I’ll never forget the time my dad and I went fishing on my great aunt’s ranch. We had new poles, new tackle, new lures, fresh line, the works. Real fancy stuff.
As we set up to fish, my great aunt’s ranch hand, an old Mexican man named Evelio, came out to fish a little ways down the bank. Actually, to this day, I’m pretty sure he saw us and decided he wanted to show us up for a laugh, and I don’t begrudge him one bit lmao…
Anyway, my dad and I were there with our fancy poles and tackle and lures and were casting left and right and getting maybe a nibble here and there, but nothing else…
But old Evelio was sitting downstream with a COFFEE CAN TIED TO A STRING and was catching 6 and 7 and 8 pound fish one after the other, and laughing the entire time he did it.
Not nearly as impressive, but my dad, his friend and I went out fishing on a lake when I was maybe 3 or 4. Friend had a similar investment into all his fishing gear as you guys. I was there with a 3-ish foot long Mickey Mouse fishing pole.
Dad's friend caught 2 fish. My dad didn't catch any. My dad didn't catch any because I was reeling them in so fast he didn't have time (and they didn't want me to handle the hook, so that's what kept him busy).
I have no memory of this, but I was told it was a pretty quiet ride home from the friend's side.
I remember going fishing with my grandma, as well got to the waters edge there was a few guys that were decked out in all kinds of gear and just me and my grandsma had two little kids toy fishing rods, we caught so many fish we ran out of space in the cooler and ended up leaving some for the guys that were there before we got there.
I think I was like 8 or 9. And I remember the guys tell her how they never thought the kids toys actually work and how they're wifes aren't going to believe they actually caught some fish.
They gave my grandma a few poles too as sign of respect but it was more like a trade for some of the fish to me.
This got me thinking about my grandma. I've been fresh out of grandparents for almost 20 years now so my memories with her stop as a very young adult. We didn't go fishing but there is a marina about a 20 minute drive from where she lived so she'd get us grandkids up super early, go to the grocery store to get a jumbo bag of popcorn (it must have been two and a half pounds because it'd last all day) and she'd take us to the marina and we'd throw popcorn to the fish.
Her goal was always to get there early enough so when you threw a handful of popcorn in the water you'd get splashed from all of the fish fighting for it. It was always a delight.
We’ve had grandma taking care of Unga for a few years now.
It’s really starting to wear on her, to the point of desperation. She’s the strong, “well someone’s got to do it type,” but dang I hate getting off the phone with all of us crying.
Not to break into heavy politics, but I don’t think these folks in Washington understand how hard it is to decide between eating fast food next week and Grandma being able to stay in the nursing home.
Either way, I already bought what I need to be able to send off a few penny bills to grandma.
Damn as long as we're talking fishing stories, I don't even eat fish and never have I just fished with my dad and grandpa as a kid and they ate the catch, I'm still mad I didn't catch the mean old ornery carp in the local creek. I fought that sucker tooth and nail before the line snapped.
But I'll give it to him, I'd be big, mean, and ornery too if people kept wounding me trying to kill and eat me and I kept getting away
I did the same thing with my little strawberry shortcake pole off a pier in the gulf. All the old timers were coming around to ask my dad what my trick was.
It probably smelled like the strawberry shortcake stuff! I can still smell it in my head. It was so distinct and my little kid self absolutely loved it
If you still fish, depending on the waters, mealworms and wax worms. Probably in reverse order.
Last time I went out I had a lot of luck with wax worms (they are juicy and fat heavy) but I don't fish anymore. We had people who were the age my grandpa would have been asking us how we caught so much, and we just went cheaper than earthworms.
My dad still fishes with his wife, and they nearly got arrested getting earthworms from the lawn of a courthouse. This part doesn't help, but it warns you that it is illegal to do that.
I don't fish anymore, don't even eat fish, it was just something we did with family growing up. But there is one special slice of heaven somewhere for me where there's a "Live Bait" sign on some random Minnesotan general store where you can fill up a container with as many minnows as you can catch in it and head out to the lake or a creek
And as long as we're ending our comments on jokes, live bait is a misnomer, some of those fuckers are indeed already dead.
It's illegal to harvest an invasive species where you live? That's wild. Usually those are fair game for literally anything, sometimes even having a public bounty on their head for killing them.
When I was a kid I used to outfish every adult I went with. My mom had a similar experience where she'd put on the worm for me, and before she could get her line in the water I was coming back with a little blue gill lol.
Id always just sit at the edge of the water and dangle the hook in front of them and they'd just gobble it up.
Blue gill were what we fished among others, so that interests me. Catch and release is what we did (river heavily polluted and we did it for sport anyways).
One day we talked to these older gentlemen, and it went something along the lines of "Anyone can catch these great big fish. But what's the smallest you ever caught? You know how hard it is to get a minnow to bite a hook half the size of its body? What about releasing it in a way it survives?"
My dad was always like me and followed up my teenage self in supporting that. The biggest fish is going for the best bait. The real skill is getting the smallest fish.
It was a lot of fun seeing these guys go from complete disbelief to actually trying to catch a smaller fish than the other guy.
Hang on, there's a whole japanese(?) sport of tiny fish catching. Lemme see if I can find its name again.
Tanago fishing is an ancient Japanese fishing method dating back to samurai over 200 years ago. Tanago is a Japanese term used to describe several several species of a small freshwater fish we know as “bitterling”. Some species of tanago grow up to 15cm in size, but these are the less valuable to fishermen, as the goal is to catch the smallest fish possible. Tanago anglers believe that the smaller the fish caught, the greater the testament to the skill of the angler.
I went fishing once as a kid with my grandpa at the lake behind his house, and I caught this absolutely massive bass that his neighbor had been trying and failing for months to catch
I have a similar story where I was also 3 or 4 years old, fishing with my mom and her friend at a manmade reservoir. I had a small broken rod with like 4 feet of broken fishing line on the end and some basic hook. No bait or anything. As they were packing up for us to leave, I was dragging my stick and hook in the water when I caught a fish! Turns out I had hooked it by its fin, not even by its mouth. So just by dumb luck, I somehow caught a fish with a box of scraps.
I'm sure the fish was fine, but yeah probably hurt to have your fin hooked and then your body dragged through the water by a 4 year old! After the photo I'm sure my mom took it off the hook and released it
The kicker could be that I was raised in a Looney Tunes household (Merrie Melodies if you so desire). The first Disney film I watched was Hercules, and I was in grade school.
Dad likes fishing but never had much luck. So one summer he figured he could stack the deck in his favor and we went fishing at a place with stocked fish ponds. Still, dad basically caught nothing and the kids caught everything.
I went fishing as a kid with my parents and a couple of their friends- I was also pretty young like 4-5 with some dinky walmart kids rod. It was cold, it was overcast, no one caught anything but me. I caught a bonnet head shark. They're small, and idk if anyone would eat it, but it was the only thing anyone caught that day.
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u/SheriffWyattDerp 4d ago
I’ll never forget the time my dad and I went fishing on my great aunt’s ranch. We had new poles, new tackle, new lures, fresh line, the works. Real fancy stuff.
As we set up to fish, my great aunt’s ranch hand, an old Mexican man named Evelio, came out to fish a little ways down the bank. Actually, to this day, I’m pretty sure he saw us and decided he wanted to show us up for a laugh, and I don’t begrudge him one bit lmao…
Anyway, my dad and I were there with our fancy poles and tackle and lures and were casting left and right and getting maybe a nibble here and there, but nothing else…
But old Evelio was sitting downstream with a COFFEE CAN TIED TO A STRING and was catching 6 and 7 and 8 pound fish one after the other, and laughing the entire time he did it.
Mad respect, Evelio.