After being born, I went back home with my parents to Houston, TX... where my father worked hard during the week but enjoyed fishing on the weekends. So we'd make the haul (about 30 miles) to Galveston hop the ferry over to Galveston Bay and crab fish. Well I was really young so I was on the shore line crawling after hermit crabs and collecting them in a pencil box.
But he gave me the love for fishing, that followed us when we moved to Anniston, AL. Where we fished some golf course ponds and lakes and the dam. Hauled in many largemouth, crappie and bluegill. Watched my father catch massive flatheads from the dam.
Then into Iowa where he taught me about walleye and stripers.
I had been going fishing with him since I was in a car seat... and as I got older he always had patience with me, and never yelled at me for messing up my line or asking him to bait my hook. He taught me how to tie all the essential knots, and fillet fish and everything in between. But the most important part of it all was the lessons in leaving the property I fished at how I found it.
He lives in San Diego now, and we don't see each other but a few times every few years... but he still fishes.
I'd give back some of the biggest fish i've ever caught to have him closer so we could fish all the time, but i'll always remember the time we spent together. He and I are very close and I email him pictures of my catches and now what his grandson catches, and he enjoys them. I think i've become a lot better of a fisherman then he was, but to me he'll always be the man in this regard.

We're planning a trip to Cali this summer and he's booked us on a 2 day deep sea trip... 40 miles out. Hope to catch a huge fish and show him I still remmeber what he taught me.