The Last Honest Fisherman is a place for fishermen to share their fishing stories, techniques and tips. My experience is that many fishermen love to talk about their fishing trips and adventures. The trophy fish that was caught after a long fight or the one that unfortunately spit the hook or worse, snapped your line.

Share the secrets of your fishing tactics, where you caught your fish and what bait or lure you were using. I welcome and will post your fishing stories here at TheLastHonestFisherman.com.

I have a fishing story to tell. During the summer of 2009 my daughter who was about to leave for her junior year of college said to me, “Dad let’s go fishing this afternoon”. I thought to myself, cool, we have not been fishing together for years. When she was younger we often fished together. I was always amazed on how good she was at detecting the bite and setting the hook. She has good reflexes!

Anyway, it was already mid afternoon and we decided we would just go get some night crawlers and drown them at a local subdivision pond I suspected held some largemouth bass. So, we went to the bait shop here in town to get a license for her and pick up a dozen crawlers.

We get to the subdivision pond and like the days when she was a little girl, I tied up her line and baited the hook. And, as usual, before I could get my line in the water, she had a “fish on”. She lands the bass and I unhook and release a nice largemouth back into the pond. There are a couple teenage boys not too far down the bank and I think they are more interested in my daughter than fishing. Dads will never change.

Melissa lands two more bass and I am ready to catch one. Why is she getting all the bites? The only difference is I am casting my bait out a little farther from the shore than she is. So, I bring my line in and cast it out the same distance from the shore. Bang, no sooner had I tightened the slack line, I get a big hit. It’s a good one as you can see in the picture above.

Here’s a tip for you to consider when fishing the local subdivision pond. You only need to cast out just beyond the weed line. The bass are holding in the weeds, not out in the middle of the pond.