Memories That Matter: A Proud Hook (Marcus Mckinney)

When I was young, I remember my father waking me up at 4:00 AM to fish.

Me being young, I dragged myself to his truck to fall back asleep driving to a spot that seemed an eternity away.

Old school music blasting, confident that nothing mattered, only hurrying to start fishing.

A lot of time has passed, roughly 30 years, but we had the chance to hit the river the other day.

The river hasn’t been active for two weeks and my expectations were low as a weather system pushed in.

But we pushed through!

This gave me a chance to impress my father who taught me everything I know about fishing by talking about the knowledge I’ve gained as a fisherman as the years have gone by.

We talked about throwing a cast net, incoming and outgoing tides, and the other things I’ve picked up over the years.

After showing my dad how much I have improved, I noticed that he was missing a couple of bites.

I looked at his rig and he had a J-hook on the end.

I didn’t want to tell the man who taught me everything he knows to switch up his tactics because he knows what he knows!

I approached my father nervous as ever and said, “Try this hook”.

Instead of feeling bad about knowing that my method was better, he was proud that the small things he taught me came into play.

With that one change, we had one of the best days of fishing we had in years.

In conclusion, it doesn’t matter how many years or time has passed, the feeling of making your father proud is the best feeling you can have.

He has the peace of mind that all the 4:00am fishing trips in the morning, all of the broken lines, all of the lost fishing rods in all the time he has put into his craft….has all paid off.

– Marcus

Marcus’ Dad Willie: