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I was raised in a fishing family and we fished a bunch growing up. My father and grandfather on my dad’s side were the reason I got totally hooked on fishing at a very young age. When I was about 5 years old, I started spending most of my summers at my grandfather’s house. I called him Pa. I still spent time at home but mostly to do my chores and sleep. I spent most daylight hours in the summer with Pa. We fished almost every day and were always there for the sun to come up. We’d fish daylight until about 11:00 or noon and head back home where we usually worked in the family garden. We raised a huge garden. It was always more than an acre or two and it was for all of our clan. This was pretty much how I spent my summers until Pa passed away when I was 13 years old.
My dad would fish with us as often as he could too, but dad had to work long hours to support our family. The weekends were when we’d all get together to go fishing. We’d mostly fish for bass and catfish. We fished ponds and sloughs almost exclusively. We’d do a few crappie trips a year as well.
Losing Pa when I was 13 was really hard on me. I’d lost my fishing buddy. My dad loved to fish but he always worked a lot. When Pa died, dad started taking me fishing a lot more. We’d fish in the evening after he got off work. We’d make a lot of trips even if we didn’t have many hours to fish. We’d still go wet a line. Dad loved to fish but he knew I was totally crazy about it.
This continued all through my teen years and into my early 20’s until I was working a lot for my own family. We’d still fish together as much as we could, but it wasn’t like when I was a kid. Life gets in the way. I now have lost my father and as I write this, his funeral is six days away. Another tough time for me. But as I look back, my life is really blessed. The fishing that my father and grandfather taught me to love as a kid has totally become my life.
I have so many great memories about our fishing trips and things that happened when we were fishing. I taught my son Richard to fish and he started going rain or shine with me at age 5. We won our first tournament together when he was 7 and he had 2nd big fish that day. That was another trip I’ll always remember. Richard is a better angler than I am, as I rarely beat him. Now Richard has two sons, Garrett, age 6, and Gray who is 2. Garrett is already pretty stinking lucky when it comes to fishing. It’ll be interesting to see how good he’ll be as he grows. Gray is still too young but he just about doesn’t have a choice. He’ll be a fisherman too. I’m lucky to have been born into a fishing family and I have so many fishing memories with dad and Pa.
Let’s keep the kids fishing as they’re our future and there are a lot worse things that they could be doing. Fishing is a great sport to share with family and friends. Take lots of photos as kids grow up very fast and the memories are so VERY SPECIAL!!!!!
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