How It Started For Me
December 1, 2008
As a small boy growing up on a farm in eastern Kentucky I had plenty of time to hunt and fish. I’ve always said that I grew up in a little boy’s paradise. I could walk a hundred yards in any direction from the house to hunt or fish, and trust me, I did plenty!
We had two good catfish ponds on our farm, and a creek that ran through it which held all kinds of stuff to catch. As a bonus all the neighbors’ farms had ponds where I was allowed to fish and frog gig. Times were different then and I would often leave at daylight and not be home until well after dark, and I was only five or six years old! But things were about to change…
When I was twelve we moved to town. People acted different, treated you different and I wasn’t allowed to go on their property! No place to hunt or fish anymore. What was a boy to do?
I started looking around and started hearing about Mr. Moore, and how he had this great fishing pond, but that he wouldn’t let anybody fish it. Mr. Moore also had these bad dogs that would get you if they caught you on the property; so of course, I had to go check it out.
After a little research and walking through the fields, I found a way in and a fishing I went. With my trusty Zebco 33 and a can of worms I had dug I was fishing. There was moss about six or eight feet out from the bank all the way around the rather large pond and I could cast out to the edge and wear the bluegill out. I was having a ball when all of a sudden something happened that changed my fishing forever! 
As I was pulling a small bluegill across the moss to take it off the hook and put it on a stringer something came up through the moss and took it away from me! I didn’t know what happened and it kind of scared me at first. It looked like it had a mouth as big as a saucer and man was it mean!
After a few minutes to regain my composure I thought I would try it again so I caught another bluegill. This time I took my time dragging it across the moss and again something blew up out of the moss but missed this time. Trying to not lose another fish, I tried just dragging the bluegill a little more over the moss and “wham!”, the creature got my hook and the fight was on!
After what seemed like and hour, (probably a minute or two) I pulled a fish out like I had never seen. It was a pretty silver and green with a black stripe down its side and must have weighed ten pounds (more like 1½, I’m sure).
I took off to see Jerry, (Ingram) a neighbor who knew everything there was to know about hunting and fishing, to see what it was. Now, Jerry was about 20 years old at the time so he had to know everything. Well, I knocked on the door and when Jerry came out I asked what kind of fish it was and he laughed and said it was a big mouth bass. I never heard of it, but wanted to know more.
Jerry asked where I caught it and I said Moore’s pond. He just shook his head, smiled and said, “Be here in the morning at daylight and I’ll show you how to catch them big mouth bass.” So the next morning, about an hour before daylight, I was sitting on Jerry’s porch waiting for him to get up.
Finally Jerry came out with his fancy fishing poles that the reels hung off the bottom instead of the top and a tackle box full of interesting looking stuff and out through the woods behind his house we went. I asked where we were going to get our bait and he said he had it in his tackle box. Oh well! When we got to where we were going, I saw we were right back at Moore’s pond and he was saying to be quiet.
I asked for some bait and he handed me a rubber worm and it was purple! Now how stupid does he think these fish are? A rubber worm? Purple? As I sat down on the bank about half disgusted I heard the water splash and looked to see Jerry already had one. As I started to kind of hurry getting my “rubber” purple worm on my hook, he already got another one!
Then I was casting and on my second or third cast I got one and that’s the way the morning went. If memory serves, we caught fifteen or twenty that morning and I was hooked from then on.
Jerry and I hunted and fished together for many years after that but I’ll never forget that first morning or those first fish and often remember how exciting it was. I fished in Moore’s pond for several years and was never ran off or asked to leave, but the dogs did chase me out a couple of times.
After I was grown I asked Mr. Moore about fishing in his pond and he said why quit now, he had watched me fish there forever and as long as I didn’t leave trash I was welcome to fish whenever I wanted! Things have changed a lot in the forty years since then. Fancy boats, high powered electronics, new fangled lures, along with high tech rods and reels that you can feel a fish breath on, not to mention fluorocarbon and braided fishing lines!
These days I live in Texas with some of the best bass fishing lakes in the country. I have more fishing tackle than a lot of tackle stores and I still get excited at the tell-tale “thump thump” of a bite, or the swirl from a top water blowup, but nothing will ever top that first time when that bucket mouth stole my fish right in front of me…..
About the Author
Andy lives in Texas just north of the Houston area in Plantersville. Hehas been tournament fishing for over 20 years in and around Texas and has fished all over the United States and Canada. He is a manufacturer’s rep for several tackle companies and is the national pro staff director for Dobyns Rods. Andy works several shows a year including I-CAST and Bass-A-Thon and does seminars and tank demos regularly. His home lake is Lake Conroe but approximately 80% of the time he fishes on Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend. Andy would like to thank all of his sponsors.