When did your fishing addiction begin?

[wiseguy67]

For me it must have been when I spoke my first word: Fish
Mum says we were in the middle of the western sahara desert africa and one day i said fish.
Yes very odd place to say such a thing. We were traveling in a fried out combi, mum was a bit of a adventurist. Wish I was a bit older to have experienced the travels as it was 1969.
By the time i was five or so i was catching fish out of puddles, creeks etc with any sort of fishing gear i could find.
By seven i was down to the http://www.rmef.org/bugle/pages/05JA/namethat_details.html
30 minutes walk from our farm every chance i had to chase trout especialy during the sockeye salmon spawing run in the autumn.
http://www.bcadventure.com/murphys/adamsriver/salute.htm
Tight Lines
Gerard

[choppa]

growing up on a farm in gippsland vic,,, i had access to creeks,, rivers and all the brothers were mad fishermen,,,,, then i went off fishing for a while,,, didnt want to leave the house when i had girlfriends to keep company,,,,,

then i got married,,,,,,started fishing full time again,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[scotty]

in yuleba creek at yuleba on my first rod i got fro my birthday caught a yella and a catti

scotty

[philip_thomson]

we used to always have a land based fish or hire a boat at noosa every trip there since i was about 6yrs old. we used to fish at woody point, nudgee and hornibrook highway every few weeks/months generally failed miserably. In 1999 over in new zealand my dad promised me a trip on a charter june 2001 i made my first trip. since then i have been addicted. i have made 30 trips offshore. you'd think my seasickness would be well and truely under contol by now????

[tiges]

My dad got me into it when I was a young tacker. Our holidays always revolved around fishing destinations and he had many different boats over the yrs. He's gettin' on a bit now and he hasn't been fishing for ages. I've just recently got my 1st boat and I rang him earlier today and asked if he wanted to go out in the morning. He was absolutely frothing for it. It's weird how things go full circle and the roles get reversed. He reminded me of when I was a kid and so excited knowing we were going fishing.

[spuderico]

The year was 1972, and I was 9 when Dad was transferred to Weipa on the Cape, from Melbourne. Things changed for the better after that. Fish! I never even seen a fish until we arrived in NQ. My first fish was a huge thread fin which was full of worms when I gut it...Yetch :-X The second fish was a Very large Trevally...it had a sea snake inside :'(. #I remember going out on the Mission river at night in a 6' tinny with a 1.5hp OB with two mates at the age of 10, and keeping me hand line inside the boat because I though the sea snakes would climb up the line :-/. It got better over the next 5 years.

[dorado]

Land based when I was 24 back in 1985! I had fished much earlier than that but had a bad experience with eggbeater reels as a kid which really put me off. TG for Alvey reels :) First started getting into boat-fishing from '86 onwards hiring crank-up deisal powered T-Boats up on the Noosa River, which well and truly fired up my fishin' addiction and eventually I bought my own rig to sustain my addiction :)

[Reefmaster]

Started fishing when i could stand up and wind a reel- Spent alot of time off the beach and rocks at Evans Head catching bait for the oldman to take offshore unitl i was big enough to head out with them. Also spent heaps of time at Double Island Point beach fishing until once again i was big enough to fish offshore. I admit i was lucky to get offshore when i was so little and my older brothers still haven't stopped winging about it. ;D

Heres a pic from around 1983 at Double Island Point and me on the left happy as larry.

[serene_lady]

I got the bug when I was 8 years old when my father and uncles started taking me to there hut on one of the creeks on the mainland side of sandy straights, this was 53 years ago and the fishing was unbelievable. A sack full of crabs and a bag of fish was the required catch to feed four familys every 2-3 weeks and they never failed. Bought a 12 ft tinny when I was 15 years old . When i was 17 and I could tow my boat myself, I had to find a girl who also liked fishing in a 12 tinny. Best catch i have ever made. She past the test by never complaining about having to roll up in a raincoat and lay in the water on the floor to sleep as we used to fish late into the night. We had concerns from both our parents about being so young and staying out so late at night, so we got married, that fixed them, Iwas 19 she 16 and a lot of water has flowed under the hulls of the boats that we have owened since. She is at this moment laying on a 14 inch pillow top mattress in the main bedroom of our house-boat that we will have been living on for 10 years on the 23 of march.( better than a raincoat and a tinny ) and hope to spend another 10 years .I recon if you have a fishing bug you got to keep close to them. Bob. Gee that bed looks good. See yah.

[farticus]

i was at babysittes plac and see some roads against wall and i would bin about 8 my mamma took me there and i meet this mamma she says i have ssun who fish and from then on i go to this mamas place and use gear.

[Angla]

Born with the affliction I think. Every Easter was spent at Glenaire on the Victorian coast, not far from the Twelve Apostles, and used to walk to the beach from the camp ground. Caught mainly Gummy sharks and salmon. We caught over 100 Mullet from the river there 1 year. They were so thick you only had to throw in a bare hook. Ahh What great memories.

Smoking up in the sand dunes

Motor bike was use 1 year to ride to the beach and drag back the Gummies

Would light a fire on the beach and fish till late, Mum, Dad and five of us brats

Angla :)

[el_carpo]

I was four. Nearly got dragged into a lake by a big carp. ;D

[catchy_fishy]

from inside the womb, I'm sure.

Flyfishing however, only when I turned 21 (1991)

[finga64]

I think it's in the genes with my family.
Everybody always has and always will go fishing.
My first memory was when I was about 4 in Tewantin.
My granparents cultured the love for fishing at Evans Head fishing along the north wall and my dad took us whenever possible in the boat in the Richmond river. I still remember the cold winters morning sitting up the front of the boat with the salt spray and -10 degree winds blowing through the old woolly jumper. Froze the shrivelled apricots off that wind chill factor but we were going fishing so the world is good :)
P.S. My grandma could go fishing on Evans north wall all night but if she was at home she'd fall asleep before the 6 o'clock news. So I made her a little rod to hold (about 18" long) and she stayed awake. I was only 12. My nana has passed but the rod is still around next to her chair. That was nearly 30 years ago.
Aahh memories :)
Scott

[wetaline]

I agree with "finga", it is for the most part, in the genes.

There is nothing much more wonderful in this troubled world of ours than seeing a father (or mother) teaching his (or her) son (or daughter) to fish.

I taught my 3 eldest (25, 23 & 22yo) to fish but only one, my daughter, really got into it. #She can feel a jacket sucking a prawn off the hook at twenty paces. #The two boys, well let's just say, they know how to get the bait on the hook. #Can't win 'em all.

Now I have two more boys learning to fish and they look like champions in the making. (see pics)
The oldest (4 at the time) caught 3 from 3 at Bribie on his first ever attempt at saltwater fishing! #Mother's dying oath! #The pic shows his first, a fingermark. #That was just about one of my proudest days ever. #Even the people on the pontoon were rapt.
The other pic shows my little bloke, then 3, with his first fish a bream caught on the Hawkesbury.

As I pen this response, I wonder wether the moderators might consider the addittion of a board for proud parents say "My kid's first fish" or the like.

[wetaline]

Can't seem to get pics to post, any clues? :-[

[SCOTTYGC]

my first fishing experiance would have been on the tambo river in east gippsland chasing bream and surf fishing from woodside beach catching gummy sharks

we would also go to merimbula every year for xmas (5 people in the datsun 180B) and fish off the old jetty there ,We would fish down old holes in the jetty . My dad never caught a fish he was that busy unhooking and rebaiting my sisters and my handlines

cheers
scotty

[wetaline]

Try again

[wetaline]

The last one was my eldest and his first fish, now I will try for my other little bloke.

[bo_sawyer]

on a holiday down at byron bay... apparently i could practically bait a prawn at the age of 3!!!

[seatime]

We had a holiday house at Amity on Nth Straddie from when I was 1 year old.
Our parents would send us down to the jetty in the arvo to hold our spots for the night. There could be up to a hundred people on the jetty in bream season. We'd pump buckets of yabbies for the night. We spent nearly every holiday and weekend there. In the late 60's and early 70's you would always catch fish, there would be something seriously wrong to come home empty handed. Got my own gear at 10, a 6' Alvey and a 10' Butterworth, before that I got what was left. Coming back to Bris on a Sunday arvo on one of Hayles' ferries, there would be sugar bags full of fish being taken home. We did everything back then, hooking muddies, jagging black bream and mullet, gill netting. We'd be stoned in the town square these days, but back then nobody thought about sustainability. whoops getting off the track there, cheers Steve.

[longtail]

i don't remember my first fishing experience :'( , i'm told by dad that i was 2 at the time ;) ;D
family holiday in hervey bay in the mid 70's , we went out on the pier with my first fishing rod and i cleaned up on whiting . dad was forever taking fish off the hook for me :o

fishing has been in my blood ever since , these days i don't even care if i get anything it's just being out on the water that matters .

worked out good i love fishing and my wife doesn't :-X :-X ;D ;D

cheers
jason

[roz]

I caught my first fish at about six years of age, have been a fishing tragic ever since......and I have the photo.

Still not game enough to post it, maybe one day.

Roz

[timbacutta]

Got the fishing bug from the old man. Fondest early memories, catching whiting at Hervey Bay on annual holidays.

Repay the favour by taking him fishing whenever I can get back home. Am taking him fishing in the Noosa River in a couple of weeks time and hopefully fit in a trip to Borumba.

Jeff.

[DICER]

Caught a bream with the handline off the old wooden pier (that doesn't exist anymore) at stradbroke in 1976.

First cast prior to that, from the beach or really the coral ruble pile, was an "unstopable"

[2rods]

First got into it at Bribie on the jetty,, I would walk down with granddad at 0430hrs and fish all day until about 7pm when nanna would make me come home. We use to get a lot of fish there then.. not sure about now??

They could leave me there for hours and not worry about who was around...how times change.

Not long after that we started going to Fraser and rainbow. Just after the cheery adventure got washed up (the last time, not the first).

That was fun fishing for tailor and bream even some nice whiting

[Shooter]

Caught the bug off my grandfather. In the school holidays used to say with my grandparents and grandfather would take me fishing. Cant stop fishing now!!!

[griz066]

Must have been about 6yo or so :o first time in a boat was about 12yo ::) and said I will own a boat some day ;) well it took 28 yrs :-/ but I now own one and I don't get enough time to go fishing as much as I want :'(

[shaman]

Deadset cannot remember not fishing. I remember the old man taking me fishing at Lake Illawarra almost everynight he wasn't working, with a cork with line wrapped around it as a handline. Then my first rod with centrepin reel (still use one for Luderick). Then mum&dad bought me a split cane rod and egg beater, I was King Fisho until it snapped on a snag. Dad shortened it but it wasn't as flash. used to catch a lot of toadfish back then. Prawning in season, Beach fishing (sleeping while Dad chased Jew) Dad teaching me and my brothers the constellations, Yep great stuff. Thanks wise good thread. :)

[17footer]

I was around 5 or 6 living in nsw, my father was a mad keen angler and arranged to take me out with an uncle on his boat.
destination hawksbery river. my first and last fish for the day was a nice bream of around 2.5 kilo..
was happy as for weeks, 30 years later still have the pic of me and my first fish.
dave :)

[major-defect]

I was 7 My grandad did it.It was my birthday and my grandparents bought me a rod which I wanted to try straight away.Using some cooked snag for bait of the wall near Woody Point jetty my grandad threw out the line for me and straight away I caught a bream. I didn't want the line back in Ijust wanted to go eat that fish and I did.I was addicted from then on.