Remembering how I got started
I'm a bit of a pack rat , so as I was packing up my home office I came across a old green wooden box, My Grandfather's
gunning box for Duck Hunting.
He made it, painted and hunted with for as long as I can remember, Well I was visiting my Mom and Grandmother when I can back from the Gulf War , My Grandmother asked me if I wanted "That old box" my Uncle was quick to point out that there isn't anything of value in it, (he and his brother cleaned out all the guns and anything of value) But to me that box was gold.
In it was every hunting and fishing license he ever had from 1920 to 1971, he had to stop then after colon surgery.
It had some fishing lures,reel oil , his Labs collar and dog whistle and duck call.
He started me fishing, After dinner on Saturdays we would go to docks do fish for Snappers (sm.bluefish)
Started me out ẃith a 2pc.cane pole , as a little kid I thought it was 100foot long. But we got fish
We would us a square dip net to catch bait, only enough for our trip if we needed more, we'd catch more, free them when we went home, Went home when we couldn't take the mosquitoes anymore, We fished longer when the Town started spraying DDT , They were great summers .
My Father left the USCG. in 67 , He and my Mother bought a store about mile from the Coast Guard Station he served at.
It was a "Luncheonette" they served breakfast, lunch, not much of a dinner crowd. All his buddies from the Station would come in, that was the best part because they would give me a ride so I could fish. I'd get dropped off and walk to this sm marina were they rented boats,sold bait and some tackle, remember its the 1960s not a lot of stuff like now.
The boat they had for fishing were wooden row boats, If you didn't want to do the rowing they would tow you out and let you drift fish , coming back to pick you up and the others , had to have 3 or more for them to do it.
My Mom wouldn't let me and it cost 15.00 she said that was to much.
So I'd fished the docks,bulkhead, and the remains of a old bridge that got taken out in the 1930s by a hurricane.they said.
Sometimes Mom would come and blow the horn to get me ,but most of the time I'd just walk back,
I'd take my tackle box,rod,a canteen, WWII surplus,bait net, I had to convince them to let me have a bait knife , Grandpa helped me with that. I would be gone all day. I truly miss those days,
It was my Grandfather that set me on this path, wish I tell him Thanks
And Thank you for letting me ramble down memory lane,Its been a long time since I'd visited them
