I'm sitting here with gout raging in my foot and rereading a post from a site in the us and the memories come flooding back. It was 1958 age 10 when my uncle took me to the Byron Bay jetty for the first time.
Tom that's my uncle, was a school teacher with a gift for passing on knowledge in a way that a kid could understand. We will be trying to catch bream this evening he said, you my little cobber will fish through the cracks in the timbers.
In 1958 the jetty was still used by the whaling fleet, and very large sharks patrolled the sea around the jetty so Tom has been forbidden from letting me near the edge.
He sits down beside me with line in hand and the hook grasp in thumb and forefinger a beach worm in the other and preceded to demonstrate how to bait a hook, the line was handed to me so I could drop it through the crack
Tom baited up and dropped through a near by crack with a big smile on his face saying lets see who gets the first fish
Tom was the winner of that one, mine came a few baits later a good fish of about that biggggggggggggggg, Tom would say years later I had lit up like a Christmas tree that evening.
this is a memory shared.
Can you remember yours?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Paul

When we came to Aus, we had a house in Tonkin St Cronulla, a few doors up from the ferry wharf. I was 6yrs old and dad had bought me a plastic rod and reel, with string on it and a big plastic hook. I filled it with mono and a proper hook, then spent most of my spare time on the ferry wharf, catching yakkas and slimy macks. Every now and then I would get a good bream or flathead. Bread was my only bait. One day a huge game boat came in and tied up to the wharf and a big bloke with a yank accent walked over and offered to buy my bucketful of yakkas. I refused and he just sat and had a chat. It was Bob Dyer, game fisho and TV host of 'Pick a Box'. Probably thought to himself - little kraut kid. Won't sell me his fish.

Yakkas off the Cooks River shit pipe, I caught seven and took them home feeling like little Jesus.
It was like a religious experience at the time.

After that we used to fish under the ferry wharfs at Manly which was real exciting when the ferries came in & hit reverse to pull up. They had props at either end.

We were very young back then, we used to ride our bikes or catch trains to roam all over Sydney at 7-8 years old.

I remember I had just gotten my drivers licence. It was a warm balmy night and I had borrowed her dad's Hudson. Parked at Cronulla and got in the back seat.... Oh wait, you mean fishing memories..

earliest fishing memories for me are out in JB fishing with my dad and pop for flatties and also south west rocks fishing of the rocks or the wharf when it was to rough. Also remember being a young kid at Wisemans Ferry ski park (uncle used to race boats and grandparants had a caravan in the park) and I caught wht I guess would have been a 70cm+ flatty as about a 6yr old.. They oldies all thought it was great as it would feed the lot of them but I made them throw it back i wouldnt let them eat it...