Grew up in FL fishing with a cane pole. Me and my brothers fished in some ponds down the street from us and I be darned if the only way to catch the big cats was with a cane pole. We had to bait the hook (hot dog) swim out to a certain spot, jam the cane pole in the mud and swim back to shore and wait. When the pole bent over you swam back out, grabbed the pole and swam 1 handed to the bank with the pole and cat on it. What seemed to be 20 lbs then, I realize today was about 6-8 lbs but using a regular pole casting out never caught them, only the cane pole stuck in the mud. We fished for years that way until a mower ran over our cane poles. We left them down there along the fence line so we only had to ride the bicycle down with two hot dogs in your pocket. Only to find someone brush hogged over them one day and that was the end of the cane pole era.