The Pond

When I was in elementary school we built a house just outside of town. As I got older and began exploring the area and hanging out with the neighbor we found the pond at the end of the road. You had to walk through a bean field and then down a path where you had to climb an old fence and walk to the corner of another field to get to it. It was so secluded that nobody else knew it was there.

At the time I had never really done much fishing. I believe we had a couple Zebco rods with push button reels. My neighbor was an older gentleman who did a lot of fishing and his son was my best friend growing up. He started taking us to the pond in evenings when he would go fishing. This is where my love of fishing began. It was such an awesome place to be and have a lot of fun catching fish.

Since I was just getting into fishing I didn’t have a lot of gear. I upgraded the Zebco’s to an Ugly Stick spinning reel combo, for someone in the fourth grade this was a great option because as everyone knows kids are hard on things and a Ugly Stick as we know is indestructible. I got a small tackle box and a few different lures. I mostly fished with live bait, minnows or creek chubs we would go around town and catch in the creeks during the day, but I would also use Terminator spinnerbaits because I would watch Jimmy Houston all the time and thought that is how everyone caught fish.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn how to fish in this location that received no pressure from anyone else and was almost a sure thing to land a few fish every evening. I know everyone that gets into fishing has a different story and this is mine. I will continue to tell it along the way.