Thread: A Wonderful Day

For quite some time I have anticipated todays gathering. Y’all know my story and there has also been some other gatherings that I had in mind to attend that just didn’t happen. Speck Detector shared my boat today and had my back, making sure I didn’t do anything dumb. Thank You Jeff. We met and had a relaxing time before launching, just catching up with some old friends. The sun rose enough that I couldn’t deny the feeling to go any longer and we dropped in and headed back to my usual starting point.

Almost got all the rods out and one goes down. Not a giant but a keeper that would have many cookie cutter friends to follow. 5 fish to the boat had 2 in the box. Never getting real busy but once, and pulling through some unproductive water, we took the grand tour of the west end of the lake. We steady added to our count, one here and one there, til about 9:00 when we pulled in and headed east. I haven’t been there in quite some time and had no tracks on the GPS to refer to. We found the depth we wanted and started picking up fish, couple of which worthy of the box. Then one of the little rods doubled over hard and Jeff said “This ain’t no crappie”. He wasn’t wrong. Why is it them big submarines like our tiny little jigs? Thankfully is wasn’t too big and after several attempts I was able to get a net under it so we could retrieve our little shiny thing it liked so much. That done, we turned to make another pass, only to find the bite had slowed. Pulled in and ran for the north side, got turned around as to which sign was which, and finally got lines back out for our last pull. Got into an area that I had some GPS tracks to follow, got a few more with a couple for the box, and just ran out of time. Wrapped up and ready to travel I pointed toward the ramp and a good lunch that we knew was waiting. Lots of familiar boats at the ramp. Phantom, Flycaster, Lonehunter just to name a few.

I going to go ahead and tell you that we had that parking lot full with trucks and trailers and boats that weren’t going home! O’currans on one side tying his stuff down, and Lonehunter on the other doing the same. I’m liking being around friends right about now. I had stuff to button up, and Jeff some things to go in his car so it wouldn’t be forgotten, and then it was time for weigh in. Man what a crowd! New faces and familiar ones all visiting and smiling. And one that joined us for the first time, My Queen. This was just getting better all the time. Not being one for boats and the water I was glad to see that she came for the weigh in and fish fry.

I was busy as a man can be putting faces to familiar screen names. Several new members also made it today, nice to meet you all. Fish weighed in, we fell short of any bragging rights, but that was the least of it all. Food was on everyone’s mind. Fish, shrimp (Thank You Danny) some great Cole slaw, potatoes, cookies, apple cobbler, and some wonderful peanut butter pie (Thank you Doug for bringing those) which my wife thoroughly enjoyed. I’m sure I’m forgetting some things but what I can say is that it was all just great. I ate too much and was thankful that I had no fish to clean. Slab also had a few shirts made to commemorate this as the Chuck Auten slabfest for some of the folks attending. I think Chuck would have approved and had a good time with us.

I can go on for a while longer but I think you get the point. I had a wonderful day in good company and surrounded by some of the best folks I know. Many thanks to Speckanator and Flycaster and several others who went above and beyond to make this all happen without a hitch. Food left over, it was clear that a lot of thought and preparation had been put into this. I’m looking forward to the next one, and with luck I’ll get to travel to one soon. Slab, Wifey and Billbob making the show was just icing on the cake, always good to see you folks. A few pics of the day below, please add whatever you would like to share. Til next time, with a big smile.....Skeet

Help me Micah, please rotate my pics. Thanks.

Thanks to all that put this together and made it work, it was a great day for sure!
It was nice to see some familiar faces and put a face with some names.
A big thanks to Tim for the jig heads, I will put them to good use.
Thanks to Slab for the shirt, but I think I may have lost it to the wife already. lol

It was good fun with a bunch of good people. I caught a decent amount of fish this morning (had 25 on the clicker) kept 5 that were just shy of the 12" mark, never found any big fish but the ones that came home just took a nice hot grease bath.
Had a great time and looking forward to the next one!