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Captain Troy
419-569-3100
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I
spent my life fishing and hunting because someone had time to take me! I
believe in kids fishing and that our future depends on on getting
these kids on water and catching fish. Whether its Lake Erie
or a local pond catching blue gills. Take a kid fishing!
Fishing
offers so many options for our Youth. Years ago families
fished or done something outdoors together. The kids were at
the local creeks, ponds and reservoirs and their minds and bodies
got plenty of exercise. It also sparked curiosities that made
them investigate and want to learn as much as possible about things
they would hear and see. That's what fishing does. It is
an education and helps develop motor skills and enhances our ability
to process a busy lifestyle that our country has now accepted and
it's at the cost of our children.
Do you remember your
first time?
Nothing stands out in my mind as much as my
first
experience with a fish. My uncle had taken me to a local farm pond to
watch some of his friends run a jet ski. It was a calm evening in
midsummer in which my parents couldn’t take another minute of
a young, bored overactive kid.
It didn’t take long once we arrived for me to become curious, amazed
with the splendor of my surroundings. It was my first trip to a
farm pond that I could remember. All around me was wildlife, critters
making little noises, birds chattering to each other, and of course
this big body of water that at the time seemed to be larger than life.
Nothing could compare or had ever caught my attention as this did. The
warm rays of the dark orange sun were softly welcoming me. It
was a perfect, late July evening to be a young boy outdoors.
Within minutes I had forgotten about the jet ski or that there was
even anyone else there.
I ran to the dock and sat on the end. I sat there and tried to beam my
vision through the water,
replicating Steve Austin in the Six Million Dollar Man to see what was
below the surface, as I
squinted my eyes, a little dark bug caught my attention on the dock
beside me. It was a cricket
sitting there chirping, sharing his space, but unaware that I existed.
I watched for a minute and
decided I needed to pick it up. As I reached out to grab it, it jumped
forward and into the water.
I sat there and watched it try to move around, its legs kicking, only
to move it in circles creating
little ripples on the water’s-mirror like surface. Suddenly the water
boiled, and in a split second
that cricket had disappeared. I was shocked. I remember asking myself,
“ Was that a fish? “ I
yelled to my uncle to come and look and told him what had happened.
Once I learned that a fish
had surfaced and had eaten that cricket, the hunt was on!
For the next hour or so I gathered crickets like it was Easter and
there was money in one
of those Eggs I was searching for. I went back to the dock, and one at
a time I relived that
experience again and again. Fish just kept coming and boiling the
surface, and occasionally one
would jump out of the water.
That experience led to even more trips, but this time with a fishing
pole, a Zebco 202. I
searched for crickets as before, but instead of just dropping them in
from the dock, I put one on
my hook. I went from watching the ripples and anticipating the fish
making the water boil, to my
fishing pole coming to life! I still say that a fishing pole in your
hand must be attached to every
nerve in your body because when the pole came to life I could feel it
all the way to my toes.
I had caught my first fish! I love to relive that moment in my mind,
and almost 30 years
later I still long to feel my rod come to life as it did that day. I
went from curious to addicted and
now live that dream every day as a fishing guide and captain on Lake
Erie. On occasion when I
walk in the garage and see that old Zebco 202 on the wall, I reflect
back to my youth and am
grateful that my uncle had time to take me fishing.
Take a kid fishing; it may change his life!
FISH ON!
Captain Troy Young
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EYE
HUNTER GUIDE SERVICE
