So how long you been fishing for big fish? Got any pics?
 

I've been fishing a long time and my passion from a pretty early age was catching the biggest fish I could given the locations I could get to.

So my question is when did you guys start chasing after big fish, and do you have any vintage pics to back those old stories up.

Here's an old one of mine to start things off.

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3...mstripeold.jpg

18.5 caught in 1976 from my float tube at Granbury Dam. I had just turned 16, and was spending pretty much every minute I could on that river trying to get one over twenty pounds.

Still got that same float tube around here somewhere :D

SO...Got any vintage fish porn? Post 'Em...

Jim

miss the stripers from back east sometimes

LOL, I will have to go to my parents house to get a picture off their upstairs wall. I've been fishing since I could hold a fishing-pole, my parents were always outdoorsmen, camping, backpacking, snow skiing, fishing all before I can remember. They say I took to the outdoors as a baby and always loved being outside in nature. No video games in my childhood. I have memories of flyfishing for steelhead at a very young age, and killing the trout on the upper sac and feather river. Then there is a picture of me with a sturgeon caught in SF bay when I was 8........ guess that was the big fish, although some of those steelhead and trout pictures look pretty big compared to my size....memories :D. Also a lot of pictures of me holding my older brothers fish, when I was too young to reel them in myself.

Pretty funny.. The one above was actually off my Moms desk.

Seems like we had pretty similar childohoods. Somewhere at my sisters there's a picture of me when I was maybe eight or nine trying to hold up three channel catfish all over ten pounds that I caught in a single afternoon. :cheers1:

Like many others I'm sure I can find some of the photos from when I was a kid, although my dad wasn't the best at taking pictures post fish catching. However here are a mix of photos from freshwater to saltwater. I also think it's safe to say we have always been fishing for BIG fish, however not all the time do the big ones bite or get landed.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...DodoDeck-1.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...23/catch-1.jpg
This LMB was my B-day catch Jan 11 2005
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1.../BigBass-1.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1.../BassSNT-1.jpg

Big fish being caught from kayak to be posted once they are caught, stay tuned.

Great shorts! 
But a bigger fish than I've ever caught. 

Nice!!!!

I used to have a pair of 'daisy dukes' shorts like that when I worked vice!

Jorge LOL'd and is still LOL-ing.

LOL.. that was back in the day before I had vices. :cheers1:

Definitely the seventies though. Those were my water ski'n Swimin, tubin shorts. I must of spent half my time in the water back then.

Here's the tube I was fishing out of:
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/4914/76float3.jpg
Still have it. Found it recently when I was unpacking stuff from my parents house. Posted about it a few months ago: http://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/s...ead.php?t=8305

Here's the location Granbury Dam:
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5719/grandbury.jpg
Back then you could legally go right up to the dam into the white water.

I was actually right in between the open gates casting back towards the North side when I hooked it. Pencil popper fish, no grippers or gaffs back then just grab em by the gills. My biggest fear was the it would hang the second treble in my leg. A handful of pencil poppers, shorts, no hat, no sunscreen, a seven foot Shakespeare "wonder rod" with a ABU, 15lb Ande, and the tube and some fins. Those were the days..

You wouldn't catch me out there now without sunscreen or in those shorts either:biggrinjester:

Jim

Thanks Jim, as you can see in the mouth I was using a Banjo Saltwater Minnow. If you know Lake Jennings and the boats and motors there, I was at the farthest end of the lake, hook this bass on my 3rd cast and had no scale. However the measurments indicated right at 10lbs. She was a beast.

my first float tube wasnt much newer than this one!! fished the hell out of it and it still floats today!

My big fish
 

Unfortunately Pruitt wasnt there to take this pic as it was truely a fish of lifetime. Luckily I was fishing in a PA and this trawler happened to be by.

Lucky is right. I've owned cars smaller then that thing. :you_rock:

:cheers1:

Epic...owe ya a cerveza...or twelve...

Hell, after that you should never be dry on the pond...

C-mon Dudes your not playing the game. The topic is epic vintage fish from back in the day. We all chase big fish but when did you get the passion?

Here's another teaser..... From a old newspaper clipping....
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7681/smldatetxstrp.jpg

Just a few years later..... That fish would of been the state record, but I caught it on a Saturday night and could not get it to a official scale untill Monday Morning. I was trying for the state record and missed it two years in a row by less then a pound.

Surely some of you guys caught some big fish before La Jolla... post em up and let's see your fish!!!

Jim

My dad and I with Catalina Calico's.Probably about '76-'77.I was lucky,we had a boat growing up.I lost a bunch of my old fishing photos and it makes me bummed every time I think about it.Found this one at my grandparents house.

Man that fish on the far right is huge. It looks more like a grouper then a Bass!!!

Jim

Here's a vintage shot of my butt:

http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m...g?t=1301620171

I love that Pic.I have on those really old vans "Van Dorens" and my dad has on those old leather sandals with tire tread soles.the calico he has is 10# or so and I am stuggling with one around 7.The stringer is loaded other monster calicos.Good times good times.