*Our 2009 Spring Fling Recap /Heavy on the Pics*

Cletus T.

Senior Member
Well folks, Spring Fling 2009 has came and went and I would like to give you a little recap of the events that took place over the weekend. This years Spring Fling was held in a new location for our group and we choose Charlie Elliott Wildlife Management Area / Marben Farms PFA for this years fishing fest. Boy is that place nice. The fishing, the camping and the general hospitality of all the people who work out there were top notch. Everybody we came in contact with had a smile on their face and were eager to help. I especially want to thank Mrs. Alicia who works there in the visitor’s center. You Ma’am are one sweet lady and I want to thank you for all the information you gave me on Mr. Charlie Elliott and the tour of the museum. Mr. Elliott was an amazing man and I suggest that any of you that have never heard of Charlie Elliott, do some research and I promise you, you will like what you find. We normally go to Paradise PFA and I got to be honest with you I wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about Charlie Elliott because I’m big on tradition, and it’s always been our tradition to go to Paradise. We had an article printed in the Feb. issue of GON about Paradise and our annual Spring Fling trips and yet we were turning our back on Paradise and heading somewhere new. I really did struggle with this for a little while, but I knew that this is what the group voted on and that it was going to be a good trip. Now let’s get to the action.







I meet the Weasel Dawg over at his cabinet shop early Thursday morning and I hooked up to the pop-up camper that we were going to be sleeping in for the next 3 days. Its one sweet pop-up that is straight out of the 80’s with pink curtains and all. So I’m pulling the pop-up and the Weasel Dawg is pulling his new boat and when I say new I mean new to him. No, it’s not a brand new 21-foot Ranger with all the bells and whistles but what it is…..is a gem of a bass tracker. It’s a 1981 model with doo-doo brown interior and it is one good looking boat and perfect for what we do. So we hit the road and Charlie Elliott here we come. We got on the interstate and when we hit I-20 and start getting close to the exit I can’t help but notice all the snow that is still on the ground. The Mansfield area got drilled with snow and I can honestly say that in our 8 years of doing this we have never seen snow on the ground for one of our Spring Flings. So we get to Charlie Elliott around 11 and we start setting up base camp. Some of the other troops were already there and they secured the spots we were after so the camping situation worked out just as planned. We got camp lined up like we wanted it and it was time to hit the water. Now let me mention one bit of information before we go any further. Lake Bennett is the one lake on Charlie Elliott that you want to be on. Now the other lakes are very good too but if you ask the locals that fish these lakes they will all tell you….Lake Bennett is the one! There have been numerous 10 pound plus bass caught out of these waters and it seemed like every local we talked to had a story of what they had caught out of there. One man told me that he had caught 4 largemouth’s over 9 pounds out of Bennett alone and he released all them back into the water too. Here’s the deal though…….Lake Bennett has been closed for about 8 months due to low water level. This last big rain / snow had finally filled the lake back up and we were timing it perfect. The excitement was at an all-time high.







DAY 1
We get on the water around 12:30 and out of our group we are about the 3rd or 4th boat on the water. Lake Bennett is full of structure and there are logs and wood all over the place. It’s one of those lakes that just looks bassy. We head up the right side of the lake and we start casting towards every piece of structure we can find. It isn’t but about 5 cast into the day and I’m already stuck on a log (get use to it…..this is a reoccurring theme for the weekend)……I got my jig back and continue to cast my bait in hopes of boating my first Charlie Elliott bass. Then at about 1 o’clock I feel a tap-tap on the end of my line and I rear back and burry my jig into the mouth of my first Charlie Elliott bass. He wasn’t too big, probably about a pounder but it felt good to break the ice and the way he smoked my lure, I thought that for sure, these bass were hungry and it was about to be on. We fished hard for the rest of the day and we didn’t boat another fish but there were fish caught by the rest of the group and in all we caught 27 bass for the day, with the day 1 leader going to Rhetro Walker with a 3 lb. 8 oz chunk. It was a pretty fish with great color. I took his picture right outside of “Donation Station”. Now you might ask what the heck that is. Well….. “Donation Station” is this one cove that is loaded with wood and all kinds of structure. Don’t think that you will come out of there without donating some of your tackle. Rhett had just made a donation of a spinnerbait, two Texas rigged lizards and a crankbait all in about a 10-minute span. We came off the water and made it back to camp and we all felt pretty good about our fishing. We ate the infamous “Super Dogs” for supper that night and Wojo’s wife had made her world famous Cole slaw and I can promise you….it got dealt with! So we sat around the fire and told fish stories and then tucked it in for the night.






DAY 2
The Weasel Dawg and I started out the day on a new lake because we knew that we were going to spend the rest of the weekend on Bennett so we fished Dairy Lake Friday morning and it never fails. You see, during last years trip down at Paradise PFA we fished a lake that had a dead beaver floating in it…..well…..guess what was floating in Dairy? You got it…….a dead stinky beaver! The water was pretty muddy and dirty in Diary but I did manage to catch 2 small bass on a jig. The Weasel Dawg was throwing everything he had at them and even though he looked like a young Hank Parker out there, nothing seemed to want to bite what he was throwing…….at least not yet. We broke for lunch and regrouped back at base camp. We talked about our morning and what seemed to be working and water temps and that blasted wind. For the afternoon fish we were heading back to Bennett. We started banging those banks again and I picked up a few short fish here and there but I was still looking for that sow mama. The Weasel Dawg was getting a little discouraged because he was still looking for that 1st fish of Spring Fling 2009. The sun was starting to set and the darkness of the night was fast approaching but just as the sun hit the top of the trees, the Weasel Dawg reared back and drilled his first bass of the trip. He held that fish high up in the air and it was high five time. The fish wasn’t too big but it didn’t matter. We gave a quick air horn toot and we fished for another 20 minutes until it was time to head to the ramp. We passed Rhetro and Buck who were trying to get in those last few casts of the day and we were almost to the ramp when they start yelling at us and waving at us to come back. So we do a u turn and turn the boat around. Ole Buck had whacked one that looked to be bigger than what was currently leading the big bass contest. So we pull up beside the boat and he reaches down into the livewell and pulls out a toad. It didn’t have the pretty color of Rhett’s fish but it did look to be bigger. It pulled the x-tool scales down to 3 pounds 11 ounces, so we had a new leader folks. When I asked Buck what it takes to catch big fish like that he replied with 2 simple words…… “Hard Work”. We believe this fish had just moved up due to its pale color but it was a chunky bass. So that was the end of Day 2 fishing and we ate like kings that night because by this time our Chef had showed up and when I say Chef….what I meant to say is the Southeast’s premiere Smoker. The man’s name is Gary Brown and he knows his way around a smoker. The man is unbelievable and he cooks for a lot of high rollers and just to give you an example of what I mean he is the man who cooks for the annual Larry Munson bass fishing tournament if that gives you any inclination to how bad a cook the man is. He brought with him 72 pounds of pork in the form of Boston butts. He brought split chicken and biscuits. We ate cheese grits every night. He made Ho Cake on the grill. He won the Horizon award this year which is given to the best new comer to the group. Gary Brown is the man when it comes to cooking and I love his most famous quote….. “Good clean living boys”. So we ate like kings and other than a late night pickled egg eating contest, nobody got too crazy. It was time to get some sleep because tomorrow was Championship Day!






DAY 3
The forecast had called for Sunny skies and temperatures in the mid 70’s and I thought for sure that Saturday could possibly be the bonkers day. I mean…..the water temps were getting in the high 50’s, the fish should be putting on the feedbag for the spawn and Sat. could be crazy good. Well……the sun never came out that morning and it was cloudy and it even was drizzling a little bit. It sure wasn’t what we expected. The Weasel Dawg and I did get a double that morning as we busted two small bass on a back to back. Now the night before we had two anglers show up in our group that were guest’s of one of our long time Spring Fling competitors. It was the brother in-law of Wojo’s and he had brought a friend as well. They’re names are Devin and Lane C. of the O.C. meaning……..(Oconee County). They were super nice guys and they looked to be primed and ready for a day of fishing. They were paid up on the big bass pot and they were the first ones out of camp the next morning. I saw their tail lights pull out over the hill from my warm and cozy sleeping bag from the friendly confines of the 1980’s pop-up! They left early……but…….they didn’t get on the water early. Being that they got there in the dark the night before they weren’t exactly sure on how to get to the ramp of Bennett. So they first went past Bennett and just kept on going. They got a little lost and by this time Devin had to pee so he asks Lane C. to pull over so he can pee in the woods, so he pulls over. After a very long pee break Devin gets back in the truck but when Lane puts the truck in drive, the truck doesn’t want to come. They were stuck. So after a little pushing and a lot of mud slinging they break free and they finally made it to Lake Bennett. So they start fishing and ole Lane C. from the O.C. start’s fan casting a rat-l-trap and said somewhere in between his 5th cast to his 8th cast a fish loads up on the trap and he immediately knows it’s a good one because it never shows it’s face and we all know that when you hook a fish and all it does is stay down it usually has some shoulders on it. The fish makes a few hard pushes up under the boat but after a few tense moments the fish gets netted and in the boat it goes. Lance C. reaches down in the net to lip her and get a closer look and folks, the big bass tourney had a new leader. Now keep in mind that this happened before I even got on the water and I had the scale that had been weighing all the fish in my boat so after me and the Weasel Dawg had our back-to-back we see Lane and Devin coming our way and as they get closer they ask…. “You got the scales?” I knew at that point that it must be a good one. So Devin and Lane come pulling up and he has an older Jon boat where the livewell is underneath the seat so he stands up and pulls back the seat and all I see is straight back and fins flared out. He pulls her out and there is no doubt that she is a monster. She has it all too…the fat belly, the large thick scales, the big ole eye balls and one whale of a bucket mouth. She weighs 7 lbs. 5 oz. and with this fish Lane ties our all time Spring Fling record of biggest bass ever caught. Wojo busted a 7 lb. 5 oz down at Paradise a few years back but now he has some company up on top on that list. It was a beautiful fish. We broke for lunch and finally the sun started breaking through the clouds. It came out and finally the final day was looking like we thought it was. We just knew that it was time to Katy bar the door because it was about to break loose this afternoon. I brought the American Flag out on the water with us for the afternoon fish and we were all swinging for the fences. Well………………we were wrong. There were a few fish caught that afternoon but nothing with any size. It looked like the Big Bass Champion had been decided.




Now let’s get to Banquet Night, you see we call our Awards ceremony, Banquet Night. We dress up in our finest redneck print shirts, whether that is a pattern of a largemouth bass jumping out of the water, or a boss tom in full strut or a big buck peering his head out from behind a pine tree. We cook all the meat that is left over and I do mean all the meat. It’s like a meat fest and this night was no different. We had pork, pork and more pork. We had split chicken and cheese grits and baked beans. We had biscuits and you might ask about vegetables…..well…….we don’t eat vegetables during the Spring Fling. We eat meat. We started the night off with the pledge of allegiance and then we had a speech from our small town Mayor, Mr. Buck. He delivered a beautiful speech and then it was time to hand out the awards. I make up 5 goody bags that over the years have grown to enormous proportions. You can find anything from a hula popper to a mixed bag of soft plastics to an old passed down fishing hat. This year I slipped in 3 1991 Upper Deck Basketball cards too that included past basketball legends such as Kurt Rambis, Will Purdue, Mookie Baylock and Mark Price just to name a few. They were a big hit! Buck caught the 2nd place fish and with that he received $20. Normally the big fish winner receives all the money but this year things were a little different. You see…..we have a very very good rod builder in our crew and he built a custom designed St. Croix 6’6 fast action / med heavy split grip baitcasting rod. Now what set this rod off, other than the sheer badness of it, was at the very bottom of the rod were these words…. “2009 SPRING FLING CHAMPION”. Yea…..it was bad! Thank you Mike for doing that, it was a very special thing you did, and I can’t wait to see what you build next. So this year’s winner received $50 cash, a custom built rod and the Big Bass Champion Plaque. Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself. The night ended with what it always ends with…….a FIRE JUMP. So I put Van Halen’s “Jump” on in my truck, rolled the windows down and cranked it to full volume. I did some deep stretching during the one minute and thirteen second space organ intro, and then just as the song kicked in…….I jumped and this year I wore my high top Air Jordan's to give me that extra boost! I think the ghost of Charlie Elliott was there with me on that jump. I also need to thank my wife because she made a “Re-Entry Kit” for every dirty boy that came on the trip. Here is what a Re-Entry kit consisted of. Degree Deodorant, scope mouth wash, Q-tips, Band Aids, Goody’s Powder, Cracker Barrel tooth picks, wet wipes, personal bag of tissues and a pack of gum. WHOA…..I wasn’t even expecting this and the night before we left I had to make a late night Bass Pro run and when I got back, she had it all laid out for us. I love that woman! She wanted to make sure we showed back up with only a half was stank! This years Spring Fling will go down as one of the all time best trips. We caught fish and a few real big fish showed up. Nobody got hurt, no boats or trucks were damaged and as I told the group in my small speech, it’s about making memories and fellowship with good friends. Until next year my fellow anglers!
 

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taylornelms

GONetwork Member
dude i didnt read your book i just looked at the pictures, story of my life i guess. I was gonna tell you, it was time for a razor but apparently someone got you already. Im digging the late 80's baseball goat.
 

Jasper

Senior Member
Now that looks like fun! Great times, great memories and something to look forward to every year. :banana:

Hopefully the hair will grow back on your legs soon after the fire jump! :bounce:
 

Cletus T.

Senior Member
Thanks everybody for the kind words. Yep……we had a very good time and even though the fishing was a little tougher than we expected there were some good ones that showed up……just not on the end of my line.

Oh yea……I don’t think I mentioned it in the write-up but we caught a total of 136 bass as a group.
 

Cletus T.

Senior Member
Ya'll seem to find the dead beaver every year! Looks like ya'll had a great time.

Yea I know……It does seem like the dead beavers follow us wherever we go. This one at Charlie Elliott wasn’t as big as the one down at Paradise last year but still……he was pretty chunky!
 

Jranger

Senior Member
From looks of your fire skills, it's probably a good thing you don't drink...:biggrin2:
 

GAGE

GONetwork Member
Looks like another great trip by you and your crew, good friends, good food, and fellowship...and the occasional good fish, does it get any better?:cheers:
 

Corey

Senior Member
LOL..good lord thats a big fire, bet smoky the bear
had a dang heart attack with you fellers around.

Thanks for sharing :)
 

Gut_Pile

Senior Member
good story and some awesome looking fish too. glad yall had a great time.
 

Cletus T.

Senior Member
Fire Jumping at its finest!!!

Yes-Sir…..I take my Fire Jumps very serious. I know it is a little bit dangerous and when little ole Hunter Jack ask me.. “Daddy…why do you jump fires?” It makes me rethink it for a second but I’m very particular about my jumps and where I’m taking off from and where I’m landing and even down to the right shoes. The last thing I want is to ruin a great weekend with a melted face!!!!
 

Jasper

Senior Member
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