I can remember being seven years old and going fishing with my dad. He had bought a pole and tackle box for me so I could go fishing with him. We packed up the car and headed to a local pond where I proceeded to pull fish out as fast as he could release them. I caught sunfish, blue gills, a small mouth bass, and even a pike that day and just like the fish was hooked! We would go on to fish as often as possible, even going so far as to buy a canoe to explore other locations and structures. I wound up winning a fishing tournament at age twelve and an ice fishing tournament the following year. By the time I was fourteen though school, boy scouts, and sports occupied much of my time leaving little time for fishing. The canoe was left under the deck, the rods hung in the workshop and our pass-time was no more. While I longed for the father son time we used to share fishing I was all too busy with everything else to realize just how fast the time would pass. We eventually replaced fishing with mountain biking and skiing but there were still times I'd drive by a lake and wonder what was lurking just below the surface.
That brings us to an evening last summer when I was combing the beach for sea glass with my fiancee and we came across a gentleman having luck much like my first time fishing. It seemed that no sooner did he cast that he was reeling in another decent sized (much larger than anything I'd ever caught) striped bass. I was mesmerized watching him cast and reel into the frothing ocean and determined that I wanted to do that too!
Fast forward to this May when after thinking about all winter I decided to look into surf casting. A few Google searches lead me to a plethora of saltwater fishing resources; from videos, to books, and forums, I had found more knowledge than I could ever dream of absorbing. I bought a crappy rod and reel, just enough tackle to get by and a bag to hold it all in and set off to the beach.
My first evening fishing also turned into my first saltwater catch. I was standing on a jetty casting an artificial shad and varying my retrieve when I felt a sharp strike and then nothing so I retrieved all the way to the rocks and cast to the same spot. I tried to remember how I retrieved the cast before and tried my best to reproduce the bite...It worked, with another sharp strike I yanked back and set the hook; I had a fish on! It was the best fight I'd ever had while fishing and with my heart pounding I spotted my catch for the first time below the surface of the water. It was the color of rust and looked huge to me but I didn't have much to compare it to so I decided to play out some line and walk it back to the beach for a closer look. As I reached the sandy shore and began to real I got my first real glimpse which was followed by the surprise of "It has wings!" What I'd caught was a Sea Robbin and a big one at that, the fish was about 15 inches long and about 2 pounds. I was ecstatic at having caught a fish my first time out. I pulled him up in the surf to release him when after being rolled by a wave he spit out the hook and swam away. I was hooked again, just like that first time so many years ago.
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