fathers day memories

[jim m]

memories of fishing with my dad on bull shoals, throwing lazy ikes, hulla divers, and a blk buck tail jig with a blk pork eel. all this on thumb burner reels. also remember the first time plastic worms came on the market.  thanks dad, your gone but not forgotten

[Foghorn]

Great memories thru the years of Dad teaching the brothers and I so many things. Had him on a friends farm pond catching big bluegill for a couple hours 2 days in a row just a couple months before he died. Mom went and fished even though I never saw her attempt fishing. Was 16 years ago this last week that he went to that big pitcher's mound in the sky. 

[Smalliebigs]

My most vivid  early memories of my dad and his commitment to take me fishing were creek fishing.  He would take me to a couple of creeks and every  trip was so interesting and cool to me as a very small boy, the trips seemed they would last week's even though it would only be a few hours.

My dad and I did a lot of bank fishing  on the Mississippi and Missouri  river when I was younger. Those trips were absolutely  the best.....camping  out over night on the sand bar.....we would have rods out all night, the diversity  of fish we would catch was nuts. We would go into the woods and dig up these night Crawlers that were like snakes or at least in seemed that way to a star stuck 6 or 7 year old overly enthusiastic  boy. I think how patient my dad was with me on those blistering  hot trips.....it had to fustrating as I was active  beyond  belief but, those memories are what are the most cherished  things I have in this life.

My dad still fishes but, just doesn't  have the drive to do for more than 10 minutes  if the fish aren't biting. He created a freak with his trips he took me on and I can't  thank  him enough

[JestersHK]

Have some great memories of fishing with my dad as well.  Some of the first memories I have as a kid are fishing at his aunts catfish pond.  

After a late lunch today I took him and my oldest out to a small pond.  The fish weren't very cooperative, but we still had a great time.  He too didn't have it in him much anymore, but I'm happy to get him out whenever I can.  

[Al Agnew]

My dad and my grandpa took me fishing with them almost every time they went, from the time I was 4 years old.  Dad went almost every Sunday after working six days a week, and I can still remember lying in bed before daylight on Sunday, wide awake, waiting and hoping for Dad to come into my room and say, "Get up...let's go fishing."  By that time, Dad was big into reservoir bass fishing, and we almost always went to Wappapello.  I was catching 5-6 pound bass on the lake before I ever caught my first smallmouth.  It was Grandpa who intoduced me to smallmouth fishing.  But Dad saw that I really liked the river and smallmouth, and remembered his own days, before I was born, of fishing the river out of a cedar and canvas canoe.  He somehow wrestled his 16 ft. lake johnboat into the river and took me on my first float trip.  He bought me a 12 ft. johnboat to fish the river when I was about 13 years old, and he and Mom would shuttle me and my buddies for floats.  He also made me an inner tube boat that I could use to float the river by myself.

We fished together often all the way until his last year or so of life.  In later years he and I floated the rivers in my canoes, and when he got to where he couldn't take a long day in a canoe, that was when, and to a large extent why, I bought a jetboat...so we could still fish together.  I cherished those days, and I still miss calling him and telling him about every good fishing trip I experience...not to mention talking to him to get advice on a lot of things.  He instilled in me a love of fishing, hunting, and reading (even though he never finished 8th grade, he was an inveterate reader).  And most of all, he showed me how to live life honorably and with respect for others.