The final four - Sardis n Arkabutla

Time for a new lake to see and compare the lakes of these "big four". You see, I had already fished Grenada this year, Billbob and I were just on Enid Lake (you can read part one of my Summer time trip to Mississippi here), and we intended to fish Arkabutla and Sardis within the next few days. The fact was, although we moved camp to Sardis, we were going out with Jimfish the next day on Arkabutla. We were camping on Sardis and would get on that lake a bit later. Jimfish knows Arkabutla like the back of his hand, and since he graciously invited us out on his favorite lake, we jumped at the opportunity.




On Arkabutla we were essentially Spider Rigging. We caught a ton of fish, butthey were all small, and many were small Bass. I kinda think the fact that we were fishing out of an unfamiliar boat (unfamiliar to Jimfish as it was Billbobs boat), and there were two war vets on board, prevented us from focusing too heavily on fishing. You put two veterans on a boat together and there's a whole lot more trading stories than serious fishing going on, that's for sure. We had a great time together even if we did not catch any slab crappie, and I enjoyed listening to those stories, at least most of those stories (talk about being a fly on the wall). I even think Jimfish enjoyed Billbob and I baiting his hooks, and taking off all the fish for him. He would swing the lines our way and we took care of everything. All he had to was fish, and of course tell us stories. Thank you so much Jimfish, for taking us out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day.






Oh, here's the mandatory GEEZER picture with the GEEZER shirts:



The heat, oh God, the heat. It was hot as heck there. After our fishing trip with jimfish we had to go back to camp and endure the heat, and it was bad. I think it reached 98 that day. But thanks to good old Southern Hospitality, and the graciousness of a board member called "Rip-a-lip", we had a reprieve. Rip-a-lip brought his fifth wheel camper down for us to use. He was not even going to be there all week, but he bought down his trailer anyway!



Rip-a-lip,you saved us. Believe it or not, you saved us from more than just the heat. The next day it stormed up a storm! Yes I said it. A storm came through that took out all three of Billbobs canopies.


Barbie posted this pic. A tornado or micro-burst happened nearby at the Sardis Marina:



More pics from Majflyboy:
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/off-topic-mississippi/183250-sardis-marina.html


Billboband I stood in the down pouring rain trying to hold down his canopies to no avail. Thankfully we were able to use Rip-a-lips camper to finally get our soggy hides out of the storm.

We did finally get to fish Sardis and the fishing was absolutely awesome. The graph was loaded with fish "all the time", and we bought in some real nice slabs.



Billbobpics, in his natural environment, or "caught in the wild":



Look at this hog. The scale only says 1.7 pounds, but it was bouncing around and it displayed low during the photo. It was over 2 pounds:



Later, the gang started to show up for the Fruitjar tournament on Saturday. Satdoc1 and Torch arrived. Satdoc1 was doing what he does best, doctoring satellite dishes. You know, until just now while writing this, I did not get it, Satdoc1! How stupid am I!





That night evening Bigblue, Tushhog n Trish all stopped by, and so did Creekslick (great finally meeting my Arkansas moderator in person), and rockmike. I seen Jerkn Meat on friday morning when they came to pick up billbob to go fishin. That's the time when I left to go on my long drive home so I missed the Friday night eats:
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/off-t...lace-enid.html

Here are some pictures of the Fruit Jar event.

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/off-topic-mississippi/183428-sardis-fj-pics.html
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/off-t...-i-missed.html

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