Fishing in the old days

[wallyhuntr]

HEY  ice dawg  you are getting pretty sentimental about this old time stuff. does that mean you are ready to sell me that new fancy boat you haven't even got wet yet.  I keep telling big ice he is just a pup. but he won't listen. he couldn't wait to tell me about your thread.  I'm not sure why  mabe he thinks I am an old fart?  but I think 68 is young.

[winchester 88]

 A lot of the stuff being posted here is putting a smile on this soon to be 70 tear old face.
 I also owned one of the collapsable steel rods. You could reverse the handle and use it as a fly rod or a bait caster and the first reel that I owned was a Shakespeare Marhoff casting reel that my dad and mom got me for Christmas so that I could go with him to Canada the next summer.
 A lot of the fishing that we did was for catfish in the Beaver River which runs into the Ohio below Pittsburgh.
 We used liver for bait and 2 hooks above a sinker on the old black nylon line.
 We also fished for carp with cornmeal doughball that we made and scented with vanilla.
 The first day of trout fishing my mom would drop me off at Brady's Run and I usually spent more time catching suckers than trout as they were easy to catch.
 When I first fished for crappies it was on Pine Lake in eastern Ohio. The boats were wooden and looked like cement mixing troughs. You had to row them, and the anchors were gallon cans filled with lead and cement and seemed to weigh a ton.
 We would drift down the lake dragging CP swings with white pork rind or a minnow under a bobber.
 When you hit the end of the lake it was a long row against the wind to the other end and do the process over again.Thank God for motors.
 My first spinning reel was a Mitchel 300 and a Berkley rod which I still have. Mono line,that was and is something else. I still cuss it every chance I get.
 We made plugs out of short pieces of broom handles with glass eyes and spinners on each end.Pikie Minnows, Daredevils and Flatfish were among the commercially made lures that we used.(Also June Bug spinners with night crawlers.)
 Memories came in black and white and now in Technicolor depending on when we began to form them and some of them we get to pass on to the next generation which is a lot of what fishin is all about...
Winchester 88

[Ice Dawg]

HEY  ice dawg  you are getting pretty sentimental about this old time stuff. does that mean you are ready to sell me that new fancy boat you haven't even got wet yet.  I keep telling big ice he is just a pup. but he won't listen. he couldn't wait to tell me about your thread.  I'm not sure why  mabe he thinks I am an old fart?  but I think 68 is young.

Well wallyhuntr, I don't think that is what I mean by this thread. I think my old boat would be a great one for someone though. You might even like it. It is an excellent boat.  I think big ice must be a pup too hopefully he isn't trying to catch us. I remember my dad rowing the boat wherever we went and we went out about 5 am and got back in about midnight or later. If you complained you stayed on shore the next day. When he got his first outboard we would tow about 5 boats behind us out to the rock bar and then every one would row around trolling. When we went back to the cabin we would be towing all the boats back with us. I'm sure there are a lot of things that I don't remember about this too.

[JerryofWNY]

I didn't mention before that I'm 63. Ah yes the outboards. I remember my dad first getting a 10 horse Martin. He always rented boats and I have many fond memories of night fishing Lake Erie for Blue Pike. There would be so many boats out there the lanterns made it look like a city out there. We'd always start out with one dip on minnies we bought and then my job was to keep the bait bucket full by netting them as they schooled up under the lantern. I can also remember the occasional walleye that would come up through that school of minnies, mouth wide open just gorging on them. Who knows, time just might have enhanced that image.

[winchester 88]

I didn't mention before that I'm 63. Ah yes the outboards. I remember my dad first getting a 10 horse Martin. He always rented boats and I have many fond memories of night fishing Lake Erie for Blue Pike. There would be so many boats out there the lanterns made it look like a city out there. We'd always start out with one dip on minnies we bought and then my job was to keep the bait bucket full by netting them as they schooled up under the lantern. I can also remember the occasional walleye that would come up through that school of minnies, mouth wide open just gorging on them. Who knows, time just might have enhanced that image.
[Jerry, how about those blue pike...I remember going out on party boats and fishing all night..catch them 2 at a time and bring them home for a big fish fry..best fish you could eat.
Winchester 88

[Ice Dawg]

I didn't mention before that I'm 63. Ah yes the outboards. I remember my dad first getting a 10 horse Martin. He always rented boats and I have many fond memories of night fishing Lake Erie for Blue Pike. There would be so many boats out there the lanterns made it look like a city out there. We'd always start out with one dip on minnies we bought and then my job was to keep the bait bucket full by netting them as they schooled up under the lantern. I can also remember the occasional walleye that would come up through that school of minnies, mouth wide open just gorging on them. Who knows, time just might have enhanced that image.

My dad's first outboard was a 7 1/2 hp Martin 60. My uncle had a 15 horse Evinrude that you had to wrap the start rope around the flywheel. I think that was the biggest outboard made at the time.

[JerryofWNY]

[Jerry, how about those blue pike...I remember going out on party boats and fishing all night..catch them 2 at a time and bring them home for a big fish fry..best fish you could eat.
Winchester 88

Yep. Fish all night with handlines. Double headers were common. Come in with burlap bag full of fish. Sleep a couple hours and clean fish a couple hours. They blame the commercial fishermen for the demise of the blue pike, but the numbers of fish that "sport" fishermen took were amazing. That was before anyone ever questioned whether or not our resources were renewable.

And Ice Dawg, now that you mentioned it, his might have been a 7 1/2. When he got that he thought he was King of the Hill. (or water)  Great memories, I can picture his grinning face when he came home with it.

[FishingPolski]

WOW! Did you guys take me back thru that time tunnel. 
Yep, the "ole days"---hand lines with spreaders, steel rods, wooden lure plugs, a semi square rock on a hemp rope for a anchor.
most of the stuff mentioned above here. Dad's first outboard was a 5 HP, Waterwitch outboard motor, sold by Sears. Next motor was a Martin  7 1/2 HP, mounted on a Cayuga wood boat. (Still have the Martin mtr, and it still runs).
     Night fishing for those blue pike, what a blast. caught my last blue in 1955, and they just disappeared. Wish I had some of those old wood lures today, I guess they are collectors items now.
    Well youngsters Now you've heard it from a 70 year old fisherman, who has seen most of it, and is looking to see more of it.   

[Fishingking]

I am only 24 yrs old but remember

as a kid under 10 yrs old we fished for snappers (baby bluefish) with a bamboo rod. I used to catch bluecrabs with them, big bluegills in the freshwater with the bamboo rods  as well.

I still use a hummingbird 100sx as a fishfinder . (what a piece of junk )

and I use a 4 hp  1969 Evinrude Motor that I have to start in gear. no reverse

Also always remember fishign with live bait years ago, now I mainly fish with artificals


FK

[Ice Dawg]

Now you guys bring a question to mind. Being from South Dakota I don't know what a blue pike is. Anyone care to tell me?

[troutman]

a blue walleye.

[Ice Dawg]

I don't think we have them around here. I think they have em in Minnnnesota though. Thanks.

[walleyechaser]

Blue walleye are pretty much extinct.  Too bad for that. 

I've been fishing old school with my dad ever since I was a kid so I can identify with a lot of the stuff you guys are talking about.

[Ice Dawg]

Blue walleye are pretty much extinct.  Too bad for that. 

I've been fishing old school with my dad ever since I was a kid so I can identify with a lot of the stuff you guys are talking about.

I get into FM and check it out and the guys from Minn and parts of Canada talk about catching Blue Walleyes fairly often. I guess if they are becoming extinct they all need to be released if that would help.

[walleyechaser]

I know in the great lakes area they are pretty much gone.  I've caught one years ago in the U.P.
Maybe they are more abundant in Canada and Minn.