Learning How To Cast

Rewind to the year 1995, on a sunny spring day, a younger… well much younger… version of myself was strutting out of a hardware store, proudly carrying a brand spanking new Quantum baitcasting combo.

Now, that might not sound like that big a deal, but in my mind, I was headed straight to the Bassmaster Classic.

As soon as I got home, I hurried and put some line on my new prize possession and tied on a trusty Hank Parker spinnerbait. I headed to the front yard strutting proudly as I went. I reared back, just like I’d watched KVD do a million times on the TV, and I let the spinnerbait fly. Well… it didn’t exactly fly. Looking down at the reel, it was a knotted, tangled, kinked-up mess that I now know as a bird nest.

My run at the Bassmaster Classic had ended before I could even get out of the driveway.

Sensing a little boy’s frustration, and not being a baitcasting troubleshooter herself, my mom made a quick call to her first cousin, the man I know simply as Uncle Joey. I listened intently as he told her on the phone to run me down there and he’d see what he could do to help.

Looking back now on that day, I’m sure he had a million other things he could have been doing, but he chose to help a little boy learn how to cast… and pick out backlashes.

I imagine if I asked him about that day more than 25 years ago, he probably wouldn’t even remember. After all, at the time it seemed to be a small, insignificant act.

The memory of that day wasn’t meant for him though, it was for me.

In case you’re wondering, I never went on to fish the Bassmaster Classic, and I never will… but every time I see a bird nest in my reel, I think back to Uncle Joey, and I’m sure grateful he showed me how to cast.

Satilla Feed & Outdoors