Our family’s favorite place to fish is a 3-acre farm pond near my grandparents’ house in Missouri.  The pond has a large population of big crappie, which we usually catch using small white crappie jigs. We have had fast action at almost any time of the year, including times when most of the pond is frozen. Crappie can be a fun and tasty treat when nothing else is biting. 

Lacey caught this studly bass using a topwater popper.  The fish measured 22” long and we estimated that it weighed between 5.5-6 pounds.  After only a few hours of bass fishing, my wife holds the Tichenor family bass record. It may be a long time before she catches another fish like this one.

The pond also has a large population of bluegill, which feed some nice largemouth bass.  I have used spinner baits and plastic worms, but the most exciting way to bass fish in the late summer and fall is to use surface lures just before dark.  I like to fish poppers very slowly, often barely twitching the lure and letting it sit still, which triggers some explosive bites. The fish will often strike again after a missed set.  

My dad caught this small stripped bass (~15 inches) in May 2005 while fishing with sardines in the delta.  We were fishing in Dutch Slough from my parent’s small aluminum boat. There were so many small stripers biting that we could hardly catch any catfish.  I caught my first striper, which was one of the major species of North American game fish that I had not previously caught. Now I still need to catch walleye and sturgeon.   

Hawaii