80 lb tarpon when I was 10 years old in the San Juan estuary between Nicaragua and Costa Rica with a hand line trolling out of a dugout canoe. Had the scars on my forefinger for many years from the initial strike.

Just caught 40 haddock last wednesday!

40# blue cat 10 years ago.
The reason it's so memorable is because it was with my dad and little brother. I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. I had been in a car wreck a month earlier. If I was not laying down, I had to wear a back brace that went from my waist to my neck. I had broke my back in 3 spots.
My dad calls and asked do you want to go fishing with me and your brother tonight. I responded sure. But I can't cast a rod right now. We'll take care of that part he responds.
Late that afternoon he picks me up and we drive two hours south. We were headed to my brothers favorite spot on the border of Va and NC.
They get all the lines in and we start to catch flatheads and blues in the 10# range. Good nights fishing in my book. Bait started running low so my dad and brother go off to catch more with the cast nets. All of a sudden one of the rods double over. I snatch it from the rod holder and the fight is on. I call for my dad and brother because I don't know how long I'll be able to fight this fish. Because of my injury. They come rushing back. As they get there the fish is headed towards a channel marker. My brother starts to strip to his boxer shorts, because he knows if it gets there it will break me off. It then changed course and headed down stream. After 20 minutes of back and forth. The fish gives up. When it reached shore my brother grabs it and puts it on a scale. 40#. The bad thing is I'm not even allowed to hold it up because I have a 10# weight restriction. So my dad and brother have me sit on a bucket and lay it in my lap and snap a pic. They started to put it in the cooler and I stopped them and tell them to turn it loose. All three of us now have a pic of me and that fish hanging on our walls. Maybe some day I'll go back and catch it again.

All of the 100 pound plus gator gar I shot with my close Friend Eddie. Largest was 195 pounds, the biggest was a 7"11" female that had spawned and only weighted 173 pounds. Had she been laden with eggs she would most likely have tipped the scales at well over 200-215 pounds. All of the other 170-180 pounders were 7'02"-7'05".

I used to fish a cow pasture pond all summer down the road from where I grew up. We learned pretty quick that we didn't need to take worms that we could find baby night crawlers by kicking over old dried up cow patties. Catch fish after fish with those things. So my whole family load up and we pull the boat to the river one spring. We used to go White Bass fishing. Well we get there and I had smuggled some of my secret bait in the van for the ride up. I made a worm box out of scrap wood out in the barn. My parents smelled it but never figured it out. Anyway we get on the river and there are people shoulder to shoulder on the bank, on the sides of bridges, and boats in tight side by side. People everywhere. Smoking hot middle of the day and nobody is catching anything. There must have been 500 people fishing that spot in the river. Here we put in, me in the bow of the boat, ready to get after it, with secret bait in hand, just as anxious as about a 12 yo or so boy can get. Usually you white bass fish with minnows under a cork. So we get to our spot out in the middle of this mess, drop anchor, and man I make the first cast and ziiiiiiiiiiinnnnngggg perplop... The rig hits the water and the cork never slowed down like I had tied a cinder block to the swivel or something so I set the hook and put on a show in middle of all those people sweating there butts off not catching a thing. First cast, first fish, for some kid that just got there. I don't know who was grinning more me or my old man as we went for the fish basket. Good memory.

Fast forward 20 years and I go to Erie with a group of guys I didn't really know from work Walleye fishing for the first time. Take the charter out, get the poles out, divers down, and ziiiiiiiiiiinnnnngggg FISH ON. Well I draw long straw and got to reel the first one in. White Bass. I was pretty proud of myself and holding it up showing the guys and the captain came stomping back, grabbed the fish, cussed it, and promptly through back the "trash" fish. Apparntly Walleye guys are anti White Bass. Anyway all I could think was if all these guys only knew how many times as a kid we made that four hour drive up there to fill our coolers with white bass. I was half embarrassed I didn't know to be embarrassed of a white bass. lol. I grew up diff than most folks and I wouldn't change a minute of it.

42" Musky in the 70's sometime. Wasn't many in our river back then and a buddy and i targeted them hard. I was maybe 14 and we were floating down the river casting jointed Rebels. I picked my casting point, let it go and then looked at the lure flying thru the air. When it was just about to hit the water all heck broke loose! Musta bout hit him on the head with it, because i know the lure hadn't landed yet and he had it.

Made the Pa. angler magazine with that one.

400# blue marlin caught and released at South Pass, LA. Makes a guy wish he had money and could go do that all the time.

That fish a year later was re-tagged off the coast of Panama.According to the Billfish Assoc.

Back in 2000, I suffered an injury that I was very fortunate to be alive and had lost the use of my right arm completely. It was a difficult time being 16 and having my world turned upside down. Everything I loved and did I needed 2 hands to do at the level that I had and now only having one hand, I figured there was nothing I would be able to do that I had loved prior to being hurt. After getting out of the hospital and hitting a pretty dark stretch, I told my parents that I had to go to Wyoming to see my grandpa. No matter what was going on in life, he always had a way of making me see that life wasn’t as bad as I thought.
I got in early the next morning and still was feeling like I had been robbed of so many things and my grandpa suggested we go fishing. I asked how we were going to do that since I only had one hand to fish with and wouldn’t be able to strip line back to me. He had gotten an automatic reel for a fly rod that you just squeezed with one finger from a friend. I roll cast a beadhead prince into the pool and a little 8-10” rainbow hit it on the drift. After a brief fight and using the auto reel, I managed to land the fish. I stood on the bank of the east fork of the wind river on a brisk February morning crying like a baby. That little rainbow saved my life. I thought I had lost all the things that had made me me. Knowing that I could still fly fish reassured me that while I had lost the ability to play football, baseball, and basketball at the level I did. I was still able to do at least one thing I loved.