I was lucky enough to spend last week in Hilton Head South Carolina with my family visiting with my in laws and celebrating my four year anniversary with Andrea. Hilton Head is loaded with golf courses. I intended to play a round or two but also planned to do a little fishing.
Before going down, I talked to a few local charter captains. Captain Johny Walker (love the name) told me how the golf course ponds had plenty of big bass in them. He said he had caught several fish in the 12 pound range by fishing the ponds in the morning before the golfers hit the course. This sounded pretty good to me since it had been quite a while since I had fished open water. I was also excited to possibly catch my biggest bass ever.

The weather down there was a little cool. Nights in the 40s and day time highs the first couple days only in the 50s. I figured this was going to slow down any bite that way have been going on. As it turned out I think it did slow it down but it didn't turn them all the way off. The first night out, my father in law took me  to a pond just a few yards down the cart path from the condo. I tied on a buzz bait and slung it out while standing in the tee box. a couple casts later I was hoisting a four plus pounder from the edge of the pond. I think my father in law was a little surprised that the ponds he had lost the occasional golf ball in had fish of that size in it.  Maybe they grow big eating those Top Flights.

I managed to catch a couple more fish on top water baits. I never had much luck throwing worms or spinner baits. I did get nervous a few times as gators in the 10 to 12 feet range would slowly swim over to see what I was doing or would lay just off the green when driving a par three. All in all I had a great time. Next year I will have to do a little research to find ponds with good populations and try to whack a few bigger fish.