Join the Discussion "Did any of you make any fishing memories with your mom, or like me did you stop and think about past fishing trips with her if she is gone? " Ronnie

Related Resources •Fishing With My Mom

Past Articles One Year Ago - 5/14/01 - Bream Bedding Memories Two Years Ago -5/15/00 - Fishing Ledgebusters at Eufaula Three Years Ago - 05/17/99 - I Love Fishing Four Years Ago - 05/11/98 - Shellcracker Fishing Five Years Ago - 05/05/97 - Mother's Day Fishing

I just returned from a three day bass fishing trip to North Carolina after fishing a tournament at Lake Russell on the way last weekend. During the past six weeks I have fished 8 lakes in Georgia including Weiss, Seminole, Clark's Hill, Russell, Carters, Lanier, West Point and Oconee. That pretty well covers the state from north to south and east to west.

During that time I also fished Center Hill Lake in Tennessee and Jordan Lake, Cape Fear River, Harris Lake and Falls Lake in North Carolina. Catches include largemouth, spotted, Coosa and smallmouth bass, crappie, yellow perch, stripers, warmouth, shellcracker, bluegill and catfish. I have fished about 22 days out of the past 40 or so.

All of the trips have been fun but nothing beats the times I have sat by my small pond with a light rod and little bream hook baited with dough balls. Every cast results in a bite, often from a bluegill so small it can't get the hook in its mouth. I guess I get my love of that simple fishing from my mother.

She would go to local farm ponds with her mother and me when I was young. Some of my earliest memories are of her and her mother sitting on their lard buckets that doubled as tackle boxes, bait containers, lunch boxes and stools. We would keep everything we caught from three inch bream up to the biggest cats we could land on a cane pole.

She was never happier than when sitting watching a cork, hoping it would disappear and she could pull in another fish. I still love that kind of fishing, too. The peace and quiet of a small pond is very different from big lakes with off shore ski boats, skidoos and bass boats zooming around. And the fish bite better.

We also spent many happy hours fishing for crappie at Clark's Hill when I was a teenager. Using our ski boat to pull the small jon boat to a cove, we would transfer to it and fish around the area, then tie up and pull the fishing boat somewhere else. Or we would tie the big boat to a willow tree and fish for crappie when they were in the shallows. That would be a family affair with me, her and dad all three fishing together.

I can still see her fighting big carp on her little spin cast outfit the time we got them baited up under the boat docks at Clark's Hill. Used to catching small bream, crappie and cats, the five to ten pound carp gave her all the fight she wanted. She hummed with excitement every time one grabbed her bait and took off.

She is gone now but I still have those memories. And I know she is somewhere in heaven right now, sitting by a small pond that is full of fish, getting a bite every time she throws her bait out. I just wish she could be here with me for one more fishing trip like that.