Thread: GOING BACK

I grew up on a dairy farm in Upstate New York. Back in the 1950's the Department of Environmental Conservation had a program to encourage landowners to build what were referred to as "conservation ponds". If approved they would do a site assessment including watershed survey soil analysis etc to determine the suitability of the proposed location and they would pay half the cost of construction and stock the pond with largemouth bass and pumpkinseed sunfish for forage. We were approved and the pond dug and stocked.

My dad was not a fisherman by any stretch but realized myself and my siblings might like to fish so sent away to Sears Roebuck and Company (where most everything we owned came from) and took advantage of a deal (which was only how my dad bought anything) for a 100 piece collection of tackle for $11. As you might imagine every one of those 100 pieces was junk.

At 9 years old I read the instructions and mounted the spinning reel to a rod that was as stiff as a hickory branch and spooled it with line that was as thick and stiff as a hickory branch. I selected a silver spoon as my lure of choice. I didn't know anything about fisherman's knots but discovered if you tied about a dozen square knots in a row you could keep your lure on for a few casts. I took my first cast and with the rod and line being so stiff and the lure so light it went about 19"

Being a quick thinker I realized more weight was required so looking in the tackle box at the remaining 96 pieces of tackle I saw what I later identified as a casting plug. I cut off about 18" of line and using the multiple square method tentatively tied the plug to one of the treble hooks on the spoon. With the added weight I made a decent cast and caught a 10" bass on the spoon trailed with a casting plug (feel free to use this little known method).

The thrill I felt was indescribable and led to a lifetime of chasing the next bite. Now 63 years later I returned to that pond with better tackle and technique. I took a cast and first thing caught a real nice pumkinseed sunfish. The next cast produced a bass about the size as the first fish I ever caught. The thrill is still there. Nobody has ever added fish to that pond and apparently it has never been overfished. In fact my niece caught a nice 5lb bass out of there a couple weeks ago. A testament to the the science and the resilience of nature.