As part of the Bear Cub Scout rank, one of the requirements is “A Bear Goes Fishing.” As such, it was decided that my son’s den would take a trip to Little Chickey Pond, in Lakesite TN. The scout leader had heard it was heavily stocked, and should be an easy catch for the boys.
I decided to do a little recon, and ran up there a few weeks ago, on a rainy evening. The water was not clear at all, so I couldn’t see any fish, but started out throwing a clouser out, and didn’t have much luck at first. When I decided to walk down the bank a bit, with my minnow in the water, a tiny crappie took it.
So it was established there was life in the pond. Shortly after, I hooked into a small bass with a lot of fight. It started raining fairly heavily after that, and I hung it up for the night.
On the den meeting night, we all met at the pond at 6pm, all the kids had spinning rods, and the den leader brought some live minnows, and crickets. My son was not a fan of having to put a hook thru a live minnow, so he opted for my wife’s secret weapon, the “Blue Worms”. Unfortunately, he didn’t end up having much luck that night, although I had to tell him, in order to catch a fish, your bait has to actually be in the water. He was too busy conversing with the other scouts, and looking for sticks than to actively fish.
I also only got one on, a weird carp type fish, on an anytime anywhere fly.
Some of the kids got onto some tiny bluegill, and were super excited, but overall it wasn’t the greatest day of fishing. I spent a good chunk of time untangling lines, and getting them out of trees. One of my son’s friends almost fell into the pond, but caught himself at the last moment.
At the end of the trip, the scoutmaster wanted to get rid of the minnows, so my son and another scout decided to free them into the pond. They did so… as well as the bucket. We had to retrieve it by hooking it with a rod that was luckily still sitting around.
