Nostalgia hits hard doesn’t it? What spincast reel did you have on it anyways? Just want to know what a combo a good 50 years ago was like. When I get old, I’ll have to look back on a 6’6 ugly stick with a cheap Shakespeare reel. What was it like back then anyways? Especially the fishing and the Bay Area in general.
-It was a good time for piers and kids and fishing. And my brother (if 1 year older pictured) and I didn’t hang around the house. We were in little league, cub scouts, basketball, track & field, street football, I had a paper route, and I raced BMX bikes... in addition to school. Too much to do to get in trouble and NO computers (just books).
-I didn’t really know how to fish but I had fun growing up on Berkeley Pier having shiner derbies and then evolved into smelt derbies. Mostly fished the very beginning of the pier sitting in the first or second available seating booth. We used 100% pileworms cut into a dozen pieces each utilizing size 10 and 12 smelled, bait holder hooks with always one ounce of weight. We would use hi/lo surfleaders as the only knot we really knew was an overhand. To give you and idea of the era, one ounce weights were .5 and a pack of 6 no-name (Huck Finn) hooks smelled was .5.
There were plenty of shiners, bullheads, smelt, and small brown rockfish to keep us busy all Saturday or Sunday afternoon back then.
-my first rod and reel out there was a push-button, spincast. The reel was green and the rod silver. It was pretty good (it was not s Zebco). The red Berkeley came after and eventually a García Mitchell 300 reel was seated on it. Berkley, ironically made very good rods at a cheap price (and they still do to an extent). The 300 was $15 new.
The fishing Bay fishing was better back then. The perch size for black perch and pile perch was much bigger (so much so that someone would never keep a 10”). People skilled would get (21) which was a limit. Starry Flounder were targeted and some would go 24-27”. Striper were much bigger in the Bay with 10,12, 16, and some 21 pounds or so.