My Favorite Part of Spring . . .

. . . is getting out and doing some farm pond fishing with my boys.  
 
My wife always tells me, "God sure must love you to give you two boys who love to fish as much as you do."  Couldn't agree more.  Think the older one loves to fish even more than I do I think, and he's getting pretty good at it.
 
Here's a few pics from the last couple days to celebrate the end of the polar vortex and the start of some fun days ahead!  
 
The 10 year old's first bass of the spring:

 
The soon to be 4 year old's first bass of the spring:

 
Have a friend that stocks this little lake with trout every year for a fun opening day for kids.  We got a nice surprise from this holdover that inhaled a Gulp Minnow we were drifting for bass.  

 
 
 
And a steelhead from last week on what will probably be our last Erie trip for the year

coldfront
when your sons are your age, they will remember well the gifts you shared with them.......guaranteed.  until then, their smiles today are their gifts to you.  awesome job, dad. 

Couldn't say it any better!  Precious memories for sure!

bcain
I'd love to find a farm pond that I could fish. I had a place but due to family issues, that is no longer available.

We're very, very fortunate to have access to a couple of great ponds around here.  The one where the trout is from covers about 4 acres and is fed by a few springs.  It doesn't get trout every year, but in the years it does, we catch 'em well into the fall and that's not the first holdover I've seen in there the following spring.  
 
In addition to the trout, It is loaded with big, fat bluegills and we pull a couple of bass out of there most years that are 20+ inches.  I caught one about 4 years ago that measured right at 26".  I'm generally not too good at estimating fish weight, but if you look at most weight/length calculators for a bass that big, it's getting in the neighborhood of state record material, even though it wouldn't qualify because it's a private lake.