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| | | Talking Fishing on the CapMel.com Forums | | By DOUGLAS - AKA "Snookweasel" |
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| |  | | Over the last several years, CapMel.com has been the host for one of the most popular fishing forums on the World Wide Web. Every day, several more join the ranks of our almost 4-thousand forum members. These boards feature an ongoing 24/7 fishing conversation where anglers from Florida and other locations around the country and the world belong to what is essentially one giant fishing club. What is it like to dialogue about our fishing passion? Read this post from one of our newer members, “Snookweasel” | |
I have been a member of this forum for just over a year now, and I have learned a lot. I grew up loving fishing from the very first time my grandfather (Pop-Pop) took me bass fishing and he gave me a little cane pole and I ended up catching the biggest fish of the day about 2 pound bass on a night crawler. That memory is burned in to my memory cells forever. I was hooked on fishing, it was first everything else was second, I moved away from that pond to St. Louis Missouri and to my luck a twenty acre pond was a short bike ride down the road. I became known as the “Catfish Kid” armed with a slice of bacon and 2 hot dogs I would head down every summer day in the wee hours of the morning with two Zebco 202’s and would toss one out with heavy weights to the center of the pond with a half of slice of bacon and the other had a bobber attached to a few small weights to get the hot dog down to the bluegill. I would fill my stringer with large bluegill quickly while always eying the rod cast out for the big cat to come along and they always did. You would see me walking home at 5pm when I heard the bell my parents hung on our house to tell me it was time for dinner. My stringer would hold about 20 bluegill and usually 2 large cats. I was in heaven.
Nobody taught me back then how to do it except Pop-Pop. One Summer he came for my 10th birthday and said lets go to the store. He bought me a package of black worms and some bullet weights. He tied on the long shank hook after putting the bullet on first and I watched with the intensity of this as I am sure Oppenheimer had when creating the bomb. I went out early the next morning, now this summer time kids sleep in no school, nope not me. With a Carnation Breakfast Bar and glass of milk in my belly I was on my bike and down the road by 6:15 am with it still dark. Pop-Pop told me cast along the shore let the worm sink and wait he told me “count to five”. I did and then I popped it once count to five again ………WHAM!!!!!!!!!! 5 pounds of pissed off Bass erupted through the surface. No More catfish for me I thought, This is awesome!!!!!
So that is were I stood from that point on until a year ago I bought a fishing license in early January and guy said do you want a combo saltwater/fresh license I said sure. I was then asked would you like a snook tag again I said sure. So one morning in late February instead of turning right to the bass hole I went left to the Courtney Campbell Causeway. I had Just bought my very first Mirror Dine ( yes I know pronounced deen). I had a cheap Wally World rod, I believe the combo cost me 15.00 bucks. I got out there and thought great rocks to play hop scotch with by the time I made it to the shore I had enough oyster cuts that I am sure every shark in the area was honing in on me. Two cast later of the Dine and again WHAM!!!!!!!!! Fish on or as some have heard me say “Here we go” after several jumps I had landed my very first snook. It was only 20 inches but I immediately thought bass what bass? I was now hooked on saltwater and all the bounty it holds within it.
I turned to the Capt. Mel’s forum for knowledge and found it ten fold. People willing to give me hints of what to do as right without totally giving up the learning process, and I have learned every time I go out, it is still a learning process, one that I have yet to figure out and I love it. I have made some of the best friends a man could have. Friends you know you could call and would come to you in an hour of need. Friends who share one common passion in life, that being out on the water chasing the next fish, feeling our drag pull and the sweet sound of that scream. We do it for that pure simple joy to hear that sound of our reel and to see that fish dance on the surface. It makes our eyes go wide, we giggle like little kids and squeal like high school girls.
My friends have taught me so much, Del, has taught me, it is not catching the biggest fish but knowing a successful day is catching just four fish, and realizing the beauty in each one of those fish. Dale has taught me to learn your target area well, because “fish move” they are not always were you think they will be. Yes they were there today, tomorrow they are long gone. Vince has taught me that time on the water is precious make every moment count. If they are not here you better move there, and top water is really the “other white meat”. Finally but not least Loren, it just being out on the flat enjoying a smoke and being with someone who enjoys fishing as much as you do.
I love Fishing if I could make a living at it I would. Nothing on this earth brings me greater joy, relaxation, and creates such a stress free environment as it does. I spend all week working for those few precious hours that I have on the water. I sleep in during the week to get up at four Am on the weekends to look at the tides, look at wind the pressure the temps of the waters of where I plan to go fishing. I thank everyone for the knowledge you have given me for the most wonderful opportunity I have in my life. I walked away from fishing a long time ago in the late 1990’s and went back to it last year. It is my passion. I have made some of the best friend a man could ever have in his life from it. I am thankful to God for it. I am thankful to God for the friends I have made from it. If you ask me what is my favorite fish to catch now…… it is the next one.
Douglas.
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