoref of the swimming area or from the dam. When I was in high school we bought a small boat and fished the reservoir. A teacher of mine from high school took me to fish South Branch Raritan River.
 
#49 ·
I grew up in Baltimore and fished for carp on some brackish creeks that fed the Chesapeake. We’d go out the day before and dump cans of corn where we were going to fish, then come back the next day and bait hooks with corn or dough balls made out of Shredded Wheat cereal. I had a Garcia (blue) spinning rod and Mitchell 300 reel and my friends had Zebco spincast rigs; we had a lot of fun.

Regards,
Scott
 
#50 ·
Urban attack

Haller Lake, which was quite good at one time
Bitter Lake
Green Lake
Echo Lake
Thornton Creek... wow, great all day adventures there. Some biggies in certain spots. Can’t do what we did yesteryear today.

I had an aunt and uncle who were hired as fire watchers for a logging company, so in my youth I was exposed to the upper Willamette, and somehow I got to spend a few vacations on the Williamson, Sprague, Spring Creek area. Red Band Trout heaven.
 
#51 ·
I grew up as a forest service brat. We were in Heber UT from kindergarten to 2nd grade and I remember fishing Strawberry reservoir and the small creeks that flow into it. Moved down the road to Spanish Fork for 2nd to 6th grade and fished same, along with other mountain streams. My dad was transferred to Enterprise OR and lived there from 6th to the end of my freshman year. Buddies and I would backpack into the Eagle Caps while we were in junior high and use spinning bobbers with flies in the high mountain lakes. Also fished the Imnaha, Snake, Wallowa, and the Ronde. Great times.
 
#53 ·
Bachelor Creek, yakima, at the east end approach to the airport, years 1958-1962. The creek was the outfall of the hatchery that used to be there. BC was juvenile only fishing, 14 year olds and younger. There would be a scattering of bike along the creek and kids up and down teaching themselves how to do it. And a hatchery guy stocked once it once a day with “8 inchers“. Hell of a lot more fun than video games!

Age 14, hit the Naches and Tieton Rivers in the winter for white fish.

Fished Rimrock Lake for silvers (Kokane), too, fishing from fee rafts for 50 cents a day. Hit Dog lake which is where I started fly fishing in the summer of 1964. Focused on the brook trout hiding under the logs on the southwest part of the lake. Hit Leech a few times, too. That was the last place and time my a Dad and I fished in the early summer of 1966. Graduated high school that year, no longer a kid.
 
#54 ·
I grew up in Bremerton during the 50's and 60's. My brothers and I would fish the floating docks just north of the ferry terminal. We would get 18" pile perch, true cod (the best fish n' chips fish), and of course trophy bullheads. The searuns back then were the most aggravating, they would follow our lures and spinners right up to the dock and never take until you weren't paying attention. Lakes at that time had a 16 fish daily limit. Good times.
 
#66 ·
Bremerton, I lived there at that time you mentioned. I did High School in the early 50's. Got out in 1953 and went into the Army, never lived there again after I was in the Service. Used to also fish off the ferry docks. Caught a shit pot of Pogies off them docks. Also used to fish at the End of Warren Ave off the Cement plant docks. Caught a lot of Tomcod there. Maybe we bumped into each other there.
 
#55 ·
First fishing I remember was on American Lake with my Grandfather in 1961. He was the master at "still-fishing" with a bamboo fly rod, small fly reel loaded with monofilament, a couple split shot and "periwinkles" (caddis larva) we picked out of a local creek.

First fly fishing experience was at a little brook trout lake in BC in the mid-60's. We bought some Doc Spratleys in Williams Lake, and did really well with them. I got a little fly tying kit for Christmas that year, so next year we had plenty of them.

Tom
 
#56 ·
Spent my summers with my grand parents on Daybob bay.Dig some steamers , crack em on the wooden sides of the boat and hand line sand dabs , starry flounders ,lings ,what ever bit. It was Paradise for a 11 yr old kid. Beach fires at night and toasting marshmallows. The tide came in over the sun warmed stones so we swam all nite . Best time of my life.
 
#57 ·
Walla Walla area, garrison creek, yellowhawk creek, cottonwood Creek, Mill Creek, dry Creek, Coppei creek. For trout. walla Walla river, touchet river, tucannon River, Grand Ronde, snake river and the Clearwater River for steelhead started fishing for steelhead on the Clearwater, 50 years ago this month with my father and grandfather.
 
#58 ·
Cedar River, some small tribs to that river, the Green (King co) and every little trickle between Seattle and Williston, ND that I could con someone into stopping at to fish.

Lots of time at Lake Jameson as well. And yes, did reasonably well on flies there too...
 
#60 ·
I grew up in Westchester county, just north of NYC. My Dad was an avid hunter and fisherman. One of my earliest fishing memories was of catching Brookies with him on a tiny creek not more than 5 miles north of the city line. The method involved a split shot and worm drifted down into a brushy little pool. Effective, and so damn cool catching fish, but even then, it didn't seem to be very sporting or require much real skill.

Most of my real formative fishing experiences took place up in the Catskill mountains, two hours drive "upstate."Dad belonged to a club he and some buddies had put together, and they had a funky little cabin along this run on the Esopus River in Phonecia NY. I spent countless happy hours bumbling around on the cobbled shores of this river, but must have been pretty clueless, because I can hardly recall catching a damn thing.



Later our family owned a little piece of property by these pockets on a sub-tributary known as the Pantherkill. Oh how I loved that creek, and have great memories of pretty little trout rising from its cold crystal clear water to my Quill Gordans and Light Cahills.



These pics are from November 2015 when I went back to spread his ashes on those beautiful waters. Thanks Dad! (I think.)
 
#61 ·
Kelsey creek in bellevue. Grew up on its banks. Took a 13 inch cutt from a pool behind the gas station at 140th and 148th in bellevue. Also caught cutthroat in the tunnel where kelsey creek goes under i-405 and in the pool where kelsey creek enters bellfield slough.
 
#69 ·
Same, although I am much younger and me being a kid was only 10 years ago my dad and I and occasionally younger brother would slip down into Kelsey creek after church and go catch some Cutthroat. Average was about 5-7 inches with the occasional 8-10". We would find crayfish and sometimes even lamprey. For how urbanized Bellevue has become that creek has tried to hold on for some time now. I haven't seen a salmon return to it for quite a while now. Probably been 8 years. To which I blame pesticide runoff, loss of habitat and the slaughter of salmon that occurs at Ballard locks.
 
#62 ·
As little kid: bait fishing Potholes for perch and crappie with my grandparents (awesome memories), fishing high mountain lakes and streams with spinning gear, learning to fly fish on a local stream when I was twelve, riding my dirtbike over to the San Poil when I was twelve and thirteen (from Elmer City) with a fly rod strapped to my handlebars. Catching a a 6.5 pound Largemouth bass at thirteen out of my secret lake. It'd take a book to get past my teen years...
 
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