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Miss Tina and I are luckily enough to have access to a huge Black Angus Cattle Farm to fish. "What?" You Say... "A cattle farm to fish?" Farm ponds my friends, farm ponds. It's where the big fish live. Bass, Crappie, and bream the size of crappie. The downside to this equation? Cattle...

There are five ponds on the farm, and TWO main ponds that hold good fish. You don't drive up, park at the farm house and stroll to the pond. You drive past the house, open a gate, drive thru the gate, close the gate, drive across a pasture, dodge a cow or ten, open a gate, close the gate, drive across a pasture, dodge more cattle. Whew... one more gate, open/close, drive down a steep embankment, dodge more cattle and there before you lies heaven. Over the years we have taken a variety of rigs to make the drive to the pond hauling the kayaks, from a Subaru Forester, Mazda B2000, Nissan Frontiers and the Nissan Titan.. all were 4x4s or AWD. The cattle have to check them out. There have been some anecdotes to share. The Forester? We had been to Virginia Beach fishing the salt.. and hadn't washed 'er yet. Parked beside the pond to fish and... the cattle decided to lick all the salt off the glass. The cows eat grass. They slobber... a lot. When they lick, they leave behind slobber. It's thick, it's green, it dries HARD. When we came off the water, loaded the kayaks, and were ready to leave, we couldn't see OUT of the side windows, the rear window, and the edges of the windshield. Luckily I had just put a new bottle of windex and a new roll of paper towels in the back of the Subie, and was able to clean the front side windows, the edges of the windshield, and the rear window before running out. We drove 'er thru the car wash on the way home.

On another occasion, we had driven one of the earlier versions of our Frontiers to the pond and parked it beside the pond. One of the Cows decided that big Bully Bar on the front of the truck made a GREAT scratching post for her hairy butt. She was really into it. She was rubbing her rump up and down on the push bumper so hard the rear tires were moving up and down and moving the shocks. I slapped my paddle on the water. I yelled at her. Tina and I both yelled, we both slapped the paddles on the water. Then I got an idea.
I reached into the waterproof box in the center hatch on the kayak, got my keys to the truck and pushed the alarm button on the fob. Oh... it worked. She lept up, and ran off bucking and snorting. The truck was safe. Shocked the shite out of her. Unfortunately... it literally ... shocked the shite out of her. They eat a lot of grass... and anyone who knows cattle, knows that when it ejects...

The front of the truck, the grill and the radiator. A trip to the car wash was needed, and nearly a roll of quarters. SHE got the last laugh.
Looking back it's funny, but it wasn't funny at the time. There are stories, and stories.
Cows are funny. and not.

nicely told .... I've always enjoyed farm pond fishing, only in a larger boat .... the old saying : "when the dogwoods start bloom'n, the crappie start school'n" tells me its time ..

It can sometimes be a pain.. but there is a reason... big'uns. Just some pics of the various fish we pulled over the years.

Miss Tina's Monster Sunfish in the rain. Yup, it's a kinda crappie spot. The owner of the farm told us to take all the crappie out we can. So they are having a fish fry. I caught a real nice one on the fly. This is the second time she caught Martha, and she had grown another inch. We always catch and release. Yup, the technique worked last week, so I gave it a try again. Those are Spider feet sticking out of his mouth, Tina tied that fly. That's a 6wt fly rod, so that's a nice one.

Nice place there Broken, reminds of one I fish from time to time.
No more cattle there now though, all sold off a few back.

Hey JEB, the Dodwoods are a bloomin around here.
That reminds me, I need to get my license.

RP

I got a lifetime license. Makes things easy, don't have to worry about an expiration date, unless I expire. Then, I won't care. LOL.

So many memories. Can't thank you enough.

I spent most of my life on the prairie/farm country and there was no greater prize than to have access to fish a private farm pond and to lose access to one due to a change of farm ownership was a huge blow to your fishing. Most of my fishing was also with a fly rod for largemouth and bluegills. My favorite bluegill fly was one of my own design, also with spider legs. Like you, all bass were strictly catch and release. We took great care not to overfish the bass on these little ponds.

BrokenolMarine wrote:I got a lifetime license. Makes things easy, don't have to worry about an expiration date, unless I expire. Then, I won't care. LOL.

Dang Lifetime would still cost me nearly $1200.
Besides most of my hunting is on my own land, and here that is legal to do without a license.
I usually buy the hunting & fishing combo for $33 a year.
Then if I do decide to deer hunt else where, I'll buy a Big Game stamp, for another $33.

RP

North Country Gal wrote:So many memories. Can't thank you enough.

I spent most of my life on the prairie/farm country and there was no greater prize than to have access to fish a private farm pond and to lose access to one due to a change of farm ownership was a huge blow to your fishing. Most of my fishing was also with a fly rod for largemouth and bluegills. My favorite bluegill fly was one of my own design, also with spider legs. Like you, all bass were strictly catch and release. We took great care not to overfish the bass on these little ponds.

This pond is on a farm belonging to a family friend of my wife. Access was supposed to be tightly controlled and there were strict rules regarding limits on which fish were kept. My wife has known the patriarch since she was a little 'un. Several years ago, the farm manager was letting all his buddies fish, and they were keeping everything, they were also four wheeling in the pastures where the prize winning cattle were. The owner lives in another state. A new manager was hired and we were politely told no fishing was allowed.

When the patriarch came down to visit, he invited us over, and asked why the emails and pics had stopped coming. We told him what the new manager had told us. He wrote out lifetime rights. We are the only non family members allowed to fish the pond. As such, we leave the area cleaner than we find it, and don't over use the privilege.

Good for you, Marine. Unfortunately, have seen similar abuse of the privilege to fish private waters. Tried to explain to guys that were keeping and catching every bass they legally could, week after week, in a small pond, how easy it was to destroy the bass fishing. Just nuts.

Great pics and even better stories, thank you for sharing. One of the morals to the story is never leave to go farm fishing without a roll of quarters!