As I mentioned last week, this past weekend was my LifeLine Fish with the Pros Texas event, and it was without a doubt the most fun LifeLine event we've ever had — and they've all been great. This year, we moved it down to Lake Amistad, so it had a tournament feel to it. In the past, we've held it on the private lakes in East Texas, which is a lot of fun, but this was extra special. It was one of those perfect weekends where we caught the weather just right and the fishing just right. It was a neat time.
As far as the fishing goes, we were catching about 45 bass a day per boat. The format was that we had four pros and eight guests. Each pro hosted two different guests each day. We had a three-fish tournament on the final day, Sunday. But the format wasn't the three biggest fish that came to the boat; each person had to contribute a fish to the three-fish total.
Therefore, if the pros caught three 5-pounders, they could only keep one of them. The key was to get everyone in the boat a good fish. My team ended up winning it, and our three weighed 14-12. We never caught a big one; they were all in the 5-pound range. What we did was whoever needed an upgrade was up in the front of the boat. I was actually the last one to get a good fish, so I was sweating it there for a bit. Anyway, it was a lot of fun for a good cause.
The money that the guests paid all went to LifeLine. LifeLine does great work for a lot of kids. More specifically, they'll work with more than 12,000 children and families this year. That's huge growth from a couple of years ago. We have some wonderful success stories of children whose lives have been changed by LifeLine. They provide hope when there may not have been any hope before. For some of the children, the worker they meet is the first person who has ever loved them. It's really an important thing. To be able to do something I enjoy — like fishing — and make a difference with it just blows my mind. I don't feel like I did anything special this weekend, but it benefitted LifeLine greatly. All I had to do was go out and do what I love!
I want to thank the pros who were there — Elite Series pro Matt Reed, new Elite rookie Keith Combs, and former Elite pro Kurt Dove. These guys were very generous in giving their time and energy to help make this event special. However, you can't fish all the time. Sometimes you have to go deer hunting. So, I'm shifting gears this afternoon. We're heading out west to Coleman, Texas, where Jimmye Sue's folks live, for opening weekend. Out there in Coleman, we're probably not going to bag a monster buck, but there are some decent deer. It's a place where I plan to get some meat for the freezer.
We love to eat venison at our house, so I would like to get two deer this weekend. Maybe Little Alton and I will each get one. I usually take a whole one and have it made completely into jalapeno-cheese summer sausage. The other one will be used for hamburger and other traditional things. Because of where we're hunting, I'll be looking for a big, fat doe. There's nothing better for the freezer. I'm sure Little Alton will be buck hunting, though.
Oh, I have to make a Baylor sports comment. The Baylor Bears football team defeated Texas handily last week in Austin! I don't know if Baylor's ever beat Texas in Austin before. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but Baylor is ranked 21st in the nation! Congratulations to the football team. We have some tough games ahead of us, though. We play Oklahoma State and Texas A&M and Oklahoma, so I'm hoping we can get at least one more win out of these last three games. Regardless of what happens, Baylor is going to be bowl-bound for the first time in a long time. Basketball also got underway this past week. We got to watch a few exhibition games for both the Baylor men and women. I
t's fun getting back into that groove. Also, even though they lost, I want to congratulate the Texas Rangers on a great season, and congratulate the Giants on a World Series win. They had a pitching staff that couldn't be stopped. Oh, one last note regarding the elections we had past weekend, I was very glad to see the shift of power in congress. Maybe we can slow down some of the rampant government spending and expansion. I hope that we can put there brakes on a little bit.