Catfish Connections – December 2021

Hooked for Life

As a boy growing up in the bootheel of Missouri, if you didn’t fish or hunt, there weren’t a lot of other very exciting things to do. A frequent trip down to the Mississippi River and its backwaters and ditches was a “happening.” A bite on a cane pole, with nylon line, “cork” float, big hook, and crude sinkers baited with crawfish, chicken livers, worms, grubs, etc. would get us all excited.

Back in the late 50s and 60s, there were not a lot of tackle stores or fishing tackle options. The hardware store handled a few things like nets, lines, poles, etc. In one of the stores, I saw a sign about Zebco 33 reels and rods. I just knew I had to get one.

For a year, as a young man, I mowed lawns and collected bottles to buy my baseball cards and create a money savings bank. I saved my allowances to purchase my first combo. I could not have been happier to see it arrive in the mail in its branded box with line already loaded on it.

On my subsequent fishing trips with my grandma and dad, I began to out catch them as I could get to places, they couldn’t. I was so proud.

This was not my last set and it started a competition which led to grandma and dad buying the Zebco reels and some Shakespeare open-faced reels with steel rods that I still have today. They were given to me by my dad when my grandma and grandpa passed. Many catfish were caught on all of them.

Those positive experiences led me to a lifetime of fishing and even professional fishing. As the saying goes: “I was hooked deep.” I have tried to also pass this experience to my kids and now grandkids. It will change their lives.

Promise me you will do the same. Get them out of the house, off video games, and into the wild. The younger, the better. They will never forget it.

God Bless and Merry Christmas!

Dan Dannenmueller, Publisher

Yamaha Pro Fisherman