[piano intro] - Nice Fish.

- I've been waiting on that bite.

- Nice fish, you hit it, hit him in the right place.

- In the middle of telling you a story about how many bass eat baby ducks.

[water splashing] Look at this, pretty fish isn't it?

- Nice fish, yeah it is a nice fish.

- Pretty fish.

- I know they couldn't stand that lure [laughs].

- It's just a matter of putting it in the right place.

Let's see if we can do this without, me and you ended up in the pond this morning.

You hold that for me?

- You got it.

- All the trouble hooks everywhere.

Let's just do it this way.

Come here big daddy.

- [male announcer]: The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [female announcer]: The North Carolina Wildlife Rescources Commission.

A fishing license goes a long way towards wildlife conservation in North Carolina.

Over 38,000 miles of managed streams and rivers, and 250,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs.

- [male announcer]: And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We fish from fresh to saltwater.

We provide fishing supplies and ad vice to every type of angler.

For all your fishing needs, EZ Bait and Tackle.

And by contributions from PBS NC vi ewers like you.

[light instrumental music] ♪ - Hello, welcome to the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

Well today's program is gonna take us out for some pond fishing, and we're gonna have a big time today.

- We really are, we're gonna be using top water baits and targeting some good size bass.

We actually were hoping for a big bass, somewhere in the 8 to 10 pound range.

We never found one that day, but we caught up some really pretty fish, four to five pounds range and all top water baits.

- Well not catching the big one that makes us go back to next-- - That's right, well, we know that this pond is really, really stocked nicely.

- What about the gear time now?

We had a lot of changes in bait that day.

- We'll go back and the guys will share with us what they use from a top water plugs to floating worms, try the varieties, kind of mixed it up, but we made for a successful day.

- Then we head on down to the kitchen with Donna, venison and biscuits today.

- I'll tell you, yeah, it's for that early morning when it's cool outside, you're getting ready to go up in the tree stand.

You need to look at this one.

This is a real tasty recipe from her today.

- We've got a good show lined up.

Let's get right to it on the Carolina Outdoors Journal.

- Get him in there.

God, I've been waiting on that bite there.

- That's a nice fish.

- I've been waiting on that bite.

- Nice fish, you hit it, hit him in the right place.

- In the middle of telling you a story about how many bass eat baby ducks.

[water splashing] Look at it pretty fish isn't it?

- Nice fish, yeah it is a nice fish.

- Pretty fish.

- I know they couldn't stay in that little world.

- It's just a matter of putting it in the right place.

Let me see if we can do this without me and you ended up in the pond this morning, you hold that for me?

- You got it.

- All the trouble hooks everywhere.

Let's just do it this way.

Come here big daddy.

- That's nice fish, Brian.

- Yeah, I was scared of him when I just came off the Roanoke River, I've been fishing single hooks with no barbs for a month and come down here with all these trouble hooks and didn't know how to act.

But I'll tell you what now, if you tell me we're going to catch fish like that, the rest of the morning.

- We gonna catch some-- - God, look how gold they are.

- We gonna catch something nice with that net.

- Really?

Fish acts like they're all spawned out but ole bucket mouth, pretty work.

- What's he weigh?

- That fish is 2 1/2 pounds.

I got the scale if you want me to really weigh him for you.

[water splashing] See you big daddy.

[water splashing] Woo, I really enjoyed that buddy.

- That was nice.

- Really, really enjoyed that.

- Let's do some more of those.

- I cannot believe how pretty the shoreline is, Ted.

- It's rather bassy looking in it.

- Golly, to be a pond.

I mean, there's some rivers and lakes and stuff in Eastern North Carolina, that look a lot like this, but for a pond, this is amazing.

This is really amazing.

- Yeah, it's really pretty.

These Cypresses just came up a few years ago.

- Did it really?

So this is all new?

- [clears throat] The Cypress is all new.

It was the water level-- - Well, you know-- - Came up.

- You know what it reminds me of?

I fish a lot on Lake Phelps and other than the water clarity, 'cause this is a dark kinda swamp green pond, other than water clarity or color, this shoreline looks like one of the sections on Lake Phelps.

It has a lot of young Cypresses and with some scattered grass and all, man, this is just structure everywhere.

Expect the fish on every cast.

- Oh my God!

- Ooh, that's a log!

- Oh my Lord, look at that fish.

- Whoo!

That is a nice fish.

- We only have one problem.

- What's that?

- I'm still hung up on that stump inside there, I don't want this one to jump.

He's across this rod.

- Which way is it?

- This way.

- Can you hand it to me?

- Nah just leave that one-- - Well hand me the rod with the fish on it.

- Hey, are you crazy?

Heck no, look at that.

- That's a nice fish.

- I knew.

- That is a nice fish.

- I knew, if I kept throwing.

Hey, you take this rod.

- [laughs] Golly man, I knew if I kept throwing that worm up in, along that bank, look how pretty that fish is.

- That is a nice fish.

- They had to eat it.

I'm might weigh him too, I didn't weigh the last one.

- Why don't you?

- I'm might weigh him.

- Don't lean or we'll be both be swimming.

- Oh, and what's your guess on that fish?

- 10 1/2.

[Ted Laughs] - What's your guess now?

- Put you right there, put you over there, I don't know, what do you think?

Look at the head.

- I'll say 4 1/2.

- Look at the head on that fish.

You just know how much more that fish had to weigh.

I'm gonna say that's probably a female that spawned out.

Okay, we'll weigh her just to find out.

- What's your guess?

- I'm gonna go along with you.

I think you're real close.

BogaGrip says about 4 1/4.

So that was pretty good.

- That's nice.

- Man working in the seafood business as long as you did y'all know how much fish weighs.

[Ted chuckles] Ted, its been a fairly decent spring, weather-wise hadn't it?

- It has been nice spring, but it was fairly dry.

We've gotten just enough rain to get the crops up.

- I'll tell you the past couple of weeks though, we've had some what they called frog stranglers, thunderstorms, I mean, I've seen some of the best lightning displays this spring that I've seen in years.

- Yeah, me too.

- But one thing it has been, it's been hot.

We had that Bermuda high with, I think we've had two Bermuda highs this year that have lasted weeks on end.

So things been real stable and real hot and it might have, this is May fishing so that might've hurt us a little bit for this time of year.

- Could have, we've managed to catch a few fish today.

- Oh yeah.

- He's on it.

- You got your hands full now boss.

[both chuckles] [water splashing] - He's healthy anyway.

[birds chirping] - I got rods going every different direction.

- He finally couldn't stand it.

Where you got those pliers right there.

- Pliers boss.

- He wasn't coming off either.

- That was funny, 'cause he just did miss it.

Next cast, he popped it again, now you made probably what?

Seven, eight casts through there?

- Yeah a bunch of cast in there.

He finally couldn't stay in it though.

He got the better of him.

A pound and a half.

- See you little buddy.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, man, That was pretty.

[upbeat music] - Whoo!

He couldn't stand it could he?

- I gave up on that fish, the brim ate my bug.

I totally gave up on him, and he ate the jitterbug boss.

[water splashing] - Get up outta there where I can catch him.

- Keeping them hooks in him now.

And keep me in the boat.

[water splashing] Tail walker.

[water splashing] Ole tail walking fish.

Hey, that was pretty man, he was hanging out right where he exploded while ago.

- What do you think of that, Brian?

- Whoo, I think that should have been my fish, but a little bluegill grabbed my popping bug, when I came by that skunk.

And you made a cast in there and he'd sailed on that jitterbug.

- And I believe that was bigger than yours.

- Oh, come on now.

- Put the scales on him.

- You want me to?

- Put the scales on him.

- You don't want me to hurt your feelings do you?

- [chuckles] No.

- That's a good fish, we'll see what he is.

- I don't think he's as big as yours though.

- I know he's not, especially since I'm holding a scale.

[Ted laughs] - That fish is three.

- 5 1/2 pounds.

- 3 1/4 pounds.

- Is it?

- Not quite 3 1/2.

- Pretty fish.

- Look at the head on that fish though.

These are healthy, beautiful fish, man.

- They are.

- You got a good fishery right here.

- They're in great shape.

[water roaring] - Golly, what a bite!

- You got to try to lift your rod around him.

- Yeah, there's more stuff in there too.

He's still on there, he's still on there.

Look at him, see his tail.

- You can go around it.

- He's wrapped around that.

Give me and I'll break that log off.

[water rumbling] I still see him thumping, oh my gosh.

- Want me to try to break the log off.

- Yeah break that stick off if you can, the second one.

Or just pull up the whole root.

He wrapped around it about-- - There we go, take him out that side.

- There we go, now he's on the other root.

- Now he's on another stick, you got him?

- He's wrapped around this thing about five times.

And he's not that big of fish, but you'd a thought man, that he was a nice one.

Now weigh that rascal, I mean he ate it.

Like a big salt water fish would do coming across a bait spread, he ate it going away.

- Let's see if I can get us out of this branch.

- I don't care what you take me now, I got me a fish.

[Ted chuckles] - There's your bait.

- He's, in my bait still, is it still in the boat with me?

- Yes, right on the seat.

Watch your rod tip, get you out of your rod.

- Rod tips everywhere, all kinds of stuff going on.

- You see fish.

Nice little bass, look how thick these fish are.

- They're thick, big headed.

Uh-oh, there we go.

Put him back.

Mr. Ted.

Come on back.

I mean he had it and spit it.

It's amazing a fish can do that before you can react.

- There he is.

- Got him, pretty, pretty, pretty.

He's around something too, now he came out.

Oh, that was just right boss man!

- He had that thing like right now.

- Just right.

Let me see what we got here.

Look how far your little shiny shad jumped up in the line there.

[water splashing] That's not a bad fish either, but this time of day I'll take him.

[water splashing] Come here, buddy.

Look at there.

- Pretty little bass.

- He is-- - He's like, look how much deeper green that one is in the other ones.

- Yup.

- Thank you.

- Little pound, pound and a half fish.

Big headed, thick back.

See you little guy.

[water splashing] - Tell you what?

- If you hold me right here.

- Okay.

- I'm gonna catch that fish.

That fish is at least eight pounds.

- All right, Brian, there you go.

- That's another one, twist you right down the edge of that log.

- They like that bait.

- We've gone to the plastic baits.

- Pretty fish.

- Come here, buddy.

Yeah man get in that lip, look at there.

That's a trip now.

We've, they've kind of gone off the top water baits, like we were throwing and we've gone to these four inch twitch baits, twitching em' down those logs and right along the shoreline in the shade, they're right, you can still see 'em, they're right on the surface.

- They can't stay in them though, they're going on.

- They're going on those things pretty hard.

I like fishing like that, I really do.

I like how much gold, these fish have in them.

It's kind of a neat color in it.

- It is, yeah we had one a while ago.

It was bright orange looking.

- Yeah, I'd heard that there's some 10 to 12 pound fish in this pond, so we'll put him back and let you put me on one of those.

[Ted chuckles] - Oh, he's pulling the boat Ted.

- Good gracious.

He's not nice.

- Yeah, I mean it's, for what we've called here in the last hour or so he's-- - Nicer anyway.

- He'll be a better class of fish, man.

- Oh, there it goes!

- They're just, they're barely grabbing those things.

- Yep.

- And I'm thinking that, there's just not getting a good hooks in.

- That was, he was about six pounds, or three pounds.

[Ted chuckles] - I need to re-evaluate some of the ones I've been catching then.

- He's probably, I'll tell you what, he's been close to three.

- Whoo, son, he had me wrapped.

- Nice fish.

- Don't jump off baby, now I've jumped off a couple fish today, Ted.

- Nice fish.

- I've jumped off a couple of days.

So I'm gonna try to hold on to him.

- He's three pounds I expect.

- Oh yeah.

- yeah.

- Oh yeah, that's a beautiful fish.

- Beautiful.

- Hot dog.

- He was laying right up on that shoreline rod.

- I told you I could see that log.

I cast right to that log.

Look at the head on that fish.

- He's pretty.

- Oh, good gosh, look at that.

- Nothing wrong with that.

- Hey, you ought to feel that line right there.

That little P-line held on for me, that he was, that log I could see it, right?

You heard me say it, I was going, and he was right off the end of that little Cypress tree.

- Joe, anytime you can get around a pond and fish, you always gonna have fun whether you catch a lot of fish or not.

- Oh, that's right.

And then you could tell that pond was a really, a really nice setting.

And of course Brian's been with us a number of times and this was a little something different.

He likes all types of fishing and he really likes fresh water fishing.

Doesn't get a chance to do as much as he'd like because of his busy schedule guiding, but just a lot of fun and real relaxing type of fishing.

- Well, we've got some more information we'd like to share with you.

Let's go to gear time.

[upbeat music] - Brian, what do you think?

We had some mighty fine fishing on top water baits this morning in the pond.

And I started off with the jitterbug and you started off with the-- - It's a spitting image.

It's kind of a walk the dog type bait with some rattles in it.

- Good looking bait, and we had some exciting action.

- The best bite I saw though I believe was on that jitterbug on this bank right here.

when we came up here, Ted, I mean, it's late May and, but man, it's been hot like we talked about a little bit earlier, but, we decided we were going to top water fish.

I mean that's what we wanted to do.

I've been looking forward to this for awhile and we did, and we stayed with the top water baits up and down the bank, pretty much all the way around this pond.

They got some real lethargic kind of bites.

We've got some real good bites early.

And so that's when we switched over to some of the soft plastics.

And I still say the jitterbug got the best bites, but I believe the floating worm got the big fish for today so far.

- Yeah it did.

- But there's some stuff that you've probably seen before just floating worms, I keep a box with me with a number of different colors for fishing, some of this bracket, the brackish and dark water stuff in Eastern Carolina.

And then, and these little twitch baits, man, they were pretty hot there at the end, caught some smaller fish on them.

But when we quit getting bites all together on the top water baits, the fish would eat these things just twitching them off the back of it.

You still saw every bite.

It was still like top water fishing.

And, I had a ball, and I know you were fishing.

- I did too.

- A spinning rod with your top water bait all morning.

- Yeah I was.

- I threw a bait caster.

It's a smaller size, but you don't need much of a rod in here.

It's not like you catching 50 pound drum and a light spinning rod, kind of a medium sized reel, pretty soft plastics, eight and 10 pound tests.

- Right.

- But the Cypress trees will give you a fit, if you're not careful.

- We may not have a ball.

- We got hung up a few times, I did too.

- I had a ball.

- There's nothing like catching bass on top water plugs to me.

- Yeah, and I know there's some bigger fish in here.

- Yeah, we didn't get any of the great big ones today, but we're going to.

- Yeah that'll work, well, let's get back at it.

- All right.

- Joe, that was some good, lets you know, you gotta be ready to change your baits.

- You really do, and of course the top water plugs, a lot of times will generate some of the most vicious attacks from these fish and, 'cause the fish, hitting it to knock it down and eat it.

And of course the plastic worms do their thing too.

But the devil's horse, the jitterbug, all of those have been around for years and continue to catch fish and fishing a pond that you knows got big fish too.

I think, well I talked to both the guys afterwards about it.

You tend to fish a little harder when you know there's a good chance of catching a bass as big as you've ever caught, and this pond certainly has those fish.

- And we left them there too that day.

- Yeah they're still there.

- Let's catch up with Donna, she's in the kitchen, she's got a recipe for us today, involving venison.

[upbeat music] - Hi, today we're gonna be making a breakfast strata in the kitchen, and this is a great recipe, you can make it ahead of time and then serve it in the next day.

So you can make it up that evening, put it in the fridge, 'cause it needs to chill for about eight hours anyway, and then bring it out in the morning and bake it, and it's a great dish, I think all your friends and your family will enjoy.

Let's go ahead and get started.

We're going to be using some biscuits that maybe day old biscuits that you might have.

So what we're gonna do with those, we're going to cut those into fours, and then we're going to layer our baking dish with that.

And you wanna make sure that it's an even, they're pretty evenly distributed and layered.

So none on top of each other, and we're gonna use about eight biscuits for this.

So let's go ahead and finish up that.

And then what we're going to be doing is, we're going to be using about one pound of venison sausage that has been cut and crumbled, or cooked and crumbled, excuse me, and drained.

So, let's go ahead and we'll just, you use about eight or six biscuits, whatever you have.

And then we're going to layer that, those biscuits with half of our venison sausage, and then we're going to place about half of our cheddar cheese on top of that, that's shredded, and you can add more cheese if you'd like, then we're gonna use some Monterey Pepper Jack cheese, which I like because adds a lot of flavor.

And I don't have to think about some other ingredients to go with it.

So, then for our topping, we're going to take eight eggs and we're going to mix those together.

[egg whisking] Then we're going to add about 1 1/2 cups of sour cream to this.

You can also use plain yogurt if you'd like, if you have it, then we're going to add one can, about four ounce can of green chopped chilies.

And the great thing about this recipe, it uses a lot of convenience items, but people are gonna think it's a really gourmet dish.

I think everybody's gonna like that.

So we're gonna mix all that together and it makes this nice thick, creamy mixture.

[mixture whisking] And once this is mixed together well, we're going to pour it over our biscuits and venison, and cheese mixture here.

So we're gonna pour that over and coat that really well.

Then we're gonna top this with the remaining cheese and venison, just make sure that coated really well.

And all of the, this mixture is gonna soak up into the biscuits, which is gonna be really great.

And then we're gonna sprinkle the rest of our venison over the top, and then top it with our cheese.

We're going to cover this and place it in our refrigerator for about eight hours or overnight.

And then we're going to bring it out and bake it at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes until it's nice and firm.

And then you can serve this with some fresh fruit, if you'd like.

It's a great lunch dish or a breakfast dish, and this is what it looks like when it comes out, as you can see, it's nice and golden brown and the cheese has melted and it looks nice and crunchy around the edges.

I really think that you're gonna enjoy it and it'll make your house smell really great as well.

So I hope you enjoyed the breakfast strata and that simple cooking here on Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- Thanks a lot Donna for that recipe, that outta get you going on one of those cold, winter mornings, Joe, let's go back to the ponds.

There's a lot of ponds in North Carolina?

- I tell you, they really are.

And that's a source for fishing opportunity, just in Wake County alone there's I think over 5,000 farm ponds just in Wake County alone.

So and that's the way it is across North Carolina.

So it's an opportunity, of course, if you wanna fish a pond, you wanna ask the landowner before you go in, but, and not all ponds will be stocked.

Like this pond was, but this pond has been managed for a number of years and for big bass and yeah, it makes it worthwhile to do that especially if you're a landowner and want some quality fishing.

Look into doing that, and you can have a quality fish ring.

- It's easy fishing too.

- Yeah, laid back and just working your, working around the edge of the pond, and again, we chose top water baits that day, but you can worm fish, you can live bait fish, top water fishing tends to bring out the best in largemouth bass fishing, and just those strikes on the surface are worth the trip.

- Just another great day outdoors in North Carolina.

- You've got it.

- For Joe Albea, I'm John Moore.

Thanks for joining us on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- [male announcer]: And make sure to visit our website for more information.

- [male announcer]: The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [female announcer]: The North Carolina Wildlife Rescources Commission.

A fishing license goes a long way towards wildlife conservation in North Carolina.

Over 38,000 miles of managed streams and rivers, and 250,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs.

- [male announcer]: And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We fish from fresh to saltwater.

We provide fishing supplies and ad vice to every type of angler.

For all your fishing needs, EZ Bait and Tackle.

And by contributions from PBS NC vi ewers like you.

[light instrumental music] ♪