OUTDOORS
I grew up in northeast Texas in the fifties and sixties, way before there were big reservoirs to fish. My mother and dad were avid ‘pond’ fishermen and had access to the majority of farm ponds in northern Red River County. They were avid bass anglers; my mom used a steel rod and one of the ‘knuckle buster’ reels of the era. She had only a couple of lures and I remember vividly retrieving her snagged Lucky 13 plug from willow branches on many occasions. But the majority of our fishing was done with Calcutta poles and live shiners below a ‘cork’ or floater. We would ease along the ponds and vertically drop the live bait into likely bits of cover. Back then we ate every fish we caught, including largemouth bass.