This has been a great sports week for the Jones family, with the exception of the Dallas Cowboys game on Sunday. Baylor’s Robert Griffin winning the Heisman Trophy was fantastic. I never thought I would see a player from Baylor even make the trip to New York as a finalist, much less bring home the hardware. That more than made up for the ugly defeat the Cowboys suffered at the hands of Eli Manning and the Giants.
His win is huge for the university, and it’s really special for a long-time fan such as myself. They’re having a ceremony for him tomorrow night at the men’s basketball game.
I made the mistake of driving all the way to Dallas for the Giants-Cowboys game Sunday to watch Eli Manning put on an amazing performance at the expense of the Cowboys.
I decided to do a little fishing this week down at Fayette County Lake in central Texas, too. It’s a power plant lake, and those are always good places to go in the wintertime. The warm water and current tend to negate any bad effects from recent cold spells, like the one we had last week. The fish are heavy and prespawn, and today it’s a flipping bite. The shore of the lake is lined with cattails, and some of the coves have standing timber in them; you’d think they want a One Knocker or spinnerbait, but soft plastics have been the ticket.
We haven’t caught any giant fish but we did get a 6-pounder. I’m fishing with Pat Curry and Junior Williams. It’s always a lot of fun fishing with someone new and showing them things they may not have known.
Something else I’ve got going on right now is that I’m on a diet. I’m not a good dieter because I love to snack and eat junk food, but it’s actually working this time. I’ve dropped 11 pounds, and I’m halfway there. Hopefully by the time the Classic rolls around I’ll be to my prime fishing weight, and for me that’s about 200 pounds.
Oh, a few weeks ago I went to Skeeter and got my new boat. I’m not fishing out of it yet, though. I like to do all of my own rigging, and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I brought it home, parked it and haven’t taken the shipping cover off of it yet. Usually when I get a new boat, it’s ready to be on the water by the next day. I am really in the mood to get it broken in and rigged up. It’s the FX20 with a new prop on the 250-horsepower SHO Yamaha. It’s got a new 26-pitch prop that’s perfect for the FX series. It’s a good compromise between the 25 and 27, and I can’t wait to see what it does with that.
This weekend – and this is something I don’t get to say very often – Jimmye Sue and I are going deer hunting. I usually go with Little Alton or some buddies, but she and I are going to cull some deer out of south Texas. More than anything, it’s going to be a good time for us to spend together among the mesquite and cactus. Then I don’t have anything official on my schedule until after Christmas, so I’ll get to cool my heels for a bit.