If You Have The Opportunity To Take A Kid Fishing....do It!

[Smalliebigs]

As I post this I am soo hung over I can barely see the monitor because I am still a tad drunk. I attended a funeral and wake/party for an old friend who was an old neighbor. The reason I am stiil drunk is because I was drinking Red White and Blue and Stag beers last night.....the beers of choice for my departed buddy. I also mixed in several Boulevard unfiltered wheats and man I'm a mess!!

My friend who I was celebrating a wonderful life was much older than me and was a neighbor of our back at my parents old house. This gentleman's wife had passed before I was really old enough to know any better from cancer. He was a widow at an early age and had no kids. He was an old school fisherman and I quickly became enamored with him and his fishing knowledge and stories. By the time I became 10 he started taking me river fishing on the Meramec, around 1978. He had a Grumman boat with a Ted Willams motor, I was always starstuck by his outboard. We would troll inline spinners with cow bells and spoons....we would hammer big White bass and the occasional largemouth and Smallie. He was a surly old dude but, cared immensely about things in his own special way.... a lot of my old friends were like that. He could sense how much I enjoyed fishing and took the time to tell me about fishing and just get me out there. He was very patient with me, but quite pissy with most of the other neighbors.....I guess I had become his fishing buddy???.

I do know for about 4 years there from 79 to 83 my summers were spent fishing with my old friend.....he created a monster!!! My dad took me fishing alot too but, it seemed to peeked my interest more to go with old Gene. Eventually baseball took over virtually all of my free time as I entered high school but, fishing was still in the back of my mind a lot. I just didn't fish as much.....chicks and baseball took over. My old friend and I didn't talk as much....I started driving and went to Tulane University.....yada, yada, yada....next thing you know I'm an alledged young adult. Fishing starts to creep back into my conciseness and I have the bug again.

river fishing and just about any type of fishing takes over for me again and I become the freak I am now.

The time and the patience old Gene showed me was immeasueable and I will take it to my grave. He just decided to show some dumb neighborhood kid what he knew of fishing and for me it exploded my mind to fishing. Such a cool old guy who I had to shot gun some beers for last night.

Now as an alleged adult I am always trying to take kids fishing as much as possible....probably to a fault at times.....but what Gene did for me I would truly like to do for some kid and create another fishing freak.

God speed Gene and we will fish again sometime buddy

[bfishn]

I had a childhood mentor/neighbor much like that, we fished, trapped, and collected arrowheads, stuff Dad had little time for. Dad mildly discouraged our outings, hinting that Tom's "lazy" habits would rub off on me. Dad was right.

In my north Missouri farming childhood, small, round hay bales were the norm. Anyone that's ever run one of those Allis Chalmers round balers knows well how finicky they can be. Try to run hay that's just a few hours from being cured enough thru one and they seize up. When that happened to Dad, he'd spend the rest of the day wrenching, beating, and cussing the mysterious inner workings, usually ending with a trip to town for expensive parts. Not old Tom. When his baler seized up, he just shut 'er down and went fishing the rest of the day. Most of the time when he returned the next morning, the baler would puke out a misformed bale and then get right back to business. The difference in strategy was not wasted on me... :-)

[Mitch f]

Great story Scott...I understand completely

[*T*]

Also include "big kids" (adults who have never fished much, that is) in who we should take fishing. I've seen, as you've said, "monsters created" out of some of those "kids". Thanks, for the story!