Cletus T.
Senior Member
Well folks…..I come to you today asking my GON Family for a favor, as many of yall know we have a Spring Fling Fishing Trip that we go on every year and what started out as 4-buddies loading up the truck and driving 4-hours to Paradise PFA in South Georgia to camp and fish for the weekend has grown into an annual event that has grown in numbers as well as the scale of the event. It’s the one time of year where we all get to be together at the same time in the same place and it truly is a special event. Most of us are old High School Buddies or College buddies but we all look forward to this event all year long. It’s sort of like a 2nd Christmas for us. Over the years the location has changed for us as we started out at Paradise and then went to the Brickyard Ponds over in Augusta for one year and then back to Paradise and then to Charlie Elliot and then for the last 5-years we have held it at Big Sandy Plantation right outside of Macon, Ga. I have become good friends with the owner of Big Sandy and he was kind enough to open up his place to me and my spring fling crew. It’s been a wonderful 5-years there where we have caught a bunch of big bass and made some life-long memories. A good number of my group have caught their personal best at Big Sandy during our Spring Fling trips so Big Sandy has been soooooooooooooo good to us and we’ll forever be grateful for the time we had there!
Big Sandy was put up for sale about two years ago and we all knew that this day would finally come, but we just kept hoping that maybe it wouldn’t……..well………it has!
Big Sandy has been sold and our access to this special place is no longer available. It breaks my heart but I’m not the one that has to pay the bills on the place and keep it running all year long so I totally get it. I need to remind myself to be thankful and grateful for the time we did have there.
I’m looking for a new place to have our Spring Fling Fishing Trip at that is similar to Big Sandy which is like such………
-Private
-Has multiple bodies of water (some big……..some small) as we have guys that bring their bass boats but also guys that bring their skiffs and Jon-boats and kayaks so we like to have different types of water to fish to accommodate the majority of the group
-A workable boat ramp that big boats can use
-A Lodge – a bed to sleep in and a hot shower to use at the end of the day (BUT….we are not opposed to camping if that is what is required of us to use a private place)
-An outside fire pit (as we normally sit around the fire and talk about the days fishing and laugh and talk about the good ole days)
-Electricity – so we can charge up our batteries at night
-Would like to plan the trip for the 2nd weekend in March (9th, 10th, 11th) and we fish hard for 3-days and then wake up Sunday Morning give the place a real good cleaning and head home!
Now I understand that this is a lot to ask of somebody as private places are private for a reason but we will pay the owner as well. We’re not expecting a free hand-out and we understand that all these things I just listed comes at a cost……..and we will gladly pay that cost. We will also work for it too. If there is any landscaping needs or roads need to be dragged or trees need to be cut down we can do that too. We have some great workers with some great tools in our spring fling bunch so we have done these very things in the past for Big Sandy so we’re willing to work for our keep too!
There are about 20-25 of us so I understand that having that many guys on your place makes an impact but we do a great job of cleaning up after ourselves. We don’t keep any fish (unless you want us to harvest some) We’re all pretty good bass anglers too so we don’t gut-hook your fish and we snap a few photos and then back into the water they go. We’re not rowdy party people any more either so while we will have a few cold beers at night around the campfire, we’re not going to be up late and howling at the moon. This trip is a fishing trip and you can’t fish good the next day when you stay up too late…….we’re old (older) now and everybody wants to win that Big Bass Champion Trophy so folks tuck in for the night way earlier than we use to.
This will be our 15-year anniversary of having the Spring Fling Fishing trip and I’ve shared most of those trips with all you fine folks here on GON. I hope over the years it hasn’t come off as bragging or “showy” but yall know me around these parts and I’m a storyteller…….I like to tell stories and I like to share our experiences with all of yall so if you have a place like this or maybe you know somebody that has a place like this I would very much like to talk to them and see if we could come to an agreement and work something out. If you are the owner of the place and you would like to join us then bring it on. You can see with your own two eyeballs how special this trip is to all of us….and you can keep an eye on your place too to make sure we aren’t stepping out of line?
Anyhoo……….I was hesitate to put this out there as it may come across as desperate and I guess in a way we are desperate. We’re desperate to keep this trip going in the right direction and for the last 5-years it has been a little slice of heaven for us. This trip means a lot to me. It means a lot to all of us. The older we get the more we realize what truly is important in this crazy hectic life that we all live. For us to still be doing this trip after 15-years is pretty impressive. We all understand the importance of this trip. It’s more than a t-shirt and some pictures and a video. It’s more than a GON post. It’s more than “just another fishing trip” The older I get the more I realize that friendship is one of the most important things we have and like anything, you get what you put into it. I put a lot of effort into this trip because it means so many things to our small group of friends…..but the memories we make will last a lifetime.
If you have a place like this………………….would you please consider letting us keep making those memories and we’ll be forever Grateful to you!
Your Friend Cletus
Big Sandy was put up for sale about two years ago and we all knew that this day would finally come, but we just kept hoping that maybe it wouldn’t……..well………it has!
Big Sandy has been sold and our access to this special place is no longer available. It breaks my heart but I’m not the one that has to pay the bills on the place and keep it running all year long so I totally get it. I need to remind myself to be thankful and grateful for the time we did have there.
I’m looking for a new place to have our Spring Fling Fishing Trip at that is similar to Big Sandy which is like such………
-Private
-Has multiple bodies of water (some big……..some small) as we have guys that bring their bass boats but also guys that bring their skiffs and Jon-boats and kayaks so we like to have different types of water to fish to accommodate the majority of the group
-A workable boat ramp that big boats can use
-A Lodge – a bed to sleep in and a hot shower to use at the end of the day (BUT….we are not opposed to camping if that is what is required of us to use a private place)
-An outside fire pit (as we normally sit around the fire and talk about the days fishing and laugh and talk about the good ole days)
-Electricity – so we can charge up our batteries at night
-Would like to plan the trip for the 2nd weekend in March (9th, 10th, 11th) and we fish hard for 3-days and then wake up Sunday Morning give the place a real good cleaning and head home!
Now I understand that this is a lot to ask of somebody as private places are private for a reason but we will pay the owner as well. We’re not expecting a free hand-out and we understand that all these things I just listed comes at a cost……..and we will gladly pay that cost. We will also work for it too. If there is any landscaping needs or roads need to be dragged or trees need to be cut down we can do that too. We have some great workers with some great tools in our spring fling bunch so we have done these very things in the past for Big Sandy so we’re willing to work for our keep too!
There are about 20-25 of us so I understand that having that many guys on your place makes an impact but we do a great job of cleaning up after ourselves. We don’t keep any fish (unless you want us to harvest some) We’re all pretty good bass anglers too so we don’t gut-hook your fish and we snap a few photos and then back into the water they go. We’re not rowdy party people any more either so while we will have a few cold beers at night around the campfire, we’re not going to be up late and howling at the moon. This trip is a fishing trip and you can’t fish good the next day when you stay up too late…….we’re old (older) now and everybody wants to win that Big Bass Champion Trophy so folks tuck in for the night way earlier than we use to.
This will be our 15-year anniversary of having the Spring Fling Fishing trip and I’ve shared most of those trips with all you fine folks here on GON. I hope over the years it hasn’t come off as bragging or “showy” but yall know me around these parts and I’m a storyteller…….I like to tell stories and I like to share our experiences with all of yall so if you have a place like this or maybe you know somebody that has a place like this I would very much like to talk to them and see if we could come to an agreement and work something out. If you are the owner of the place and you would like to join us then bring it on. You can see with your own two eyeballs how special this trip is to all of us….and you can keep an eye on your place too to make sure we aren’t stepping out of line?
Anyhoo……….I was hesitate to put this out there as it may come across as desperate and I guess in a way we are desperate. We’re desperate to keep this trip going in the right direction and for the last 5-years it has been a little slice of heaven for us. This trip means a lot to me. It means a lot to all of us. The older we get the more we realize what truly is important in this crazy hectic life that we all live. For us to still be doing this trip after 15-years is pretty impressive. We all understand the importance of this trip. It’s more than a t-shirt and some pictures and a video. It’s more than a GON post. It’s more than “just another fishing trip” The older I get the more I realize that friendship is one of the most important things we have and like anything, you get what you put into it. I put a lot of effort into this trip because it means so many things to our small group of friends…..but the memories we make will last a lifetime.
If you have a place like this………………….would you please consider letting us keep making those memories and we’ll be forever Grateful to you!
Your Friend Cletus
