The wonders of fishing are the memories the anglers take home from each and every outing.

Season after season, high points happen for those who pay attention to their surroundings and appreciate fishing for more than producing stringers of meat. We file the highs in our memory banks, where deposits far outweigh withdrawals.

My avid angling days started long ago on waters where a novice could experiment and learn the building blocks for the foundation for more sophisticated techniques, adventure-filled lakes and memorable encounters.

April days during my pre-teen years found me strolling the banks of Yellow Creek along the Boardman-Poland township line where the birds were chirping and bluebells blooming. Those were days when a tin can with worms was the only bait I carried. It was plenty good enough to tempt the suckers and chubs that flitted across the creek’s sandy bottom.

They also were days when I honed skills that today might produce walleyes, bass, muskies and crappies.

From that can of worms I’ve gained a lifetime of memories. From Yellow Creek to my favorite fishing holes on Mosquito, Pymatuning, Berlin, West Branch, Milton, Erie, Shenango, Chautauqua, the Ohio River, and lots of other waters, I have filed away vivid images and special moments.

It was a beautiful April morning when I tossed a six-inch finesse worm to the rocks on the south corner of the dam of West Branch Reservoir. Hoping to tempt a largemouth or smallmouth bass, I was carefully inching the plastic bait over the snaggy rip-rap when the line jumped and a tap-tap telegraphed down the rod to the palm of my hand gripping the spinning reel’s seat.

I pulled the line tight and jerked the hookset, expecting a bucking bass to catapult across the surface. Instead, the line zipped toward the main lake, cutting a wake at seemingly 100 mph. Then the surface exploded and a monster muskie shook its full body in a shower of water droplets.

At 42 inches with a mouth full of dagger teeth, the muskie threatened to snap my 8-pound-test fluorocarbon. But the line held, the fish tired and I slipped a barely big enough landing net under the supersized monster.

That was many years ago. At the time I did not stop to consider that catch in the context of my early experiences on Yellow Creek. But it’s clear that the patience, guile and attentiveness required to tease an 8-inch chub to nip a bit of garden worm is pretty much the deal for all anglers hoping to fool fish into eating their lures.

This reminds me of a fine June morning out on Lake Erie six miles from the mouth of Pennsylvania’s Presque Isle Bay. Erie can be rough-and-tumble water, but that day was perfect for the Bass Cat and me. I throttled out to a ledge in 20 feet of water, cut the Mercury and deployed the trolling motor to hold me within casting distance of the underwater structure.

My first cast that morning never hit bottom. The goby-colored tube splashed and sank in its death-spiral temptation that proved irresistible to a waiting smallmouth bass. My line jumped, I struck and a trophy smallie leaped three feet clear of the mirror surface.

The picture burned into my brain, from which I can pull it forward whenever I wish. The cartwheeling bass silhouetted against the spray of water was the first of many catches that day, but at 5 pounds, 12 ounces, it was the most memorable of all.

Today I take to the lake no cans of worms. Instead I haul enough lures to stock a tackle store, but my fishing is still pretty much what I learned by threading worms on little hooks so many decades ago.

As I think back to special catches like those at Erie and West Branch – and thousands of others that have distinctions of their own – I am thankful for those days on the banks of Yellow Creek where it meandered just a short bicycle ride from home.

Jack Wollitz is the author of “The Common Angler,” a book featuring stories about experiences that help define the “why” behind anglers’ passion for fishing. Email Jack at jackbbaass@gmail.com.