Fishing as a Young Boy
by
Morris Mixson
As a young boy born in the early depression we lived off the land by hunting, fishing and what we could grow on the farm. We did not have a car to get things to market until got his World 1 bonus in 1936 or 37. So here is list of sorts that we fished or hunted I will start with Plantation pond which joined with the south west corner of our property this where I learned to swim and taught to hunt and fish. Due west of plantation was little rock then west of that was big rocky south and slightly east was button bush pond. East of button bush the was Staggs sink then north was three pond, these were all within walking of our home.
Fish caught at Salley's Pond by Arnold, Mom and
Morris
We fished and hunted these the most. These ponds would all flood during heavy rains which would make for good duck as the ducks were out in the woods getting acorns .Kindy north west little rocky north west of the old Little place was old field pond. We fished most of these ponds from the bank. Dad made 2 small boats from cedar he had sawed and planed in Williston we carried on a trailer one on top of the other places we fished which were close to Duck pond and west of 320 Floating pond and Doe pond on the east side of 320 was Moores pond, Fish prairie, Mud pond and Smith landing on Ledwith Lake, also Gladney Landing Ledwith. There are several other ponds such as Stokes pond near the grade that went by our home. Just past the Lieghner was McGunnnis pond .Back of the Gladney’s was a pond can t think of the name and a pond back of cousin Lilly Mixson farm. We also fished Johnson Lake and Mixson sink. Well can’t say enough about these pond as they were a food line in my early boy hood days.
Morris Mixson, Sep 23, 2014
Listen to Morris telling the story:
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Moores Pond
by
Morris Mixson
The slough coming out of Moore's Pond flows to Ledwith Lake. It is kind of a NW direction to me. Now, I don't know...I've made the trip in a canoe when it was high water. We used to go there, like James says, during the high water. Especially during hurricanes and any other time they had lots of rain. (The fish were) so plentiful that you could, like you say, dip them up with nets or anything else right out of there where the culvert goes under the road there and you could hear the fish...just dip 'em up... The game warden heard about this and so he came by and told everybody he was going to have to arrest anybody for...if they were using a net to dip up the fish 'cause that was illegal in Florida. And, so, we decided we'd just get us a 3 gang hook and just drop it in there and you'd come up with a fish every time you threw your hook in. Well, later on he came back and said this was illegal...you had to have a bait on it and you couldn't use but one hook, you couldn't use a 3 gang hook. So, this stopped that for a while. Well, that's the story on the flooded slough.
But, I used to go through the woods back there with my dad and my mother too, and we went down to Moore's Pond and it was covered with hyacinths. But they had little narrow channels out through the hyacinths. And we liked to go down there and fish with a spinner. Now, a spinner is about a 3-foot line on the end of a pole with a spinner with a 3 gang hook with feathers on it and you'd work this in a figure 8 in front of the boat and up beside the hyacinths. Well, when you caught a fish, especially a trout or bass as they call 'em...a good sized one...you had to bring the pole straight back. You couldn't lift it up. A big bass would not let you...you couldn't lift him with the pole. We caught, you know, some 7-8 pound bass this way. And, I can remember Mama. She would just catch a big bass like that and just hhhooollleeerrr...ooohhhh it was great! And, also, one of the things that we did, we liked to go on a cloudy day or either a drizzly rainy day in those channels in through the hyacinths. These...this was the best time to use a spinner...and it was a wonderful way of catching fish. And, that's my Moore's Pond story.
Morris Mixson, Dec 2, 2008
Updated: 02-03-2026
