I grew up fishing right here in Federal Way, almost all freshwater. I remember fishing Steele, Angle, and 5 Mile. My earliest memory of fishing was when I was around 8 years old. It wasn't here, though. I'm sure I was fishing before this but this was the first memorable trip.

My whole family was in South Carolina visiting my grandparents, me, my brother, and my mom, and dad. One day Grandaddy decided to take us kids out fishing with my dad at a stream nearby. I remember riding through the swamp in the back of his pickup, slathered with bug repellant to keep off the mosquitoes. After awhile, we stopped and got out next to a streambed. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and all the fish were in the shade. We got out and slogged through the mud about 30 feet away under the trees. What followed was some of the fastest fishing I can ever remember. We were hauling out bluegills right and left, big ones too.

Somehow we managed to aggrivate a cottonmouth that was hidden on the opposite bank, though. I looked up and it was swimming across the water straight at us flashing its white gums. It lunged at my brother (who was about 5 at the time) when Grandaddy grabbed his fishing pole and started to beat it over the head. Then it went after him. So he commences jumping around backwards through the swamp trying to whip the reptile to death with a fishing rod with the snake lunging at him, with my dad running behind trying to hit it with a branch, and us standing on the bank gawking at the whole ordeal. Then Grandaddy starts yelling, "GRAB A GREEN STICK! GRAB A GREEN STICK!" Dad grabs one of said sticks, and makes a lucky strike at the snake, smashing its head against a rock. After that it was kind of anticlimatic.

Grandaddy decided all of us had had enough, so we started to leave, but of course the truck had to get stuck in the mud. So he walked out to call a friend to come pull his truck out of the mud. So no one was hurt, except my mom nearly had a heart attack after she heard about it when we got back.