Ever notice you rarely, if ever, see professional bass fishermen gripping their fishing poles with their butt cheeks? Maybe there is a rule against it in professional fishing circles. Who knows?

What I do know is the younger fishermen out there are big fans of the butt cheek squeeze fishing pole grip. My daughter Kate was a natural at it. Self-taught, in fact. When she was five, I would take her and her older sister, Sarah, to a pond when the bream were bedding. Kate usually held her fishing pole in the normal way to reel in a fish, but then she tied into a half-pound bass. Just like that, the pole was placed between her thighs and she clamped down on the handle by all available means, if you get my drift.

Even when I was helping her she refused to relinquish her “grip” on the pole. We landed the bass primarily by backing up until it was flopping on the bank. A precedent was set.

The reason I bring this up at all is because I was watching a local fishing show on YouTube and the host was fishing with his daughter, who I believe was seven. She tied into a nice sized striper and, before you could say “Where the sun don’t shine,” the butt end of the pole was sticking out of the butt end of the fisherman.

You could tell by her dad’s total lack of a reaction that this was just another day at the races.

To my way of thinking, if a couple of little girls can master the hand-less grip, so can the average professional bass fisherman. Once a professional bass fisherman got the butt cheek fishing grip down, he could conceivably work two fishing rods at the same time, thus doubling his odds of catching fish. He could cast with the rod and reel in his hand and troll with the other or, depending on the condition of his knees, bounce a jig off the bottom.

Of course, it would take some time and practice to learn to perform the “no hands” hook set, which would probably entail squeezing for all you are worth and leaping straight up. I can’t emphasize jumping straight up enough. Otherwise, you may jump out of the boat. Then there is the possibility of losing your tackle in the event the fish that takes your lure is a better puller than you are a squeezer. No doubt a whole line of videos instructing fisherman how to strengthen their fishing grips would flood the market.

Nowadays Kate reels in fish in the traditional manner. In fact, she recently reeled in an eight pound bass. She kept the butt of the rod above the navel during the entire battle. She might consider going back to the old butt squeeze days, but only if she takes up professional bass fishing.