Cletus T.
Senior Member
Well folks…….we knew we were going into a battle with some mean spirited bass and we knew that we better be prepared to hit ‘em with all we had, and even though there was some bloodshed….some broken line….some broken rods….and some broken hearts….I consider the mission a success. Here is the recap for a recon mission to Yelso Farms and the battle that ensued over the weekend.
We arrived at the Farm on Friday afternoon and had a little business to attend to before we could hit the water. We had to cut the grass and weed eat and spray some weeds around the cabin and get the place looking right. You have to earn your keep over there on the farm and I will gladly cut grass in a trade off to get to fish out there at their most awesomest HAWG pen. Some of you folks might remember the place I’m talking about here and few words this place is a very well stocked 12 acre pond that has some of the most aggressive largemouth bass I have ever come across in all my journeys. I think when they stocked this pond they must have put a load and a half of gun powder mixed with rocket fuel. These bass are lighting fast….super aggressive….mean spirited…..full of hate and rage and they cut the evil eye at you all the time. They will even pop their heads out of the water like an alligator and stare you down as you approach their hangouts…..they don’t like you and they let you know it in a hurry! Let’s get to the action!!!!!
I had this idea of filming our first cast to see in real time action just exactly how long it would take to get our first fish in the boat. So the Weasel Dawg (my fishing partner and Noble Captain of the boat) slung his white fluke out there up against the bank of the dam and then I follow that up with a cast of my own……same bait (the white fluke)…….same location (bank of the dam) and these two baits are not 5 feet a part from each other, so Perk a.k.a. the Weasel Dawg makes a couple tworks and a bass loads up on his fluke…..FISH ON…..I make a few tworks on my fluke and WHAM…..BAM….FISH ON for me too. We double on our very first casts. It was crazy and I got this all on film to prove it. It was crazy and it really set the tone for the day. We knew we were about to be all up in ‘em!!!!! We get these fish unhooked and snap a few pictures and drop them back in the drink. On my very next cast my fluke gets murdered and I rear back and the line snaps immediately. These fish are mean folks!!!!!! The Weasel Dawg busts another mean spirited bass and then another and another. I rear back on one and fight him to the boat. I mean in the fist 10 minutes we had about 8 bass caught between the two of us. In years past we have brought a net with us to help land this evil eyed bass but this year we didn’t bring one. Perk likes to call it being a “sportsman”……I on the other hand just flat out forget the net and I don’t care what you call it…….if I got a 8-pound monster bass thrashing by the boat with a set of treble hooks hanging out of its mouth……I’m going to use that net and scoop her up……sportsman or not………I want that fish in the boat!!!!! So we are popping 3 and 4 pounders right in the face and letting them know that we came to do battle and that we don’t play games. It took about 30 minutes to get out first 5-pounder in the boat but the ole Weasel Dawg made it look easy. This ain’t his first Rodeo folks! He has been there…..done that….and got the t-shirt to prove it! It was a fat bellied beautiful bass that tried to eat his hand off but after a few pictures were taken, and one close up of her eyeball, Perk gave it the people’s elbow and slammed it back into the water. (Just kidding here folks…..he gently laid her back in….I’m just using very descriptive terms here for the full effect)
We make our way around the pond and we zip our flukes up to the bank and to every piece of cover we can see and the bass are coming out to play and they are really trying to assert their dominance but we are pushing back with all our might and even though we have had some big fish break our line and spit our flukes back at us right at the boat, most the fish we were sticking, we were getting to the boat…….even without a net! I did throw the lil green pumpkin jig that I love so much and I did catch some fish on it but it really is tough to put down that fluke. They kill it so hard and when these fish hit, they take off like a bolt of lighting and they really do hit and fight and behave like no other bass I have ever come in contact with. Even though I have been coming here for 3 years now, I’m always so impressed with their raw power and meanness! You will never get tired of this kind of behavior! Now we didn’t even get on the water till about 5 so the day was winding down and I had tied on a white buzzbait for the last 30-45 minutes of the day because #1.) I had never thrown a topwater bait out there and I had a pretty good feeling it would get dealt with, so I wanted to test those waters. #2.) I had the video camera rolling and there really is nothing like a topwater explosion caught on video. So I break out the buzzbait and on the very first cast a bass tries to break my pole. This buzzbait got crushed!!!!! The Weasel Dawg was manning the camera and he did some excellent filming of this action. I ended up catching about 5 – 6 bass on the buzzbait and I believe we got 3 of those strikes caught on tape. The bass weren’t huge but they all fought like somebody had stuck a firecracker in their throat! They were all in the 2 ½ to 3 ½ pound range. The night sky set in and we called it a day!
Our plan was to turkey hunt the next morning but a pretty nasty storm came rolling in and it sat down on us for the first few hours of the morning so we both we back to sleep and with the rain hitting the tine roof it didn’t take long to go nighty night. We got back up and we had left the boat down on the pond, parked up on the bank so we needed to go back down there and get it and also fish a little bit before we needed to head back home. I laced up the “All-Purpose Jordans” which I do everything in…..I fish in them…..I go to the Grocery store in them…I move furniture in them…..I do yard work in them…..I fire jump in them…I hang monster bass in them too. The ole Weasel Dawg had something up his sleeve and being that he had busted up the bass pretty good the day before he was going to target some of the cats and balloon sized bream that also swim in these waters. He has this special little bait called “Stubby Steve’s” and it will straight wear the cats and bream out. It looks like a little chick lit and its brown and it’s stinky and it will last forever! I watched the Weasel Dawg catch fish after fish after fish on one piece of “Stubby Steve’s” and these weren’t little fish either. These were bream that weighed a pound and catfish that weighed anywhere from 3 pounds up to 5. This one bream looked like a balloon with a bream face on it. We put if on the scale and it weighed 15 oz. It was as round as Perk’s face………crazy big bream!
The ole Sultan of Slime would have been proud of the Weasel Dawg because he was battling these cats like a pro and he was doing this with light tackle too. There is some good video footage of this encounter too.
After Perk loads the livewell with some fish meat we move on down the bank and its back to slinging the white fluke and it’s also back to business as usual! As Damon Wayans said in the famous movie “Major Payne” the bass said this to us……. “Killing is my business……..and business is good!!!!!” The bass were killing the fluke and they were almost hitting it even harder than the day before. We were dealing with some mean and nasty bass and they were killing machines. It still blows my mind, the way they attack the fluke. We had several hook ups where we got straight bulldawged…..I mean we never stood a chance. There were a few times where we didn’t even see the fish and you know the saying about when you don’t ever get a good look at them……..that means they were a giant!!!!! I flipped up into some hairy structure and as soon as my fluke hit the water I saw a big ole bass roll on it and as soon as I set the hook it took me right to a stump and brought me off. I saw the whole thing happen right in front of me. It was a solid six pounds and after it snapped the line it cam out of the water and blew smoke out of its nose holes……..yea…….that’s how mean these bass are people. This little hole produced back to back heartbreak for the Weasel Dawg and me because right after this happened to me, Perk threw up in there and he got broke off by either the same fish or a carbon carbon of it. So we had back to back heartbreak and then I reared back on a solid…chunky 3 and half pounder and as I was fighting the fish I got them close to the boat and I reached down to lip her but she ripped off drag and almost ripped my shoulder out of socket…..so when I got her back up I tried to man handle her with my rod and flip her in the boat and that’s when it happened………..yep……my favorite rod……my mossyback G Loomis worm/jig rod that I love so deeply…went SNAP! I broke the tip off of it and I was heartbroken. Not only do I have a broken G Loomis in my hand but I have a ticked off bass down around my feet trying to pierce my skin with its razor sharp fins. It was terrible……..but I can get the rod replaced and thank goodness G Loomis is such a great company that the warranty on it gives me a sense of peace. After that happened we booth felt like it was time to go. Actually I had already overstayed my visit and I needed to get back home to my family…….and on that note…….read this.
You see…….I was pretty selfish this weekend and I probably shouldn’t have gone fishing. My little girl got sick on Thursday night and I mean throw-up sick here…..it was gross and I felt terrible for her. Without going into too much detail it was a stomach bug and everything that comes with a stomach bug was going on at my household this weekend. My son never got throw up sick and neither did my wife but they both had the other stuff and bad pains in your stomach too. I left anyway on Friday at lunch and I should’ve stayed home to help take care of my family but I wanted to do what I wanted to do and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from that. That was wrong and what made it worse is that I didn’t do a whole lot of checking up on them while I was out there fishing. That was wrong too. I guess in my, sometimes stupid, mind I thought the less I knew the better- “better to ask for forgiveness than permission”. I got home to a still kind of sick family and I didn’t get home when I said I would, so as you can imagine I was in the doghouse pretty bad…….I mean the wife had an 8 inch razor sharp knife right up against my eyeball (J/K here…..she didn’t really pull a knife on me) but she was very….very upset and hurt and rightfully so. (I didn’t realize this at the time, but Jaimelou never called me either- she said she didn’t call b/c she knew how much I wanted to be out there and she didn’t want to ask me to give it up) We got into a heated argument and you see, my wife and I very rarely get into big arguments- I can probably count on one hand how many we’ve had in the 9+ years we’ve been together. It wasn’t pretty- we were both upset- angry, sad, defensive, hurt, frustrated. After we, somewhat cooled down and went to bed, the next morning, was okay- she said she forgave me. I tried my best to be sensitive- I hadn’t even looked at the pictures or anything! But then I did and the hurt and upset hit her like a ton of bricks! I guess it was like salt in the wound. The forgiveness she thought she had was G-O-N-E……She saw red! I forget sometimes that sweet Jaimelou is a born and bred Yankee! She couldn’t believe I would even think about reliving a fishing trip that hurt her so much and sharing it with all my buddies- pictures and all! Round 2- we spent a lot of the afternoon having mini “discussions” about it- mainly whenever the kids walked out of the room. It was NOT good. It wasn’t working and we were doing more harm than good and she (NOT ME) got down on her knees and asked the loving heavenly father above to help her forgive me and not be so angry. She told me today that she prayed that God would heal her heart and give her the grace to forgive me- unconditionally and guess what……he answered that prayer. I also had to humble myself and ask for forgiveness and let Jaimelou know that I was truly sorry! And I was- I AM. I have always said that if it came down to my family or fishing (basketball, hunting, football, etc) I would ALWAYS choose my family. Well, what I have learned is that, it’s not the huge grand gestures that keep a marriage/family strong, it’s the day to day choices I make, all on my own, to be the husband/father/man I vowed to be. I tell you this b/c I know that I’m not the only guy that has gone through this. I’m a good guy- try to do good things for others, take care of my family, etc. but I can’t just rest on the fact that I’m a “good guy”- Everyday I have the opportunity to strive to be a better guy- better husband- better father- closer in my walk with my heavenly father. And if I can lay into a mama sow along the way- it’ll be heaven on earth for Cletus!
So I know I just got all serious on ya’ll fine folks but I just wanted to be as honest and as true to the story as I could be. That is why it has taken a little while for the full re-port to be posted but really if you think about it……it was posted at exactly the right time. Hope ya’ll enjoy the story and the pictures and the video will soon follow…..and I tell you what…..it is loaded with some mean and nasty bass action!
Cletus
We arrived at the Farm on Friday afternoon and had a little business to attend to before we could hit the water. We had to cut the grass and weed eat and spray some weeds around the cabin and get the place looking right. You have to earn your keep over there on the farm and I will gladly cut grass in a trade off to get to fish out there at their most awesomest HAWG pen. Some of you folks might remember the place I’m talking about here and few words this place is a very well stocked 12 acre pond that has some of the most aggressive largemouth bass I have ever come across in all my journeys. I think when they stocked this pond they must have put a load and a half of gun powder mixed with rocket fuel. These bass are lighting fast….super aggressive….mean spirited…..full of hate and rage and they cut the evil eye at you all the time. They will even pop their heads out of the water like an alligator and stare you down as you approach their hangouts…..they don’t like you and they let you know it in a hurry! Let’s get to the action!!!!!
I had this idea of filming our first cast to see in real time action just exactly how long it would take to get our first fish in the boat. So the Weasel Dawg (my fishing partner and Noble Captain of the boat) slung his white fluke out there up against the bank of the dam and then I follow that up with a cast of my own……same bait (the white fluke)…….same location (bank of the dam) and these two baits are not 5 feet a part from each other, so Perk a.k.a. the Weasel Dawg makes a couple tworks and a bass loads up on his fluke…..FISH ON…..I make a few tworks on my fluke and WHAM…..BAM….FISH ON for me too. We double on our very first casts. It was crazy and I got this all on film to prove it. It was crazy and it really set the tone for the day. We knew we were about to be all up in ‘em!!!!! We get these fish unhooked and snap a few pictures and drop them back in the drink. On my very next cast my fluke gets murdered and I rear back and the line snaps immediately. These fish are mean folks!!!!!! The Weasel Dawg busts another mean spirited bass and then another and another. I rear back on one and fight him to the boat. I mean in the fist 10 minutes we had about 8 bass caught between the two of us. In years past we have brought a net with us to help land this evil eyed bass but this year we didn’t bring one. Perk likes to call it being a “sportsman”……I on the other hand just flat out forget the net and I don’t care what you call it…….if I got a 8-pound monster bass thrashing by the boat with a set of treble hooks hanging out of its mouth……I’m going to use that net and scoop her up……sportsman or not………I want that fish in the boat!!!!! So we are popping 3 and 4 pounders right in the face and letting them know that we came to do battle and that we don’t play games. It took about 30 minutes to get out first 5-pounder in the boat but the ole Weasel Dawg made it look easy. This ain’t his first Rodeo folks! He has been there…..done that….and got the t-shirt to prove it! It was a fat bellied beautiful bass that tried to eat his hand off but after a few pictures were taken, and one close up of her eyeball, Perk gave it the people’s elbow and slammed it back into the water. (Just kidding here folks…..he gently laid her back in….I’m just using very descriptive terms here for the full effect)
We make our way around the pond and we zip our flukes up to the bank and to every piece of cover we can see and the bass are coming out to play and they are really trying to assert their dominance but we are pushing back with all our might and even though we have had some big fish break our line and spit our flukes back at us right at the boat, most the fish we were sticking, we were getting to the boat…….even without a net! I did throw the lil green pumpkin jig that I love so much and I did catch some fish on it but it really is tough to put down that fluke. They kill it so hard and when these fish hit, they take off like a bolt of lighting and they really do hit and fight and behave like no other bass I have ever come in contact with. Even though I have been coming here for 3 years now, I’m always so impressed with their raw power and meanness! You will never get tired of this kind of behavior! Now we didn’t even get on the water till about 5 so the day was winding down and I had tied on a white buzzbait for the last 30-45 minutes of the day because #1.) I had never thrown a topwater bait out there and I had a pretty good feeling it would get dealt with, so I wanted to test those waters. #2.) I had the video camera rolling and there really is nothing like a topwater explosion caught on video. So I break out the buzzbait and on the very first cast a bass tries to break my pole. This buzzbait got crushed!!!!! The Weasel Dawg was manning the camera and he did some excellent filming of this action. I ended up catching about 5 – 6 bass on the buzzbait and I believe we got 3 of those strikes caught on tape. The bass weren’t huge but they all fought like somebody had stuck a firecracker in their throat! They were all in the 2 ½ to 3 ½ pound range. The night sky set in and we called it a day!
Our plan was to turkey hunt the next morning but a pretty nasty storm came rolling in and it sat down on us for the first few hours of the morning so we both we back to sleep and with the rain hitting the tine roof it didn’t take long to go nighty night. We got back up and we had left the boat down on the pond, parked up on the bank so we needed to go back down there and get it and also fish a little bit before we needed to head back home. I laced up the “All-Purpose Jordans” which I do everything in…..I fish in them…..I go to the Grocery store in them…I move furniture in them…..I do yard work in them…..I fire jump in them…I hang monster bass in them too. The ole Weasel Dawg had something up his sleeve and being that he had busted up the bass pretty good the day before he was going to target some of the cats and balloon sized bream that also swim in these waters. He has this special little bait called “Stubby Steve’s” and it will straight wear the cats and bream out. It looks like a little chick lit and its brown and it’s stinky and it will last forever! I watched the Weasel Dawg catch fish after fish after fish on one piece of “Stubby Steve’s” and these weren’t little fish either. These were bream that weighed a pound and catfish that weighed anywhere from 3 pounds up to 5. This one bream looked like a balloon with a bream face on it. We put if on the scale and it weighed 15 oz. It was as round as Perk’s face………crazy big bream!
The ole Sultan of Slime would have been proud of the Weasel Dawg because he was battling these cats like a pro and he was doing this with light tackle too. There is some good video footage of this encounter too.
After Perk loads the livewell with some fish meat we move on down the bank and its back to slinging the white fluke and it’s also back to business as usual! As Damon Wayans said in the famous movie “Major Payne” the bass said this to us……. “Killing is my business……..and business is good!!!!!” The bass were killing the fluke and they were almost hitting it even harder than the day before. We were dealing with some mean and nasty bass and they were killing machines. It still blows my mind, the way they attack the fluke. We had several hook ups where we got straight bulldawged…..I mean we never stood a chance. There were a few times where we didn’t even see the fish and you know the saying about when you don’t ever get a good look at them……..that means they were a giant!!!!! I flipped up into some hairy structure and as soon as my fluke hit the water I saw a big ole bass roll on it and as soon as I set the hook it took me right to a stump and brought me off. I saw the whole thing happen right in front of me. It was a solid six pounds and after it snapped the line it cam out of the water and blew smoke out of its nose holes……..yea…….that’s how mean these bass are people. This little hole produced back to back heartbreak for the Weasel Dawg and me because right after this happened to me, Perk threw up in there and he got broke off by either the same fish or a carbon carbon of it. So we had back to back heartbreak and then I reared back on a solid…chunky 3 and half pounder and as I was fighting the fish I got them close to the boat and I reached down to lip her but she ripped off drag and almost ripped my shoulder out of socket…..so when I got her back up I tried to man handle her with my rod and flip her in the boat and that’s when it happened………..yep……my favorite rod……my mossyback G Loomis worm/jig rod that I love so deeply…went SNAP! I broke the tip off of it and I was heartbroken. Not only do I have a broken G Loomis in my hand but I have a ticked off bass down around my feet trying to pierce my skin with its razor sharp fins. It was terrible……..but I can get the rod replaced and thank goodness G Loomis is such a great company that the warranty on it gives me a sense of peace. After that happened we booth felt like it was time to go. Actually I had already overstayed my visit and I needed to get back home to my family…….and on that note…….read this.
You see…….I was pretty selfish this weekend and I probably shouldn’t have gone fishing. My little girl got sick on Thursday night and I mean throw-up sick here…..it was gross and I felt terrible for her. Without going into too much detail it was a stomach bug and everything that comes with a stomach bug was going on at my household this weekend. My son never got throw up sick and neither did my wife but they both had the other stuff and bad pains in your stomach too. I left anyway on Friday at lunch and I should’ve stayed home to help take care of my family but I wanted to do what I wanted to do and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from that. That was wrong and what made it worse is that I didn’t do a whole lot of checking up on them while I was out there fishing. That was wrong too. I guess in my, sometimes stupid, mind I thought the less I knew the better- “better to ask for forgiveness than permission”. I got home to a still kind of sick family and I didn’t get home when I said I would, so as you can imagine I was in the doghouse pretty bad…….I mean the wife had an 8 inch razor sharp knife right up against my eyeball (J/K here…..she didn’t really pull a knife on me) but she was very….very upset and hurt and rightfully so. (I didn’t realize this at the time, but Jaimelou never called me either- she said she didn’t call b/c she knew how much I wanted to be out there and she didn’t want to ask me to give it up) We got into a heated argument and you see, my wife and I very rarely get into big arguments- I can probably count on one hand how many we’ve had in the 9+ years we’ve been together. It wasn’t pretty- we were both upset- angry, sad, defensive, hurt, frustrated. After we, somewhat cooled down and went to bed, the next morning, was okay- she said she forgave me. I tried my best to be sensitive- I hadn’t even looked at the pictures or anything! But then I did and the hurt and upset hit her like a ton of bricks! I guess it was like salt in the wound. The forgiveness she thought she had was G-O-N-E……She saw red! I forget sometimes that sweet Jaimelou is a born and bred Yankee! She couldn’t believe I would even think about reliving a fishing trip that hurt her so much and sharing it with all my buddies- pictures and all! Round 2- we spent a lot of the afternoon having mini “discussions” about it- mainly whenever the kids walked out of the room. It was NOT good. It wasn’t working and we were doing more harm than good and she (NOT ME) got down on her knees and asked the loving heavenly father above to help her forgive me and not be so angry. She told me today that she prayed that God would heal her heart and give her the grace to forgive me- unconditionally and guess what……he answered that prayer. I also had to humble myself and ask for forgiveness and let Jaimelou know that I was truly sorry! And I was- I AM. I have always said that if it came down to my family or fishing (basketball, hunting, football, etc) I would ALWAYS choose my family. Well, what I have learned is that, it’s not the huge grand gestures that keep a marriage/family strong, it’s the day to day choices I make, all on my own, to be the husband/father/man I vowed to be. I tell you this b/c I know that I’m not the only guy that has gone through this. I’m a good guy- try to do good things for others, take care of my family, etc. but I can’t just rest on the fact that I’m a “good guy”- Everyday I have the opportunity to strive to be a better guy- better husband- better father- closer in my walk with my heavenly father. And if I can lay into a mama sow along the way- it’ll be heaven on earth for Cletus!
So I know I just got all serious on ya’ll fine folks but I just wanted to be as honest and as true to the story as I could be. That is why it has taken a little while for the full re-port to be posted but really if you think about it……it was posted at exactly the right time. Hope ya’ll enjoy the story and the pictures and the video will soon follow…..and I tell you what…..it is loaded with some mean and nasty bass action!
Cletus
