How long did it take you to learn to fish?

[b_cdot]

Kind of a vague question but one I'm sure has many different answers. I enjoyed fishing as a young child but never spent a lot of time doing it. When I did though it made me pretty happy and I didn't have to be catching anything to feel that way. I watched fishing shows and read fishing magazines as I got older, I learnt a bit from my dad and also friends, especially a neighbour who was a great fisherman. I grew up and in my teenage years my dad bought an aluminum boat and we would do some walleye and bass fishing mostly. That was short lived, sometimes teens have other priorities than fishing and soon after that the boat was sold. I can remember in my early 20s I would kind of nudge my dad once in a while and tell him about a good deal on a boat hoping we could spend some time out on the water again. I was also getting the itch to really get back into fishing. Unfortunately my dads health declined and he just didnt have the motivation to want to get back into fishing. He passed away in 2011 and I did what he wasn't able to do with some money he left me, I bought a boat. I did it because I wanted to get back into fishing and it was also an homage to my dad. I feel that's what he would have wanted me to do. I've been back fishing pretty steadily since 2012 and I can't believe how much I've learned and how much I still don't know. It's amazing to me how some anglers can be so confident yet so new to the sport and how some people can fish for 30 years and still feel like they don't know what they are doing. Do some of you feel that there are true "naturals" in the sport of fishing or do you feel hard work will always take precedence? Figured this is a topic that comes around every once in a while. This might be as good of a time as ever with a few extra ppl on their computers.

[AKRISONER]

its a never ending learning process...thats why im hooked. Being a multi species guy I can basically pick and choose what to learn day to day. Luckily this forum and the people in gave me some fantastic tips and advice and it made my passion for the sport take off even more.

BillM, Fisherpete specifically, i owe the both of them everything I knew to get started fishing smallmouth and musky.

Theres still sooo much to learn. Last year i started flipping and punching for largemouth and it was like an entirely new window opened up for me. This year I think im going to have the jig in my hands a lot more. Its just something I havent spent a lot of time throwing, but i know it catches so its time to figure out the finer points of it.

Tournaments are the time to throw the "100% know you are going to catch baits" likes whacky and neko rigs or a tube or crankbait. Sometimes you just gotta pick a rod up and make it catch. Those subtle feely things are what really changes the game up.

 

heck dont even get me started on fly fishing...i suck terribly, but Its like an entirely different sport for me. I bloody love it.

Edited April 22, 2020 by AKRISONER

[chris.brock]

45 minutes ago, b_cdot said:

Do some of you feel that there are true "naturals" in the sport of fishing or do you feel hard work will always take precedence?

I do feel there are some true naturals, I've known a few, and for some guys, even with hard work, fishing will always be just drowning worms, that's fine though, this is a hobby for enjoyment, not a competition 

there are also guys who don't post much, if anything online, that can smoke those true naturals who post stuff

 

 

[Gil Levesque]

In my 69th year,and still learning! Whenever i get skunked,I just chalk it up to anotherday of learning! And have a good chuckle!!! Fish lots,watch what others do,and listen to whats said!  All a learning curve! Cheers!

[Garnet]

My family raced horses and dad drove trucks. Some how there was always a creek near by and I fished.

At 14 I knew the horse business was not for me. Got my licence and started fishing. In theory I could not fish it wasn't like horses we always had to go home and feed.

So I never stopped. Was very successful rec angler started tournaments  at 28 took a few years to start winning . Always multi species guy. 

Still having a blast.

 

[AKRISONER]

7 hours ago, chris.brock said:

 

there are also guys who don't post much, if anything online, that can smoke those true naturals who post stuff

 

 

Reminds me of playing hockey. God just handed a certain amount of talent to some people. No matter how much I play I can never be better than some players at basically anything.

fishing is much the same, sometimes it feels like the guys have horse shoes up their you know what. My one buddy dave is like that. He doesn’t take fishing too seriously, but he absolutely loves fishing. He always just seems to catch em.

when you go up the ladder there’s just something to it for some people, the Johnston brothers on the BASS circuit are a perfect example of it. There’s a lot of hammer bass fishermen in canada but those two guys get in a boat and basically win or finish top 3 in any bass tournament in canada. You’d think that guys would just out luck them but they somehow just get it done every time. Proves there is far more than just luck to the game.

[aplumma]

For me it is the journey that is the joy of fishing. I started fishing for bluegills using balls of dough in a local pond that I rode my bike to. It evolved into saltwater and freshwater fishing for all species. This grew into multiple boats for different bodies of water and more equipment than I should have. At 57 you are waiting for me to say I am now fishing with dough balls again but in reality I still have the same old passion so all of the equipment is still being used. I enjoy the contest of finding where the fish are and how to lure them in to bite. 

Art

[knightfisher]

Seems there is always something to learn in this great past time.

[Bill]

My Dad took me fishing on the Thames River when I was very young. I never caught anything but he would. Then he started taking me on fishing vacations to Lake St. Peter. There I would catch panfish. We started fishing Lake St. Clair and I would catch perch and panfish. Then my boss asked me if I would like to go to Lake Kipawa for Lake Trout. That is where I learned about trolling. He taught me a lot about fishing. Years later my brother took the family to Charleston Lake fishing for lake trout. It was on that lake that my son got me fishing smallmouth bass.

So back to the question. Am I still learning? Yes, every time I go fishing. I hope to one day catch a five pound smallmouth bass, six pound walleye and a eight pound lake trout. Too some the weights of my fish goals will be light but those weights are my personal goals for me.

[AKRISONER]

16 minutes ago, Bill said:

So back to the question. Am I still learning? Yes, every time I go fishing. I hope to one day catch a five pound smallmouth bass, six pound walleye and a eight pound lake trout. Too some the weights of my fish goals will be light but those weights are my personal goals for me.

safe to say i fish a heck of a lot for bass and it took me 4 years to crack a nickle smallmouth. A lot of it is the body of water. A 5 out of some lakes is far more impressive than a five out of erie or simcoe for example. Much the same as a 5lb largemouth is a great fish in Canada but down south 10 is the target.

Sure enough once i cracked 5 i all of sudden started doing it more often...fishing is weird like that.

Thats the other thing, theres always a new PB to catch. Double digit walleye out of georgian bay is a PB i hope to crack some day. 6lb bass, a 50 inch musky all out of georgian bay...gonna be really tough to do them all but im sure in my lifetime i will.

Edited April 22, 2020 by AKRISONER

[OhioFisherman]

Me and 3 brothers, our 5 birthday present for all of us was an overnight fishing trip with dad for spring crappie, and all of us ran out of room for them the first day. My oldest brother never got the fishing bug and for my youngest it was an interest that came and went, for me and Mike it was a life long passion.

Dad had friends that were very good fishermen, so we got a good start with the basics, and it was a different sort of deal hanging out and learning from depression era fishermen, catching fish for them at some point in their lives made the difference between eating and going hungry.

An educational exercise? the competition, and the outdoors? All were factors to some extent for me, just never depended on fish for a meal. I grew up in the inner city maybe a mile from where my dad did, fishing was a way to get out of the city and explore.

I had a lot of offers to go a lot of places to fish, just never felt a need to go to very distant places, it could be challenging enough to catch what was available closer.

[AKRISONER]

6 minutes ago, OhioFisherman said:

I had a lot of offers to go a lot of places to fish, just never felt a need to go to very distant places, it could be challenging enough to catch what was available closer.

I always wondered what your "camps" pb's were up in PAB. You were fishing that area in a much different era, I wonder if the fish were bigger then or now. The introduction of Gobies and zebra mussles really changed a lot in the lakes since then. My neighbor seems to believe the smallmouth are much larger now than before.

[David Chong]

I truly believe that once you believe that you've learnt everything there is to know about fishing, you might as well give it up! I am always learning in this great sport and that's part of why I'm so passionate about it and sharing with others! The challenge is always there and will be until my dying days! That being said there are those who I believe are very intuitive when it comes to fishing and are very good naturally, whereas the rest of us have to work at it! I still get excited when I believe that I've learned something new and can't wait to get out & give it a try!

Next to actually fishing, my favourite thing to do is to talk fishing and I strongly believe that you can learn from everyone, even if it's what not to do! LOL

[John]

I grew up close to a river with many species. Browns, grayling in the Winter and lots of what we would call coarse fish in UK. I was float fishing with centrepin before it became sexy. I learned how to fly fish from an old Fin, wish I had kept in touch. Dad wasn't a big fisherman so I learned by doing from a very early age and reading and hanging out at the tackle shops in town. I became more interested in sea fishing as I grew up in my teen years. Casting into the North Sea from piers and off the beaches from Nov through maybe March (when the Cod came inshore and the big tides ran). My uncle had an old converted life boat on which he spent countless hours re-fitting and re-powering. He bought an auxiliary engine, reported to be from Hitlers yacht, probably urban legend, and installed it. the 35' boat was so overpowered that we could only run about 1/4 throttle. We fished the wrecks for cod. Followed a girl to Canada in the early 70's and settled down, got a real job and raised a family.

Lost my mojo a few years ago and sold my boat and most of my gear. Starting to get it back in my retirement years and may go back to it. Not sure if I will replace the boat. My love is river fishing, BUT, I like solitude so if I had to stand shoulder to shoulder with all of the Spring and Fall guys I would go insane and would probably end up in jail...lol.

Edited April 22, 2020 by John

[npt1]

I started fishing when I was 5 years old, my boyhood chum had a grampa who took the 2 of us young guys out fishing a lot of times,

We fished at Howdenvale just north of Wiarton, we had a spot known to the locals as 'the crib" , actually on old ship wreck of sorts.

caught sunfish and perch but it was always fun.  Later on as an adult, I read on magazine article called  Flyfishing for Bass.

That was it,  I was hooked on it, Bass and a flyrod are like Peanut Butter and Jam,  they really do belong together.

[GBW]

Like most, I started in my youth with my parents telling me what to use.  They were bass anglers.  So I learned that a jitterbug was a good evening top water bait.  Well, I wanted to fish more then just at dusk so I would cast off the dock at my grandmother's cottage all the time.  Finally my dad decided to teach me how to drive a boat, a tinner but still, considering I was still under 10 this was huge for me.  When he felt I had the ability to dock it in the worst winds is when he decided I can go out fishing on my own in it.  It hit up all the spots they would at dusk and had to learn how to use baits like a rapala, a spoon and or jig.  It was hard for me seeing as I was solo trying to learn.  Then my cousin up the lake and I would go out from time to time and I learned more.  My uncle would come to the cottage as I got older and we would go fishing and he would show me 'his spots' that my parents didn't fish and I learned some more.  Hell I even won a local Haliburton Bass derby with a HUGE rockbass the beat out some of the SMB weighed in.  

Then as I got older (teens) I lost the LOVE for it.  I'd still cast a line here and there but I didn't care anymore.  I forget how old I was when the spark light back up (I'm 46 now) but I would hazard to guess I have been back into fishing for the past 20 years but my fishing has taken on a new look.  I went from bass only to adding walleye, musky, perch and other panfish to my game.  

I am still learning every time I pick up a rod and tie on a lure.  Yeah there are lures you are going to catch a bass with like a senko BUT I like to try new things and try and figure out what that fish really wants to eat.  I guess that's why I have about 80lbs of different soft plastics...  

[OhioFisherman]

40 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

I always wondered what your "camps" pb's were up in PAB. You were fishing that area in a much different era, I wonder if the fish were bigger then or now. The introduction of Gobies and zebra mussles really changed a lot in the lakes since then. My neighbor seems to believe the smallmouth are much larger now than before.

Scott, no idea on camp's pb's, saw some big fish people had caught in the camp freezers and in pictures just no idea if they were bests. A long term fishing buddy showed me an article in one of the fishing magazines here that basically brought up the same debate for Lake Erie smallies, the writer had the opinion that 5 pound smallies were rarely seen before the gobies, our reaction was where had this guy been fishing for them, and my buddy knew the writer.

We considered it a bad day if we didn't have at least 1 that went 5 pounds, and multiple 5s were fairly common, my best day back when the limit was 8 was 8 that I was pretty confident would have been around 40 pounds. That said? my biggest was 22 inch on Erie, just guessing in the 6 pound range.

My uncle got a 10+ pound walleye at the pointe, my dad got a 46 inch pike that was like 23 pounds, but some of the fish we saw from other people there were a good deal bigger some we hooked and lost also. Bass too, some of the smallies and largemouth were 5 pound + fish, maybe not a lot over but a good fish. One of my buddies got a 31 inch walleye there, a  sick or old fish I guess, it looked awful thin and only went 9#, we had one cruise under the boat that dwarfed it.

Gobies? another food source that happens to like where the smallies like so the odds are less energy is used eating them? We hooked some very big fish there, and lost most of them! LOL

[BillM]

43, still learning.  

[Fisherman]

Long time ago, I still remember it quite well, just off Liverpoole Rd in Frenchmans bay, there was that dock to the east side of the road.  Long before the Nuc power plant was built.  I was 5 years old.  First bullhead.

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Fisherman

[lew]

I was a lucky guy as I was born into a family that loved camping, fishing, hunting and anything to do with the outdoors, even my Mom was as much at home in a tent as she was in the house. I was born in November and the folks had me on my 1st camping trip the next June when I was only 7 months old.

I don't remember starting to fish as it was something that basically happened as soon as I could hold a fishing pole and we always had a boat although not the one in this picture.

This was taken about 1950 and I'm the little runt on your left with my brother and dad.

Any of you guys remember the old flat bottomed wooden rowboats  LOL

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by lew

[GBW]

So Lew, you did smile at some point I see  

[lew]

17 minutes ago, GBW said:

So Lew, you did smile at some point I see  

Actually, I think it was a burp  LOL

[AKRISONER]

6 hours ago, OhioFisherman said:

 

My uncle got a 10+ pound walleye at the pointe, my dad got a 46 inch pike that was like 23 pounds, but some of the fish we saw from other people there were a good deal bigger some we hooked and lost also. Bass too, some of the smallies and largemouth were 5 pound + fish, maybe not a lot over but a good fish. One of my buddies got a 31 inch walleye there, a  sick or old fish I guess, it looked awful thin and only went 9#, we had one cruise under the boat that dwarfed it.

 

seems like not too much has changed...i feel like the lake is so big that that is what specifically makes it such a great place. The fish live in their own world free from interruption and I am one of the very very few people that disturb them. Im glad to hear a double digit walleye does exist there, ive caught a 9 and the cottage collectively have caught some 8's so theres gotta be a 10 somewhere right?

6lb bass is definitely another target...hit 5.9 in October last year. Had my first five the year before that a 5.85 Funny the first fish over 5 I ever caught was almost 6! almost skipped 5 all together.

I think ive naturally been fishing since I was old enough to be in the boat with my dad and two older brothers. My dad has a story from when I must have been 3 or 4 years old. He asked me one day as we were packing up the boat to take me and my brothers out walleye fishing on Jan Lake in Sasketchewan if I was excited to catch a big fish, I promptly replied oh ya we were gonna catch a huge one. So off we went and sure enough my old man hooked into an absolute monster of a Northern Pike that fought and thrashed and that he finally muscled into the boat and then proceeded to flop around violently scaring the absolute living heck out little me. The fish was definitely longer than me and possibly outweighed me lol.

Eventually he got the thing unhooked and released it. The next weekend Pops was packing up the boat once again to take us all fishing and asked me once again if I was excited to catch a big fish and I told him definitely not lol!

My first two memories of fishing I couldnt have been more than 6 years old, we went out on walleye opener with my entire family and limiting out on a 5 fish limit x 5 with my entire family in less than an hour. I remember the ice still being piled up on teh shorelines of the islands and my brother and I hiding under the tarp on the bow of the new glasstron from the cold. I think my mom actually stopped fishing and let us catch her limit for her too. The other was my brothers taking me perch fishing in our little tinner (I still run the same 1988 15 horse suzuki on my tinner today) Sure enough there i am 6 years old and a big pike ate my lure and the drag started screaming. I remember starting to cry and screaming at my brothers to help me fight the fish because I could hold onto the rod much longer and they refused and told me to keep fighting it. It eventually broke me off but I was really upset lol.

Through my teenage years I hated fishing, my dad isnt much for anything but deadsticking minnows, and when we werent on his home waters in manitoba anymore, we spent trip after trip after trip getting skunked. Once we got the cottage in my early 20's i started playing around pike fishing using the tinner and in general enjoyed it. I even invested in a $120 shimano bob izumi combo that I figured was a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a fishing rod. As time went on I burnt out that reel, and made the "huge" investment of buying a $120 reel...oh boy the slope was getting steep and the surface was getting slick fast lmao.

I then spent some time with some friends at their place on the tri-lakes and learned a bit about largemouth fishing. I still didnt really know what the heck i was doing but I definitely knew that i enjoyed bass fishing with them a lot.

I think Bill M posted some photos on here of him bass fishing up on Georgian bay and i made the big mistake of asking him for some advice on how to target G bay smallmouth. Bill gave me some tips about Lures to use and how to tie leaders for various presentations. He gave me some advice on what type of structure to look for and i did a bit of studying on navionics. I headed out that weekend, got up at first light and went and fished a Pop-R topwater for the first time in my life. Needless to say those 3 smallies hitting topwater that morning changed my life forever. 

Tackle, rods, and a bass boat, fly rods, musky rods etc etc etc later...I dont ever see myself stopping until im physically unable to fish anymore.

Edited April 22, 2020 by AKRISONER

[misfish]

WOW Lew, great pic.

 

 

[BillM]

18 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

 

I think Bill M posted some photos on here of him bass fishing up on Georgian bay and i made the big mistake of asking him for some advice on how to target G bay smallmouth. Bill gave me some tips about Lures to use and how to tie leaders for various presentations. He gave me some advice on what type of structure to look for and i did a bit of studying on navionics. I headed out that weekend, got up at first light and went and fished a Pop-R topwater for the first time in my life. Needless to say those 3 smallies hitting topwater that morning changed my life forever. 

Tackle, rods, and a bass boat, fly rods, musky rods etc etc etc later...I dont ever see myself stopping until im physically unable to fish anymore.

Maybe one day after all this is over we can go slam some smallies.    Those topwater bites are like nothing else.