TBC West Lake Ft Phantom - 06-19-11

This is a very deceiving picture!

Oh! It is a beautiful sunrise,
the temperature was nice,
and at this point the wind wasn't too bad.

And it was Father's day.
What a great way to spend it.

With my hubby,
fishing.

My dad first took me fishing,
years ago,
to a catfish farm.
What better place to start a child fishing!
A place where you're guaranteed to catch fish.
I loved it.
His pocketbook did not!
And then there was the crappie fishing!
He is the one that instilled the love of fishing in me!
Thank you Poppa!

But these pictures tell the true story of the day.

Look at those waves!
And that towel on his seat!
(and yes! Ft Phantom IS REALLY that color!)

So you think I just captured it just right?
Here's another shot,

OK. So that one doesn't look so bad either.

Let me show you a little film I took...

W - I - N - D - Y!!!

That is what today was. It was terrible!
It was one of those days when being air born on your trip across the
lake was the norm.
The days I hate.

We started out at some docks across from the spill way
with no success,
so it was time to move over to our favorite stick ups.
Thank goodness for our new trolling motor!
It had to work hard to keep us there.

Frank boated an under
(Ft Phantom has a 16" minimum on Large mouth)
and then broke off what we are pretty sure was a decent fish.

Then we moved back over to the docks.
He started catching lots of unders and
I actually boated one too,
but I soon succumbed to the heat and wind
and told Frank I was just going to be his netter the rest of the day.

He caught two nice keepers in this area and we stayed here the rest of the day.
He did break off again on a fish that he said he couldn't turn his head.
Fishing around the docks has it's drawbacks.
He was fishing under some stairs when he had the hit
and the fish swam under them and it cut his line.
So we went to weigh in with just two fish,
but that was better than some others!

Mattie May got to meet us at the ramp

so she helped Grumpy with weigh in!

Making sure they weigh them right!

We ended up with 5.54 and about 4Th place...

and that put us (unofficially) in fifth place for the year!
YAY US!!
Really yay Frank!
He does the majority of the work!

Our Championship tournament is
September 24 & 25
at
Lake Limestone

And our top six tournament will be
October 29Th
at

SAM RAYBURN!!!

We are very excited!
We haven't fished Big Sam in years
and are very ready to go back!

Until next time,
God Bless!

Wind? What Wind?

My goodness! I don't really remember the wind blowing like this! They just said on the radio it is blowing at 30 MPH with gust up to 48MPH! From my window it looks like a continuous gust!!! It hasn't slowed down a bit!

I am hoping it lays before Saturday. I sure was hoping to get on the lake!

Lake Leon - Better than Last Year

Tournament #2 for the TBC West Region is done, and I don't plan on looking back!

We met at the hotel on Saturday night, registered, then headed out to supper. The fellowship and visiting was great. The food was good. But the smoke was terrible! I guess, living in Abilene, I am just spoiled to the fact there is no smoking in any public places. When I go out of town, I expect the same. Not so! The little restaurant we were in was a complete smoking establishment so along with my food, I ate smoke. I did manage not to get sick and that was nice.

I am not sure if they are talking about supper, solving all the problems of the world, or telling about the one that got away!

We started with a nice day, partly cloudy skies and not much wind. As usual, a beautiful west Texas sunrise.

Frank had a decent day, three keeper fish, a few small ones (as seen in the picture below! He was so mad at me for taking this!), and one striper that went on a sailing trip when Frank got him off his hook. They put up a pretty good fight so when you get to where you can see them, you are a bit disappointed.

I on the other hand could not stay out of the rocks and trees. I had two small fish with the largest only being 13 1/2". The other one I think was smaller than the one Frank has in the picture above! All in all we had 6.03 pounds, lost about 5 spinner baits, and got beat up by the wind. Weatherbugg reported 29 mph at Dyess AFB with gusts of 45! I am beat, but poor Frank is exhausted from battling the wind from the front of the boat!

We stopped at DQ in Eastland and ate with Russell and Michelle, then headed home. We saw three grass fires to the south of the interstate. We were worried they might close the highway because of smoke.

This is smoke not clouds!

We also saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the way home. I did take a picture of it. Do you see it? I promise, it is in this picture.

There is a tournament next Saturday at Ivie, but we don't know if we will be fishing or not. It depends on how much time Frank gets to spend with Mattie May this week and what the weather does. I promise you, if the wind blows like it did today, I will not be on that lake!

HOT, HOT, HOT

I am back and alive. After a month of illness, throwing my back out the Monday before vacation then being on vacation, I am up, moving, and fishing. Well I am not back to 100% but I am getting there. Sunday was very hot and extremely windy. The wind did not help my back any but here are pics from our tournament on Father's day.

Does this picture look familiar?
SALT CEDARS! No we didn't fish OH Ivie again, this is Hubbard Lake. What we were really fishing was grass, lots of grass, all around these salt cedars. We threw spinner baits, rattle traps, frogs, and worms. But we just couldn't get any decent fish to take the bait. We had two fish that weighed just over three pounds, definitely nothing to brag about.

Because my back is still not back to normal, this is what I saw most of the day.

You don't recognized this? It is looking through the top of my hat that I kept over my face while I laid in the back of the boat with my feet up in my chair. It was the only way I could get any relief.

Without the hat, this is what we saw.
Isn't that a beautiful blue sky? That really is the sky, clear and sunny all day. There were no clouds at all. Oops,
there's one,

and a few more. These were late in the day and obviously gave no break from the sun and heat.

So not a great day on the lake, but, as usual, we had fun!

Not Picture Worthy (for Us Anyway!).

Frank and I have talked at length about joining Stillwaters Bass Club, and today we made the commitment. What a great faith based organization this is. We knew many of the members already through work, clubs and years of friendships. They are very family oriented, but very competitive. And the tournaments are held on Saturdays! That is a bonus for us.

The tournament was held at O.H. Ivie, our third tournament there in three weeks. It was extremely strange weather for May. We woke up to forty three degree temperatures and 20 to 25 mph winds! What a shock to the system. We decided to fish the same area we had fished in the two prior tournaments. It was not as good to us this weekend as it was previously, due in most part to the wind. That was the reason for no pictures (see this post). The area has not changed much in the past three weeks, but no snakes this time!

This time, Frank and I were actually fishing against each other which is rather hard to do. Really the only thing we do differently is keep his and her fish in separate live wells. His live well carried two fish for the majority of the day. Mine carried...nothing. I could not catch a measurable fish to save my life. Frank said it was because of the wind and the trouble he was having with the boat. I say it is because he is the better fisherman!

Needless to say, we walked away from this tournament a little lighter in the pocketbook and a bit more beat up from the wind. We did both manage to not get sunburned and I managed to stay on my feet in the boat (again, see this post!).

It was a picture day for many of the fishermen today. Be sure to check out the Stillwaters web page to check out the club and see the big fish of the tournament. It was a doozy!

Everyone at Stillwaters, thank you for making us feel so welcome and we look forward to many years of fishing with you.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for allowing us the time to spend together doing something we love and for everyone in this great club that we have joined. Thank you for keeping everyone safe today and for the cooler weather. Thank you for all in your wonderful creation and the fabulous things you have given us.
In Jesus name,
Amen.

This was a Tournament I Would Rather Forget!

This was just one of those days. It actually started Saturday night when we called for our wake up call. I reminded the man to set his clock forward one hour and he quickly informed me that I was wrong. He would set his clock up SUNDAY night just like everyone else. So as a precaution Frank and I set our phone alarms and sure enough. we received our wake up call at 7 AM one hour late. We were actually walking out the door. We had kind of hung around to see if the phone would actually ring.

We didn't get in a real hurry to get to the lake and stopped and had breakfast. It was still dark due to the time change and it had been awhile since Frank had been on the lake and we didn't want to damage the boat.

Once on the water, I was still not feeling very well so I slept most of the morning. Frank struggled to find a place to fish. There was land where there was none and there were no cattails where they used to be. He felt like he was on a lake he had never been on. And he kept trying to make sure I was OK, such a good doctor.

I am not sure what time the wind hit but it was very strong. Poor Frank, it just kills his back when it is like that, but he will not give up. He just kept fishing. I finally started fishing around noon with no luck. Second cast and my rod with the spinner bait was done for the day. I put a knot in the line that was not coming out and we will just have to strip the line and start over. Then I fished with my crank bait. This went ok, I had a few backlashes but nothing I couldn't get out. We were fishing around some docks and it wasn't to long until I casted up over a dock and the lure hung on the railing on the back side of the dock. There was no getting to the little guy and we just had to break the line and leave him hanging there.

By this time we only had about an hour to fish so I threw Frank's spinner bait until he decided he had had enough and we headed in. He did boat a couple of fish and I had one little dink that I could barely feel on the line, but nothing to weigh.

Congratulations to Warren and Liz Hutcherson. They won with around 10 pounds. And I'm sorry, I don't remember who won Ladies Big fish or Big Fish. You can click here to see more snap shots from weigh in. Check out the TBC web site here to get more information from the tournament.

Our next tournament is April 20 at O.H. Ivie. Hope to see you all there.