Is there a moment(s) in time that significantly shaped who you are today as a fisherman?

I can identify several:

1) As a kid, losing a trout while fishing with my dad on the Siletz. Then catching my first Chinook with my dad on the Salmon River near Lincoln City. My bait era.

2) My first steelhead lost, and first caught. Both on the Siletz, as a teen. My lure era.

3) First steelhead over 20 lbs. Trask.

4) First steelhead on a waking fly. Nestucca.

5) In my 20's, losing a huge cutthroat on a size 18 mosquito on the Yellowstone River in the Park.

I'm forever hooked on flyfishing.

Phil

For me, it was the day I saw A River Runs through It. I had never heard of flyfishing before, but that afternoon I walked straight into kauffmans, dropped $3489 on gear, and I have been a flyfisherman ever since.


But seriously, one day that does stick out in my mind was when I was sixteen or seventeen and first drove over the hill to warm springs alone and fished a day entirely by myself. I had fished there plenty before that, but mostly with my brother and dad. I made the drive, caught a decent number of hefty trout, saw a bear on the way back-had an all around fulfilling day. I felt like a fisherman that day, and not a kid out with his dad.

Really the defining moment for me was....

1978..... Location..Fairbanks Alaska.


I was visiting my dad for the summer, as my parents were separated... Dad would pay for me to fly up for one month out of the summer... Anyway...

The defining moment for me,was my dad letting me borrow the toyota pickup and drive up Chena Hotsprings rd. to fish the river by myself... Those summers were fun, fishing for salmon/grayling/and pike...

I've been fishing all my life,can't even remember the first time I hooked a salmon...6 years old dad????

Anyway, after that summer, I was hooked on flyfishing for good....

Thanks BobC (My dad)

Actually there were two times in my life....

One I wrote about, the other happened around that time here in Oregon.. Just as important as the first post..

As dad was in Alaska and I loved to fish, mom was the person who took time almost every weekend to take me fishing. She would run me everywhere,no matter what was going on in our lives.... That was a defining moment in my fishing journey...

I just didn't realize it 'til later in life....

Thanks mom....

Btw. She doesn't post here,she posts on www.foodtv.com.

Just before graduating from the University of Iowa. Went to Lake McBride on a perfect day. Fish were rising, ducks were swimming, a mink was playing along the bank (and keeping an eye on the ducks). I made a decision to live a life that would allow me to spend as much time as possible in that kind of setting and to always appreciate it. That is just what I have done.

Moved to Oregon almost 30 years ago. First time I ever fished here. Went to the Siletz and caught a summer steelhead on a fly. Sat next to the river by the fish, looked at the beauty all around me. Reinforced the decision I had made in Iowa.

I will never stop appreciating our forests, rivers, lakes, fish and wildlife that we find in the great Northwest. Catching a fish is a bonus.

My dad passed away when I was four years old, he was a fisherman (surf casting in N.Y.). All my memories of him revolved around fishing. I don't have any one defining moment, but there was a big pond at the end of the street, I don't remember when I started fishing on my own, but I remember always fishing, I cannot remember a time when I didn't fish. The few short years that I had with dad left such an impression on me for fishing that it is the legacy that he left me. He made his own rods and lures so my graduation to the fly was a natural progression.
Cherish every moment you get to spend fishing with your closest loved ones... Ed

Sitting next to the CEO of Sage on an airplane, told me he would set me up and I never took him up on it. My wife encurged fly fishing, Now I bet she never did... lol


She is an angel, lets me out at least 1 time per week.

Damn I love this sport.

May 8, 1982. I had a business meeting at Kah-nee-tah that started at noon, so I went early to do some fly fishing before the meeting. I'd fly fished off-and-on for 14 years before that, but never seriously. In December 1981 I'd decided to get do a little more fly fishing--just try it more seriously--and bought a pair of $30 converse bootfoot waders, a $50 Cortland rod/reel/line outfit, a couple of Teeny nymphs, and tied a few bucktail coachman flies (Royal Trudes, really) on an old fly tying kit that had been gathering dust (it was a present from the best man at my wedding 12 years before) . So on May 8, 1982 I fished the Warm Springs River at Kah-nee-tah and caught about half-a-dozen trout, all 8-10 inch stockers.That trip was:
--First trout on a fly I'd tied myself
--First trout on a nymph
--First time wading
I decided it all felt really really good and I was going to do a whole lot more it.

Like Edgewaters, I can not remember ever not fishing. Earliest memory: catching my first fish (at 2-1/2 years old.) It was a little bluegill, but in my eyes it was huge and the gills looked like big, juicy sliced tomatoes.

About ten years old, semi-rural suburban Chicago, fishing the neighborhood pond for bluegill with worms and a bobber. I've just hooked an average bluegill (4-5") when all of a sudden the bobber goes way down and my rod bends in half. The bluegill then comes flying out of the water and over my head onto the shore, now missing a large patch of scales. Shaking, I put on a whole gigantic nightcrawler on my hook and cast back out. Down goes the bobber, way down again, and I set the hook on about a 4-5lb bass that I miraculously manage to land. I wanted so bad for some one to see that fish, but no witnesses, and it being the neighborhood pond I was gaining a first hand education in the virtues of catch-and-release (more fish to keep on catching!) so I let it go.

Around that same time I start messing around with some factory made flies I found in my dad's tackle box, just casting them as well as I can with my spinning rod (not very well, obviously.) I find it easy to entice some big bluegill on their redds :rolleyes: close to shore and enjoy the lack of mess and hassels associated with bait. When my dad hears I've been catching fish on these flies, he sets me up with my first fly rod, a 7'6", 7wt Pfleuger fiberglass rod with level line. He taught me how to fish and I would soon be teaching him how to flyfish.

First trout on a fly, also happened to be a fly I tied (#12 Red Quill dry) on Ridley Creek, Southeast PA, at age 13, 1982. It was a hatchery rainbow from a pool beneath an old dam. An hour later I caught my second, a hatchery brown, with a black ant from the same pool.

January, 1994, first steelhead hooked (and lost) on Wilson River dead drifting a double egg with a six weight (I was fresh in from the East coast and that was as stout as I had.) After I stopped shaking I managed to hook and lose another. "I'm gonna need a bigger rod."

1999, first summer steelhead and first steelhead on a dry line swing, Deschutes River. I had the pleasure of being invited to fill an open seat on a jet sled with a guide. I hooked 8 and landed 3. Being shown where those fish hold was a revelation and seeing them act so aggressively toward a fly at the surface made me a believer.

2001, Costa Rica, managed to land a 15lb Jack Crevalle from shore on an 8wt after 35 minutes of unstoppable runs in the midst of an approaching thunderstorm. This fish ran way into my backing (it's a big reel, at least 200yds of backing, and a good thing) and every time I'd get it back to where my fly line was almost to the tip of my rod, it would run again. This happened 6 or 7 times. I couldn't believe I actually landed it (100 yards down the shore line.) Definitely the greatest fish battle I've won yet. I felt like that time when I was ten years old again.

There's so many more....

Ed

Big Wood river North of Ketchum, Idaho. Summer 1971. Just back from a year of fighting in Viet Nam. Spent the entire summer in Ketchum attempting to assimilate into society. Thanks to my High School best friend's family. Decided flyfishing look like more fun than tossing Mepps spinners. Read and read on fishing with flies. Not many books on the subject at that time.

Late afternoon, warm, wet wading (what are waders?), McKinty (BubbleBee) fly.
Read that fish hold behind boulders. Waded into position above a nice rock. Tossed, wasn't quite sure how to cast yet, the fly upstream and let it float past the rock. Wham! A few seconds later, an 8 weight fiberglass Garcia rod made short order of the fight, I had a 14" cutthroat in hand. My first and thankfully not last trout.

I am the kid that mom and dad would drop off by some river in some California park with salmon eggs, a bag of hooks,weights and leader as early in the morning as I could get them to. When I was less than 10, I was assigned to a rock.They would pick me up for dinner. I was never bored (even though stuck to one spot), and I learned to notice things that occur throughout the day. I would turn over rocks looking for bugs (but never thought to fish them). One fish a day was sufficient-two or more excellent.
When I moved to Oregon, my boss had a flyrod (he bought at a Safeway),and it was clearly more fun than what I had become quite adept at (single salmon egg with a bb fished in close while wading a creek or river). I knew where the fish were, and the flies let me see the take.
A trip to Doughton's Hardware(he influenced many),an 856 Fenwick glass rod with a Pfleuger 1495, and I was fishing flies ( bought two Spruce and two tied down caddis). Then I found out that my brother TIED HIS OWN FLIES! I tied some camping on the South Fork Boise (brown bivisible and Renegade), and we caught real trout below the dam (no stringer, we killed a 15+ (legal native),slid it into my waders to get to shore,
and I was hooked deeply. Then McNeese's opened on Trade Street, Santiam Flycasters started up,and I became an addict."Hello,my name is Tim, and I flyfish." TK

Phil...thanks for making this post!!
I think my defining moment came after realizing that I couldn't justify keeping all the native cutthroats I could catch on a fly-rod and reel that had monafilament line on it with pautizakes? red ball fish eggs (see Mark's fly on another post!!). I grew up fishing this way on the Tanuem and Manastash creeks outside of Ellensburg, Wa.. I could catch my limit this way very quickly and starting killing native cutts when I would release some because of the barbed hook. Also, my family wouldn't eat all these fish and they sat in the freezer. So about at the age of 12, my dad got me a dry line & dry flies and I started catching these beautiful cutts and releasing them unharmed (I also quit keeping them too and starting understanding the importance of releasing native trout). I consider Manastash creek my ''home water" and still go there even today.

Hawkeye

When our first child, Clayton, was born 20 years ago.

How does that relate to fly fishing?

It made me change careers, get out of the big City, move to Oregon, and start fly fishing.

Bill

A couple pictures of dpowder when he was 5 or 6 and just beginning to fish in Alaska on the Little Susitna River, those were the Good Old Days. He has turned into a great fisherman and person and I am proud to be his Dad. Both Steve and Mike have made me proud and I hope we can continue to fish together for years to come.

The are sort of old & worn, sorry for the quality.
Bob

Last Feb. on the Crooked. My buddy dragged me over there, and I was amazed! When we arrived, it was gently snowing, and oh so beautiful. I caught my first fish on a fly, in the snow, wading my first stream. I felt so alive and so connected to the fishing experience! Hooked for life.

Last August at ***** lake. Took forever to get there on the worst forest service roads imaginable. First fish on a dry fly, the take was incredible. A definite splash followed by a tug tug tug. Wow! Tied on a wooly bugger later and caught 30+ rainbows on that one fly, till it was totally mangled. Tied on a new one and flipped it over the side of the float tube while I arranged my gear, and wham! fish on. What a day!

I equate fly fishing with adventure.

Tim