Sweet Memory: Fishing Childhood

Everyone has something that they remembered from their childhood days. This is one which I have better memory of.

I was about 9yrs of age when my dad brought me and my younger brother to fish. Back then the park which we go to was clean and the water was clear. My dad is a believer of purely line and hooks. We do not need to bring any baits as earthworms were easily available on the rich soil then. Back then I can never figure out how he felt the fish bitting at the end of the line. He pulled fish out of the water like a magician pulling rabbit out of the magic hat.

I have this fishing rod (which I still kept in my store room now due to sentimental values) back then without a reel. Even back then, the rod had lost most of the guides. As I was penniless at that age, I saw some metal wire and thus coil them around the rod in place of the missing guides.

My younger brother and I decided to save up for this reel (Silstar, back then is really a big brand). We bought it and was eagered to try it out. But it seems my brother's liking for fishing died off after the reel was bought. Partly it was due to the fact that we weren't allow to fish without our dad following.Thus the reel and rod was left to sit in a corner of the room.

It was til secondary school days where I have more activities like bbq and chalets where the reel and rod were brought into action again. Most of the time I fished away from the others as to avoid being seen with my mediocre rod. Thus I never really learnt the techniques of fishing. But I really enjoyed those fishing days.

There was one incident which I remembered clearly til today.
It was a chalet and we decided to go to the jetty for some fishing. I brought the mediocre rod and a roll of handline. The handline got a grouper and soon we were making hell lot of noise on the rod. Our noise attracted attention of people around the jetty. The line was constantly getting pulled under the jetty by something.
We were expecting our catch anytime soon and indeed it was meant to be.
We saw 2 figures fighting to get the bait (too bad there was only a bait on the line)
We could make out one of the figure was a reddish color fish but we couldn't make out the other. Somehow the unknown figure got the bait and I pulled it out of the water. To my amazement, everyone of my classmates ran away from me !! I was looking confused and frightend !! (Hey where's everyone ??!!)

Guess what ?! I brought up this eel and one of them shouted snake !! Everyone backed away while I brought up the "snake" and let it coil and turn on the floor. An onlooker fellow angler saw me clueless as to what to do with the "snake" offered to take it away to use as bait. After which the whole group of us started laughing at ourselves for being so gutless. Haha.... Well so what sweet memories do you have of your childhood?