This month's tip is dedicated to my mother who past away on May 3rd.  She rasied two teenagers when my father died in 1973.  She is the heart and soul of my life and she will be dearly missed.

    Teach your children well, is a song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young of the late 1960’s. My problem is I do not remember the ‘60’s. No not because of drug use, I was a little too young. But those words are important. The way we teach the next generation will be our legacy. What do you want your children to hold sacred? What will be important to them? I remember something that both off my parents said. “the apple doesn’t fall from the tree”

    I do remember most of what my parents taught. At times I even sound like my parents. You start using the same sayings, or the same jesters. That is a scary. My parents taught me about right and wrong, how to treat people, about respect as well about fishing and the environment. That is what I want to talk about. Fishing and the Environment.

    Both of my parents loved the outdoors. My father was raised in Wisconsin before he moved out to California. I had the chance at a very young age to visit where my father was raised. Nothing but lakes and streams everywhere. He loved a pristine trout stream or a crystal clear lake. When he took the whole family to Idaho and Montana he made sure the I knew difference between fishing for trout in a city reservoir and a mountain lake. He did enjoy saltwater fishing but he wanted us to know the importance the ocean played in our lives.   We took a vacation in Fort Bragg just so we could ride the Skunk Train to Willits and see the Redwoods. He believed these natural wonders need to be protected and they are worth fighting for.

    Most of what he preached was re-enforced when I went to college. The rest I understood as I grew up. He believed that overpopulation would be primary threat to our natural resources. Zero population grow would solve the problem and he did his part by marrying my mother and having only two children. I just wished other would do the same. I love living in California but it is over-populated. Many of our health problems are caused by the stress over-population. Just look at the freeways at rush hour.

    My mother taught me was about enjoying nature. I can not remember when there was not a small fish tank in our apartment. There may have only been guppies in it, but that did not matter. You had a little piece of nature to enjoy, that was the lesson. She would take me fishing on Muni Pier, this was when you could catch striped bass and dungeness crabs from the pier. I would always go running to see what every one else had and never pay attention to my own drop line. That did not matter to her, I was having fun and she was happy. She also showed me that it is not the size of the fish but the amount of the fun you had catching the fish. She could catch and release perch all day long and have a great time.

    If I ever killed a fish and that fish went to waste, well I was in trouble. There was one time when I was about 12 when I had a really good day of striper fishing, I mean really good. After I gave away a striper to every one that I knew I still had a one left. That was one too many to bring home because there was already one in the refrigerator. All my fishing stuff got locked up for a month, and this was summertime. No matter how much I begged I was out of luck. From that summer I never let a fish go to waste.

    I learned that it is fun to catch fish but it is even more fun to help people. I do not know how many hungry or thirsty kids my mother helped on the Muni Pier. She would see a kid on the pier trying to catch perch with the wrong size hook or bait and she would go over and show them how to do it correctly. When that kid caught a perch all on his own, that made her day. It was never about how good you did, but did everyone there have a good time.

    Everyone who had a crab stand on Fisherman’s Wharf and all the regulars on Muni Pier would say “hello” to us as we went to her “spot” on the pier. When I was old enough to go to the pier on my own, everyone would always ask “how’s your mom?” Friendships with other fishermen were important to her. When I started fishing on the Bass Tub II, she was so happy that I had a few fishing buddies.

    These are just a few of the thinks that stick with me. Take the time to teach your children well.
They will remember the things you teach them. They may not show it now, but later in life they will.

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