Coho,

Congrats!!!

My best fishing partner is my daughter... I started her early tying flies... Heck she used to sit in my lap and hold the fly rod as we rowed around the lake in my pontoon boat...

Now she into sharpening the hooks and putting Smelly Jelly on stuff.. My favorite is.. she'll rub Smelly Jelly on herself and come home and give mom hugs...

Kids are wonderful! Fishing is a great time talk to your kids about anything and everything. It is amazing how much of an impact fishing and time together makes on their lives.

The Kid

The Kid

My dad is the one I learned from. I have expanded ont the things he taught me and now I teach him things.

He started takeing me out with him to point wilson when I was about 4 and helped me reel in Kings that he hooked.

Then when I turned about 7 he started trying to get me my first steelhead. He started me out on a diawa 8.5' spinning rod and a mitchel 300. It wasnt till I was 8 that I got my first one.

I was lucky and got alot of good experience on a family owned private lake thats on my uncles farm.

Both my father and grandfather were the ones to show me the ropes. My dad started me off the OLD dock under the I-90 bridge where him and the locals would meet before and after work. He would pick me up after school and take me with him. I learned how to swim there on accident at about age 4. He would also take me down to the green where I got my first steelhead. My grandfather gave me the intro to fly fishing at iceicle creek where I woundered off up river for my first fly caught trout. After catching and releasing this fish with no one around I made my grandfather smell my hands to prove that I did catch that fish! Man those were the good old days.

My father put a fishing pole in my hands as a little boy .Neither of us knew what we were starting though.

Although he helped me get started I would have to say i learned what little I know from massive amounts of time on the water making mistakes.I started fishing little cutthroat creeks in the 4th grade.All my summer vacations from then on were spent either on the creeks or prowling the salt chucks for whatever would bite.I will for the rest of my life remember the old boy that introduced me to cuttys in the salt.I was probably ten.I was wandering around on the beach screwing around when he come down to do some fly fishing.We got to talking and he went up to his truck and came back with a box of spinners and spoons.He pointed to a point farther up the beach next to a creek mouth and told me to cast a spinner.I hiked up to the point and cast my spiner and wham,a cutty!!I remember turning around to show off my fish but he was gone.I still have the box,the spinners are long gone though.

I am one of the fishermen you hear about that went years before catching a steelhead.I hiked up and down the hood canal tribs for years without catching a thing.I did not know how depressed the runs were.Did not care as I had fallen deeply in love with the rivers.When I turned 21 I met the only reel fishing partner I have ever really had.Between the two of us we manged to nail down the runs.Those were some exiting times as I had spent so many years fishing those rivers.

I also have to thank Bill Herzog for his writings and his wonderfull way he has for sharring his love for the sport.I still finally understand some of his writings.We are both in love with the same rivers and what he has taught me about spoon fishing has put me into more fish then any one other thing.Thanks Bill!

Time on the water is the best teacher there is.

I wouldn't have thought that General Zog would have been mentioned as much as he has been.

My Dad mainly taught me how to fish. He focused mainly in the Salt Water around the Kitsap Peninsula while I was growing up. I wasn't really into fishing saltwater at the time, more rivers, but as time went on I grew to love all types of water. My grandparents are also a big factor in fishing. We used to spend a week a Sekiu every year fishing for Kings the 1st week of August. When that ended in 93 I didn't return until they started having these short openings. Had one of my best years ever at Sekiu last year landing 37 kings to 30 pounds and releasing 30 of those unharmed in three mornings of fishing.

My dad and granfather taught me to fish freshwater species growing up in Wisconsin. You guys are teaching me to fish here in the Pacific Northwest. It has been tough getting into it, the regs are very complicated and I always feel a few days late on all of the timing but I think it is starting to get better. Good topic...interesting stories

Josh

My Dad taught me to fish for fun and to put food on the dinner table.

After Dad would come home from work as a young 4 year old I was waiting with gear at the ready to go to the nearby lake. We would catch a few trout for dinner, I always wanted to keep fishing but Dad would say we only keep what we are going to eat tonight.

As I grew up Dad took me out in the ocean for rockfish and lingcod. We would launch a wood john boat from the beach in Pacifica, CA. This was plenty of work just to keep a few fish as the freezer was small.

Dad then took me to the south tower of the Golden Gate bridge. Striped Bass and Salmon were the game. It was here that Dad would release small fish and keep a large one.

Fishing became fun and I learned about catch and release as we only kept what was needed for the dinner table.

Now as I approach the 50 and my Dad has been gone for 10 years I continue to enjoy this sport wit my wife, son and daughter.

Thanks Dad

For me it was my grandma, Before I could walk she had a fishin' pole in my hand. I lost here three weeks after I was medically retired out of the Marine Corps. she stayed alive long enough for me to say good by .

But one thing that she said to me was the story was when I was 6yo I was watchin' some fly fishermen fishing the Upper Quilicene River, and I said I could do that !! So he handed me his fly rod and and I showed him that I could, I was a natural!!!!(That was the first time I ever picked up a fly rod and I still have it in my hand today) I still feel so incomplete without her here

For all of you who lost a grand parent or parent who taught you...... Is it hard for you to return to that special spot that you were taught at??????????

my grandpa taught me to fish the salt and my uncle taught me how to work a drift boat in the river.

Well my dad taught me how to fish creeks (Quartz and Granite)rivers(Talor)My mom got me started in the salt at Westport in the early 70s.My mom fished with my Grandpa out of Lapush
in a 14ft row boat she tells me all the old stories over and over again and I never get tired of hearing them!! I still have some of the old balsa wood plugs they would use!!!

My Grandpa Leo taught me how to fish in the 60's and 70's on Lake Tahuya and Lake Cushman. He lived on Lake Tahuya and I would fish off of his dock for sometimes 8 hours at a time. I would fish in the morning when he left for work and stop to have lunch with him when he came home for lunch. I would then go right back out on the dock after lunch until he came home at the end of the day. I would then drag him out onto the dock after dinner to fish with me some more. I just never got tired of staring at that bobber. I sure do miss him. Jack

Nobody in my family ever fished except for me so I guess I'm self taught. And boy did I ever do a bad job on myself. I started out like Mooch and progressed to where I'm today. But I probably started out just a liitle earilier than he did. I've gone thru all the stages that I wanted to and now I'm into Fly Fishing. And this is where I'm going to stay. I'm getting to old to try something new.