The most impressive memory that I have is its giant redbreast and pike that it would hold in the spring, and early summer. One day some friends and I were spending the day fishing with worms with no success. What would we do? We needed crickets! The only place we knew to get them was in the forbidden zone, about two miles from home. Who would go? Of course those of you who know me know that I have never been one to follow all of the rules of authority, so of course, I would be the one to go, We all scraped up our change until we had just enough and off I went. The whole trip there and back, on my bicycle, was nerve wrecking. Every time a car came by; I would duck into the woods until it passed. I knew that if my dad found out that I had gone on this cricket mission, he would paint my back porch red. I made it there and back without harm, and I don’t think my parents know of my defiance even today. We didn’t catch any fish that day, even with the crickets. The point is we tried something different. I know today that there were probably no fish where we were fishing, being the dog days of summer with the creek down low. There are several factors that may have caused it, but this a story for another day.

My entire childhood has memories like this one. I spent many days at the creeks and farm ponds learning that there is more to fishing than baiting your hook and wetting your line. As life goes forward you seem to lose touch with the simple loves of life. Most of us start building families and careers straight out of school. We start focusing more on the many hoops of life that has to be jumped through just to pay the mortgage each month. There are those of us that feel like there is a hole, a void that seems like it will never be filled. That is until one day something happens. A set of events occurs that leads us down the path of discovery. We discover that our love had not abandoned us, but that we had abandoned it. It was there the whole time waiting on us to come back.

It was my father that opened the door that led to my path. He called me one day and asked if I would like to go in halves on a small Jon boat that his neighbor had for sell. Since neither of us fished very much it made perfect since. We bought the boat and it hardly crossed my mind for months. It sat at my fathers waiting ever so patiently for its day in my destiny. My father and I finally decided to take it out on a small lake in his neighborhood.

Since that day my father has had to get his own boat, because the one we bought together seemed to always have plans, plans to spend with me out on the new hole of water discovering all of the many wonders it has to offer. Since that first day, that boat and I have spent countless hours together learning the art of bass fishing. I can’t tell you how many times, I have been on a given body of water, only to realize that I was doing something wrong. I would go home and read every online article I could find about my situation. I would return the next day to find that my research paid off. There is definitely a science to bass fishing and I have dedicated all of my free time to understanding that science. I study every aspect from common patterns, to the instinctive nature of the bass and what make them tick as a top of the food chain predator in southern fresh water bodies.

This article was written so that you would know a little about me. I will be writing articles for you every month on the many techniques, situations, and patterns of the bass. I hope through my articles you can put more fish in the boat.