Your First....

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
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WAtroutbum’s post asking where we’ve fished this year got me looking at maps and I started tripping down memory lane, looking at pretty much all the places I’ve ever fished in my whole life. Some of those places stood out as memorable (to me, anyway) firsts.

For example, my first time fishing ever was about 54 years ago on Mill Creek in Salt Lake City. At that time, Mill Creek was way out in the country, not surrounded by housing developments, like it is today. I was about 7 years old and I wanted to go fishing but didn’t have any equipment or anyone to take me. My dad was a terrific fisherman but he had passed away when I was just 6 months old. None of my brothers or my mom fished and I was too shy to wrangle myself an invitation from any neighbors or family friends. I had read and seen drawings about Tom Sawyer taking a long stick and making a fishing pole out of it and I thought if it was good enough for old Tom I would try it, since I didn’t need any help for that. I took a long, thin, green branch from an apple tree that grew in our back yard; tied about 10’ or so of white string to the tip; fastened a bent straight pin to the end of the string; and marched off the half-mile or so to Mill Creek with a can of worms I had picked the night before. An old gentleman passed me on my way there and asked to see my outfit. He was amused but seemed to genuinely admire it. As you might imagine, I got skunked that day but I’ve considered myself a fisherman ever since.

First fish caught: Hebgen Lake, Wyoming, about 52 years ago–a chub.

First time caught fishing out of season: I was about 12 and there was a fishing contest that began on such and such a date so, on the appointed day my buddy and I grabbed our fishing gear and rode our bikes about a mile and a half to the Ogden River just above Loren Farr Park in Ogden, Utah. We didn’t understand that there are different start dates for fishing in different parts of the state and we had jumped the gun for our area by about a week. The game warden played his part perfectly. He confiscated our fishing gear and our bikes and put them in the back of his truck. Sternly, he asked, “Have you boys every been in jail before?” All the while, I’m sure he was stifling a huge guffaw to see these cowering little boys who had been caught by the long arm of the law. In the end, we got our fishing gear and our bikes back as he turned us over to our parents recognizance. I’ve never fished out of season or without a license since then (except that once, which involved crossing state lines, but I plead the fifth on that one and I think the statute of limitations has probably run).

First time fly fishing was nearly 9 years ago on a back channel of the South Fork of the Snake River. I had bought a used 9’ 5wt Sage fly rod on e-bay from a guy in Oregon and a new Orvis Battenkill reel, also on e-bay. The rod got here first and I couldn’t wait to try it out but the reel hadn’t arrived yet so I went to Hyde Fly Shop and got fixed up with waders, boots, line, tippets, a vest and a lot of stuff to hang off of it, a bunch of flies and a box to keep them in. Then I hooked up an old green and silver automatic Pflueger reel I had (the wind up kind with a lever–I’ve still got it) and I went a-fishin’. I didn’t know the first thing about casting and very little about what flies to use but, besides losing about a dozen flies on awkward back casts, I actually caught a couple of fish that day (on a brown rubber legs and then on a bwo, as I recall). I kept looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was around to see the circus I was putting on but I was hooked, so to speak. Hopefully, I’ve learned some and do a little better today.

So, fellow anglers, what are your firsts?..

Dennis

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Good question but how am I suppose to remember what I did over 80 years ago ??? Bad enough trying to remember what I have to do tomorrow. BILL

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Dal great post.

My first fish was about 40 years ago I was six, fishing with father and grandfather. I had received the fishing gear for my birthday. On a Small River or stream outside of Newport Oregon,. I caught a huge trout and fried it up on the spot. My dad told me years later that it wasn’t of legal length but they didn’t want to disappoint me as it was my first fish. The fish must have been all of at least 5.5 inches as I think the “keeper size” at that time was 6 inches.

I was never caught fishing out of season, I only did it once at about the age of 12 and didn’t find out that I was a week early until I talked to my grandfather the next day. The fact that I was out of season explains the strange looks I was getting from the people driving by.

First fish on a fly was three years ago at Winchester a lake outside of Lewiston Idaho. I had bought a 6 wt Orvis fly outfit at Wally World. I had read some books about fishing and had bought a few flies. There wasn’t much room for a back cast and I wasnt much of a caster. I cast a black ant about 10 feet aiming under an overhanging willow and a 4 inch bluegill devoured it. I have been hooked ever since. I cut the fly off my line and hung it on my hat, the ant has been my favorite fly ever since.

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started end of last spring beginning of summer. 1st fish on a fly using a gold ribbed hares ear. the smallest largemouth ever! haha. it was a big deal to me tho. looked over at my cousin for a split second and he gos you got one! I got the fly line in my one hand and set the hook and instead of handing it to my other hand to strip it I look like a moron holding the rod in one hand and flyline in the other panicing. my cousin grabs the line hands it to my other hand and I strip it in for the catch. should of lost it prolly haha!! what a fly fishing noob I was!! I don’t remember my 1st time fishing ever cause I was so young. I was like 3 or something my mom says. I used to leave pieces of worms in my pockets she says and I even remember being very little and catching a huge bullfrog under a dock once with some baloney. but it was my dumb fault cause I seen it and casted by it and it tore up the baloney and I pulled it in went running and got my grandpa to unhook it lmao. funny when your little how you do dumb stuff! lol

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A friend of mine routinely holds his fish out arms length towards the camera so it looks like he just caught a 30# salmon. If you’d done that with your fish it would look like a world record large mouth!!..

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My first time fishing was with my grandfather in a little pond called Prisoner’s Lake in Devou Park in Northern Kentucky. There are a lot of stories about why it’s caled Prisoner’s Lake but nobody seems to really know for sure. One story that sounds about as good as another is it was at one time a rock quarry and was dug out by prisoner’s during the Civil War. There are other stories about prisoner’s who escaped from a Union Stockade during the Civil war being captured there. At any rate, it has made for some good stories. All we ever caught there were little bluegill but had I known my grandfather would die the next summer, I think I would have savored the moment even more. I was 7 when he died.

The first time fishing all night was when I was about 12 and was with my dad. We were after catfish. My dad is not much for the outdoors but he did take me hunging and fishing a number of times when I was too young to drive. It’s one of those things dad’s do for their kids. I’m not much for soccer but I have only missed 2 or 3 of my son’s soccer games in the past 6 or so years.

First time fly fishing was at a little pond across the street from my house when I was about 14. I caught a lot of fish on the fly rod that summer.

First time fly fishing with my own son was 2 years ago at a little stream close to our house. Later that summer, he caught his first trout on a fly rod in the Smokey Mountains.

First time fishing Yellowstone with my son was this July.

I enjoy every minute fishing with my boy and when the day is done, I start looking forward to the next time we go out. Honestly, every time we start getting our gear together for an outing, I get just as excited as I did the first time we went fishing. I know in a few years, he’s going to go off to school, get a job, get married and have kids of his own (hopefully in something close to that order) and the opportunities to fish with dad will get fewer and farther between so I enjoy every single time we get to go now.

Jeff

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First time fishing was something over 50 years ago and while I don’t remember for certain I can just about bet it was with a cane pole, bobber and worms. The kind of cane pole you used to be able to buy for $1.00 and it came with a line, bobber and a couple hooks. It’s almost certain the first fish was a bluegill or longear sunfish. I do know it was on the Dry Fork of the Bourbeuse in southern Gasconade County, Missouri. Dad didn’t much like to fish, he was more of a hunter, but he took me fishing.

First fish on a fly rod I was 12 or 13. In Owensville, Missouri in the early 60’s there weren’t a lot of fly fisherman. None that I knew of. Anyway, I’d gotten all fired up reading about fly fishing in Sports Afield and Outdoor Life and had to try it. Well…a dollar was as big as a five gallon bucket but I mowed lawns, shoveled snow in the winter, (back when we actually got snow in central Missouri0, and did whatever a 12 or 13 years old kid can do to make a buck. I went to the local Gambles store, remember them?, and bought an $8.00 spinning outfit complete with reel, line and six foot solid fibreglass rod. Then I bought a single action fly reel for a dollar and a level line for I forget how much. The reel seat on the rod was a slip ring so I’d swap from spining reel to fly reel and use the same rod for both. Leader was 6 lb. mono and a tippet was something I’d never heard of.

Welp…to make a long story even longer…my first fish on the spinning rod set up to fly fish with, was about a 1 1/2 lb. largemouth caught out of Red Oak creek right under what was called “Big Rock”…cuz it was…a big rock, probably 12 feet or so high. I caught it on a black popping bug. Not only was the fish hooked but so was I. Been fly fishing ever since. What…42-43 years.

First time fishing out west was in 1986 at the lakes around the Flat Tops in Colorado outside Sweetwater, while on an elk hunt. The fishing was better than the elk hunting that year.

I lived in NW Wyoming for a few years, outside Thayne…Dennis, we did our shopping in Idaho Falls…First fish there was at the access across the Salt River heading up to McCoy Creek. Got to fish the South Fork and enjoyed that but came to love the Grays.

Vic

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Thanks for the reply, Vic. I fished that same stretch of the Salt River my first and only time one cold, rainy fall day about 25 years ago. We were there with the Hydes (the same ones that now own the boat company) camping in their home country with some scouts and stopped to fish for a couple of hours. I caught exactly one fish and cleaned it for lunch with my favorite pocket knife, one that was given me as a Christmas present by my step sister, who got it while she and her husband were in Turkey. I got distracted or something and left that knife stuck into the wet soil of the bank and forgot all about it until we were on the way home and had gone too far to go back (this is not the first piece of equipment I’ve left behind–way too many of those and I don’t remember the first). I’d love to go visit there again for some fly fishing on a good day. I’ll bet it’s great!!

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From YCMALTF on my website.

The Old Master had started me off on a little spinning rod. I guess he figured I should learn about the stream before he got me into fly fishing. So:

“I was fishing the Meps along a likely looking undercut just above where a little stream came in and wham. A little bolt of lightning screamed up from the bottom and grabbed the spinner. He wasn’t big, maybe 6 inches or so. I brought him in to my pre-wetted hand – just like the Old Master had been told to do. I have never seen anything so beautiful. Pretty reds and golds and worm tracks on the back just like Steve had told me there would be. I quickly got him unhooked and back into the water before he was harmed.
Something happened in that few minutes that has influenced my fishing ever since. The most important thing was how beautiful and fragile that little brookie was. And how it was important not to do him harm and to try to put things back right as though you had never been there.
The second thing is that it is not important if anyone else sees you catch a fish or even knows that you did for that matter. Catching a fish is a truly personal event in its purest form. It is only between you and the fish. Steve had told me it would be like this. It’s not how many, it’s not how big, it’s only this moment and you and the fish.
In that one singular event, in that one special moment, all the lessons Steve had started teaching me achieved meaning. I was hooked more than any fish ever could be.”

bob

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You’re doing it right, Jeff. My 3 sons are all grown, married and gone now. They’re great kids and we’re close and we have a great time when we get together but one of my great regrets is that I didn’t spend more time than I did fishing with them when they were growing up.

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welcome to FAOL dal. Good question here. I was raised on a ranch and we had a resevoir for irrigating the alfalfa fields. It was all flood irrigation back then. No big sprinkler systems like today. We also had stock ponds around the place where the cows and horses watered. The ranch was homesteaded in 1908 so by the time I came along in the forties it was pretty tame. The owner’s son made a deal with a trout hatchery to deliver a couple hundred pounds of fish every fall and somewhere he got a load of bluegill. The earliest I can remember fishing there was about age 4 with some other kids. We used sticks and strings with fish hooks borrowed from various ranchhands. Bait was earthworms, grasshoppers and bacon pieces. My first fish was probably a bluegill. I remember my first trout from there. I caught 4 rainbows one afternoon when I was about 6. I took them home and my mom, an Okie lady from farmer stock, cleaned them and fried them for supper. I was proud to help feed my family. Later, about 1953 or 4 an old rancher down the road died. He had a pond stocked with large mouth bass. They were going to drain the pond so we made a deal to take all the fish out and tranport them to the resevoir where I lived. Man, there were everything from fry to 8 lb monsters in that pond. We seined fish out of there for days, put them in 55 gallon barrels and hauled them down the road. Must have made ten or fifteen trips. We had one of the best LMB fisheries in the high desert for years.
At times, when the Mojave River would flood, we kids would take buckets and dip nets and catch bullheads and bluegill out of the puddles left before the water went back underground. These we would put in the stock tanks for the little kids to fish for.
My first trip to the Sierra Nevada’s was the fall of '56. We packed into the backcountry horseback with mules packing our camp gear. It was a combination deer hunt/fishing trip. We camped at Sawmill Meadows and hunted in that area. Then we took an overnight trip to Wood’s Lakes in the high country. The lakes were at about 12,000 ft and on the Eastern edge of Kings National Forest as I recall. It was there I caught my first golden trout. I have never been back to that spot but to this day I can remember the glaciers, the trout and the trail to and from the meadows. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with mountains, camping and fishing for trout.

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Dennis -

Got some good stories flushed out with this thread !!

I’ll confine myself to my first ( and second ) fish on a fly. Opening day five years ago last Memorial Day weekend was my first time out with a fly rod. Just above Vernon Bridge on the Henry’s Fork. Fishing some flies tied by a friend of mine who worked for IDFG. Skunked. Same place and same result for another three days. But every one of those four days at least one or two of the experienced fly fishermen there would take some time to teach me something about fly fishing.

The fifth day - after about an hour on the water, an 18" bow took a gold ribbed hare’s ear. As I recall, it took me a looonnng time to land that fish. Probably would strip it in and release it in a matter of “seconds” these days.

That same day, about an hour later, I got my second fish on a fly - a 19" bow on the same fly. Needless to say, I was well hooked.

Hope you have a joyful Christmas and New Year.

John

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DAl: You said
"For example, my first time fishing ever was about 54 years ago on Mill Creek in Salt Lake City. At that time, Mill Creek was way out in the country, not surrounded by housing developments, like it is today. I was about 7 years old "

Change that 54 years old to 60 years old and that was me. Same place, just a few years difference. First place I remember is the Ogden River right at the tail end of WWII. We used sticks and string. Don’t think we caught anything, but do remember the watermelon.

Tim

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My dad didn’t fish. Neither did anyone else in my family. Dad worked. He and mom raised 11 children, on near povery wages, mostly during depressed times, so there wasn’t much time for anything else. I was born in '42, and when I was 11 or 12 years old, I wanted to learn to fish. I pestered dad into taking me fishing. He took me to where the Burgess Canal dumps into the Snake River, a few miles north of Idaho Falls. I don’t know where the gear came from, but the bait came out of the garden. We caught suckers and chubs. The chubs went over our shoulders, and the suckers went home for dinner. Dad wasn’t one to waste protein. I had a great time, being one on one with dad. (a very rare experience) But I knew there was something more to fishing. I’d read some outdoor magazines, and seen the pictures. Another opportunity presented itself a few years later, in the form of a neighbor who took an interest in me. He was an avid outdoorsman. He took me to Box Canyon on the Henry’s Fork, where he loaned me a ‘pole’, and we baited up with worms, and wet waded out into the cold rushing water. I got my first real “strike”, from a fish that was pretty respectable. I also learned about the slick-rock two-step, and the improptu Saturday afternoon bath. I managed to land the fish, and my trout career was begun. He introduced me to fishing with wet flies on his Shakespeare Wonder Rod. He also introduced me to hunting deer and elk. My first trout on a dry fly happend a few years later, after I was married. A Labor Day trip to the San Joaquin river country on the east side of the Sierras was where it happened. We hiked several miles from the trailhead by the Devil’s Postpile geologic feature, up a stream that cascaded down the mountain and through the meadows. I had an ultralight spinning rod with me. There’s “Goldens” in them there hills. I caught a couple on the spinning rod with worms. The next day, our group was joined by a fellow who had a bamboo rod and dry flies. He knew what he was doing, and he attracted several spectators. Myself included. He gave me a Royal Coachman dry fly, and told me to go out on the big log that crossed the creek, and drop the fly onto the water with my spinning rod. I did. I watched the trout come from the bottom of the pool and smack the fly hard, wherupon it became airborn from my slightly over-exuberant hookset. I knew how I wanted to catch fish from then on, and started down the road to aquiring the necessary skills and gear. It’s been a great journey.

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Thanks for the reply, Tim. Maybe we were neighbors! We lived on Lambourne Av. and there was a park (Evergreen Park??) south of us near a library on Evergreen Av. between 23rd and 27th East about 35th South. Mill Creek ran through the south end of the park and that was were I headed. As I recall, on that opening day I was surprised to see a lot of fishermen there. In those days, it was pretty much safe for a 7 year old to be wandering around alone.

One of my favorite places to fish on the Ogden River was a deep hole just under the north side of the first bridge where the highway enters the canyon. It was less than 5 miles from our house near Monroe Park so it was a pretty easy bike ride. My buddies and I caught a ton of fish there over the years. Good memories…

Regards,
Dennis

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Hi, Lew. I live about a mile and a half east of where the Burgess enters the Snake and I’ve always wondered how it would fish today but have never tried it. I used to walk in Freeman park and saw a lot of places there that I would also like to try. I watched a guy fly fish the west side of the river right across from the Science Center one September day a few years ago and he was catching one after another, basically in the middle of town…

Best wishes,
Dennis

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Dal - The watermelon feast on the Ogden was real close to where you fished. Some of my favorite memories was hiking into Skintoe on the Upper Ogden around 1957-58. That is gone, ruined by Causey Dam.

We moved to SLC around 1946 or 47. We lived on the other side of town from you. I still remember the address: 968 N. 12th W.

Tim

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The event took place at Austin Hot Springs on the Clackamas river. I was twelve yrs old and I was fishing for the first time with my Eagle Claw fly rod / Perrine Automatic Reel and floating line. I only fished one fly that day, a Yellow Mayfly: Image: http://www.percysflies.com/store/images/Flies/Dry/149-tnail.jpg
I vividly remember the moment I hooked the 10 inch Rainbow, landed it and ran back to camp, fly still in the trout’s mouth, to show my Family. My Dad taught me to bait fish, so I was completely surprised the trout bit my fly. That is the day that started my fly fishing.
Doug

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I don’t know if I remember my first fish…I was too young. The first memory I have of fishing was at the local university pond, where I caught (actually it was more like my dad caught :wink: ) an I don’t know what. The first fish I caught by myself was a 8" Brook Trout on a little Black Widow extendable worm pole. I was in the third grade. The first fish I caught on the fly, I caught this past summer on a rod I built and fly I tied! I caught a Rio Grande Cutthroat, the prettiest fish I’ve ever seen in person, and coincidentally, my state fish! I caught it on a PTN. It’s so far the only fish I’ve caught on the fly, but it won’t be for long! :slight_smile:

nb

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Tim and Doug and Dennis -

If my short term memory were as good as your long term memory, I’d know what this thread is about !!

Tim - about the time you were moving to SLC, my family was moving to 1144 Dolores Way in Sacto CA !! The phone number was JU5-6707. The JU was for Juniper.

Now what is this thead about again ??

Oh yeah, Dennis, you reported being skunked on the Henry’s Fork. When you are ready to give it another go, send me a PM and I’ll give you a place to try. If I can remember where it is.

John