Calling the fishermen. Do we have any?
0There seems to be dearth of sportsman on meh. Or at least topics. Do you fish? If you do what kind of fishing?
All my rods/reels are basically zebco stuff I haven’t used since I was a kid. Dad wasn’t as really into it but grandpa was. Not gonna lie I was a little upset when he killed my catfish when I was like 8. But it was delicious. And we caught a ton of panfish off his giant bamboo pole the two years we went camping with them on the lake.
Anyway. I need a hobby/been hauling the fishing lures around for two decades. Time to buy some stuff I’ll continue to not use lol.
Spincast combo I already bought?
https://slickdeals.net/f/17225806-penn-7-pursuit-iv-spinning-fishing-rod-and-reel-combo-with-berkley-bait-reel-size-4000-35-at-walmart?src=category_page
Supposedly decent baitcast combo?
https://slickdeals.net/f/17225536-abu-garcia-vengeance-7-spinning-rod-reel-combo-w-berkley-baits-35-low-profile-baitcast-fishing-reel-right-handed-27-more-free-shipping?v=1&p=168656236#post168656236
What would your freshwater fishing approaches be with them? Northern Midwest. Right by a lake. Multiple chains of lakes. Rivers. Etc.
Yes I know I can Google it/get maps/go to fishing forums. Just thought I’d poke here first since I generally like you people. I’d always wanted to go through the boundary waters in Minnesota. That canoe might have sailed though. My maps definitely out of date
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All of my fishing gear is ancient, and I have not had a line in the water in 35 years. I despised spincast and could not make a level-wind reel work without birdnesting, so I was strictly a spinning reel user. The gear is out in the garage somewhere. The fishing around here is lousy unless you have a boat, and not all that great even with one. Essentially, I gave up in disgust.
My fishing experience consists as a child when I’d fish with a string tied to a stick with a grasshopper attached. We’d catch a zillion of some fish whose name I’ve forgotten. They’d nibble on you if you were in the pond. We’d then throw the fish over the dam into the stream below.
But you want to know about canoeing, sailing, kayaking, caving, backpacking, rock climbing, skiing, cross country skiing, starting a fire in the pouring rain with nothing but matches and frozen solid or soaking wet wood, etc. that I can tell you about.
@Kidsandliz same only worms instead of grasshoppers. There was a brook that ran next to a private pond… The rainbow trout would sometimes escape the pond into the brook… We would catch those. (And release).
The rest is also me (minus the skiing, doesnt snow much in the South). There are a few ski scopes up in North Carolina, but always seemed overcrowded and repetitive going up and down the same little hill.
I could spend all weekend out on my kayak though.
@OnionSoup I live in the deep south right now too. Even up north skiing has been pitiful. Every time I have gone home in the winter (snow belt no less) ski slopes are not open. You could entertain yourself on the hill by going down backwards or x-c skiing down it.
I was in Thunderbay (ontario) once at their ski area years ago and went up the lift with someone from our ski jump olympic team. He thought I was nuts x-c skiing down the slope I was going down and I thought he was nuts slingshotting himself into the wild blue yonder over a high ski jump. I was surprised how long those jump skis are.
@OnionSoup Blue gills that is what we caught and released on the other side of the dam. Not sure how my uncle thought we could clear the pond (family farm) of them by fishing. Far too many. We never ate them likely because they were small and “the aunts” didn’t want to clean and cook them for 30+ people. Or no one was willing to clean them. Who knows.
@Kidsandliz @OnionSoup Bluegills that are bigger than an adult’s hand are worth the work of preparation if you’re only feeding one or two people, but yeah, for a crowd that size, it would be way too much work. And then there would be the problems with the half dozen (or more) folks who would just keep whining about the bones despite having lifted nary a finger to get the meal on their plate.
I love to fish. I moved to Tampa in the mid 90’s and my next door neighbor and I would be out the door every Saturday morning by 5AM. It was 10 minutes from our street to the bait shop for live shrimp and then to the causeway. Wet lines by 5:15. We caught some big stuff occasionally… big cobia, king mackerels from time to time. The one time my wife joined us she landed a grouper on her first cast. I was a little grumpy
We moved back to the DC area in the early 2000’s and I’ll say all my 10’ salt water rods were a bit much for the small fresh water lakes around here. We do get over to Chincoteague Island once or twice every year and we crab from our dock and the 10’ poles work great for surf fishing on Assateague national park. I’m getting ready to purchase a stupid big truck and Assateague has an over sand permit you can get that allows you access to a few miles of beach that are away from the vacation masses 
Just have to try not to get stuck in the sand 
And just to give you a chuckle, this is how I rocked it in the 70’s. You may or may not hear the Andy Griffith theme in your head.
@capnjb And this was probably 12 years ago… teaching my daughter the importance of fishing in pajamas
@capnjb The only photo of me prior to age 20 seems to have vanished (unlamented). In it, I was holding the factually smallish but huge-to-me grouper that I’d landed earlier that day. There are remarkably few photos of me from later than that until relatively recently. I made a point of being behind the camera rather than in front of it for many decades. And nearly all of my early photography was intentionally taken with nobody in the field of view at all. It is only recently that I have come to understand why I did that.
@capnjb
A friend of mine used to be stationed at Port Aransas and they’d go fishing at the beach; his three daughters would join him but his wife was scared of fish.
The one time they convinced her to try it, she caught a baby hammerhead shark!!! Of course that put her off ever doing it again.
@werehatrack @Kyeh Didn’t realize this pic was over 20 years old, but you can certainly tell how excited my wife is to remove the fish from the hook
He wasn’t a big fish, but pretty 
@capnjb @werehatrack
It really is pretty! Did you eat it?
@Kyeh @werehatrack Nah… that one got tossed back to fight another day
Boundary Waters is great but that requires a permit even for day entries. Canada’s side of this (Quetico Park) requires a permit for camping but last I knew not for day trips.
I used to go fishing with my dad when I was a little girl, Generations ago. Both freshwater and saltwater. We had a pair that was free for saltwater fishing and we used to go down there all the time early on Saturday mornings. I cleaned my own fish even when I was really little… we would go up to a lake that was not too far away I do a little bit of fresh water fishing. My mom would come and sit on the shore she would never fish. But my mom got fairly agoraphobic fairly early in my life and that stopped. But my dad and I would still go out to the pier. I had a cousin with a boat for deep sea fishing not super deep but you know what I mean. And my dad used to go with him and they’d bring back ling Cod and we’d clean it up and do all the stuff with it and eat it and stuff. I remember getting my gear when I was new living in Riverside and there was a little city park that was stocked and semi-safe to fish in and I think I did it once and never did it again. I think for me it was more of a thing to do with my dad. And as I’ve grown to be an old lady I’m not patient I would sit there for about 10 minutes and nothing would happen and I’d be done and I’d go home and never go back. This is one thing about fishing is you have to be patient. Good luck
It’s supposedly worth fishing from the very long jetty down at Texas City, but somehow I’m just not really interested at this point. I think my interest got blunted by the realization of just how much work it would be to make all the preparations, drive over an hour each way, and have little to no assurance of anything to show for it at the end of the trip. I’m just not enthralled by the same thing others find irresistible in the prospects; long periods of doing nothing except drinking beer while waiting for a fish to take the bait. (And I hate beer anyway. This makes me the perfect person to invite on a fishing trip according to some, and yet, that has never happened.)
I flyf fish and instruct for a charity, Casting for Recovery (for women with breast cancer) and Project Healing Waters. I’ve purchased a couple of Reddington rods on Woot, but haven’t seen anything here.
I love to dine on fish and most other seafood, but I’m not a fisherman. You take them hostage, and I’ll help you dispose of the bodies. I’m willing to help clean them, if you don’t mind the lousy job I do.
@phendrick Hey clean fish for my kid. She likes them with the heads left on.
@Kidsandliz
Oldie, but goodie(?).
Still kitschy.
/youtube fish heads
@phendrick OK that video is too weird. She eats them attached to the fish body, including the eyeballs.
@Kidsandliz That actually got somewhat frequent play on the old Dr. Demento radio show.
Now, just an appetizer for your daughter!