I am currently fishing with some old friends in east Texas on their ranch, and we had a ball! This 7-year-old, 42-acre lake has a special place for me because back when my friend was building this lake, he had me come over before it was finished and I got the chance to give him advice on how to sculpt the bottom on the lake, where to put the brush and where to dig out creek channels. To see it become such a good fishery makes me very happy. There was a lot of elaborate dirt work that went into it.
The only thing that went wrong this trip was that we got run off the water at noon by thunderstorms. We waited to go back out, but it’s not going to clear up. The biggest fish we caught today was a 8 ½-pounder, and I was fortunate enough to catch that on an XCalibur XCS crankbait. All told, we caught 42 fish. We actually took a fin sample off of the big fish and are sending it to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens to do some DNA testing on this fish. A while back, the Fisheries Center sold some ShareLunker offspring to the highest bidder, and my buddy won it. There are good genetics in the lake and they want to see if this was one of their fish.
I also spent some time scheduling a charity for Legacy Outfitters to a top-secret managed lake this month. It’s the one that we caught 365 bass out of in a single day last year. Former Dallas Cowboys Randy White and Burton Lawless will be there, so it’ll be a great time.
Baylor basketball is in full swing, too, and of all the college sports, basketball is our favorite. We’ve been to multiple men’s and women’s games this week ,and are having fun getting into that. Our ladies are ranked No. 1 in the nation, and the men are No. 12. Everything I have to do is scheduled around these games – seriously.
Regarding the recent 2013 Classic announcement, I think this could be a great tournament, or not so great. It could have fantastic weights, or it could be the Classic to remember because it got cancelled by the blizzard of 2013. We’ll see.
I am planning my practice for the 2012 Classic for the first weekend of December. The Red River goes off-limits of Dec. 11. I’m not going in cold, because I know what to look for that time of year. It’s going to be a matter of looking for new places and refreshing my memory about what it going to be the best decision regarding locking through.
Oh, Little Alton and I got to shoot some deer this past weekend in south Texas. We went to La Perla Ranch down there and participated in a management hunt. We shot a bunch of does and some cull bucks, so now I have venison in the freezer to last me the rest of the year. They needed to take some deer because this place is on a strict management program.
Anyhow, we’ve got lots going on and most all of it is going to be lots of fun.