Hook Setting

A friend of my dad’s who we have hunted with for years has a beautiful farm with a large pond on it. The pond is long enough that it takes over an hour to really fish it end to end. It is full of small bass and brim and some crappie.

          A few more sizeable bass have been caught in there but mostly we catch a large number of small ones.

          We put the boat in at the make shift ramp. There is no actual ramp but a low spot by the dam and the ground is hard enough under it that the trailer doesn’t sink in.

          I turned on the big motor to simply push the boat back close enough to the bank to pick up my dad after he pulled the trailer out. Then I just cut it off and we used the trolling motor and started fishing.

My dad and I often joke about it being the easiest run we have. Later that day he looked at me and said “didn’t use much gas”.

          We fished down the long deep bank right where we put the boat in. I was throwing a spinner bait and didn’t get a bite down this bank.

          I often do catch one or two fish right on the edge in the deep water by the dam. But not today. We got to the turn and started fishing the far bank from where we put the boat in.

          This bank is much shallower with several cuts in it and a lot more wood. We could see brim beds in the shallows and could see some swimming in them. My spinnerbait started getting some aggressive love taps but I would set the hook and no fish was on.

          I often have smaller fish attempt to bite my spinnerbait. They get excited by the colors but their mouths aren’t big enough to get the hook. So, I picked up my rod with my old trusty little spinner on it that I catch all kinds of fish on.

          I have caught some bigger fish on this bait as well. But when smaller fish are biting, I might as well catch them.

          I caught two or three brim and was just having fun. A few minutes later my dad caught the first bass of the day. He was throwing top water and I heard the splash and saw it go under. He set the hook and reeled it in like a pro as he always does. My dad is the best fisherman I know.

          Then we worked our way to a small island in the water with several long, downed trees off of it. We started throwing worms down these trees. Worms seem to be the bait we have the most success on in this pond. We both caught a couple of bass but nothing very big. As usual I don’t care I was just happy to be catching fish.

          We decided to move on and I picked up the spinner bait again. I had no real luck on it the whole day and it is usually always the first bait I pick up.

          At one point I heard a large splash in the water. I looked up and a merganser came up from under the water and had a small fish in his mouth. We watched as it swallowed the thing whole. Not the most beautiful picture but seeing nature in action is always interesting. I did later get a picture of that merganser sunning it’s wings while standing on a log.

Then we got to a place where there is a beaver hut under the water. This is a bit of a honey hole. There is a little risk with that much wood of getting your bait stuck so we always try and throw worms with no hook out of them.

          We started throwing worms into this beaver hut and it seemed like every third cast or so we were catching another fish. It was a lot of fun. None of these fish were big. But we were just enjoying a day of fish catching.

          All of them felt bigger when they were first on the hook though. I would feel one pulling the worm down and reel down and set the hook hard. The fish would be on and feel like an absolute hog. Then as I reeled them in there wasn’t much fight to them but that didn’t make me enjoy it any less.

          We moved on from the beaver dam and caught a few more bass at some logs as we got towards the end of the pond where it gets shallow.

          We fished our way down the opposite bank we had came down back toward the boat. In another gut we could see brim swimming in their beds again. I threw the little spinner and caught two of them. And was just watching them size up my bait in the shallows.

          My dad caught one or two more bass down this side. And then we made our way back to the truck.

          There are no guarantees in fishing or really any outdoor activity. But we go to this pond with a high likelihood of catching a lot of fish to almost practice for the river.

          You go shoot clays before dove season. You sight in your muzzleloader right before deer season. And we go to this pond to practice hook setting around the times we go to the river.