Cletus T.
Senior Member
Well folks……I’ve got to be honest with you, I thought this report you are about to read was going to be full of fish catching action and have plenty of pictures of fat bellied bass to show off…….but ole Mother Nature had other plans in store for us. I’m actually really bummed out about how the fishing turned out for us over the weekend but what I’m not bummed out about is the fellowship and time with friends we had. It’s really about “making memories” and that’s exactly what we did…..we made some precious memories. We ate good again, and had some belly shaking laughs around the fire and even though the fishing was super tough, I look back over Spring Fling 2011 and a smile crawls across my face. So let’s get to the action…..like to hear it……here it go……..
DAY 1
I set my alarm clock for 3:30 Thursday morning but by about 2:45 I was wide awake so at 3:00 I got up and took what I knew would be my last shower for about 3 days. I already had the truck loaded and after packing a few last minute items I was out the door and on the dark road to the Hardee’s in Monroe. I was meeting Ole Rhettro, Dubnick, Gee and Wojo to scarf down some biscuits and gravy and get my belly full so that I could do battle with the bass of Charlie Elliott! As I was waiting in the parking lot for the Hardees to open the light rain that had been falling on the way in started to turn to heavy rain and then the wind started throwing walls of rain sideways and my heart just sank! I had been watching the radar and seeing the forecast and I just didn’t want to believe that YET AGAIN……a cold front was going to blow in on us right before our annual spring fling fishing trip but guess what………she was and as ole Rhettro put it…. “This is Wendy here and she is going to bring her sister Gail to the party tom” meaning…..it was going to get super windy and brother was he ever right! So we stuff our faces and get on down to Charlie Elliott, drive by the campsite and drop off a few things and then go straight to Lake Bennett. Lane and Devin (a couple dudes from our group are already on the water) We are the second boat on the water. (Time is 6:47 a.m.) We fish up the left side of Bennett and take our time banging our squarebills into every stump out there and I rotate a rattle trap out there too. I’m throwing my go-to bait, the baby doll green pumpkin jig and ole Wojo is throwing a Carolina-rigged plastic worm and lizard off the front of the boat and we are not even getting sniffed at. Finally all the way up the left side of Bennett Wojo gets a bass to eat his squarebill but it comes un-done as Wojo said she was barely hooked and when she got to the boat she went one way and the crankbait went the other. We were kind of bummed but we were encouraged and we were thinking that they were about to turn on…..WRONG-O…..they did not turn on. We fished until lunch and I had to get off and go visit with some folks up at the Wildlife Center and then we slipped it into Dairy Lake for the afternoon. Dairy is a small body of water and we choose it for that reason, plus Mr. Jamie who works out there told us over lunch that Dairy as well as a few other lakes out there have a brand new boat ramp and dock. So we get to Dairy and I tell Wojo that there is a long point that we should hit first and so we go straight there and on his 2nd cast Mr. Big Lips loads up on his rattle trap. I ask if it’s a good one and he answered with…. “Get the Net”. So I did and when the bass came up to splash I could tell that it was a pretty good one so after a few hard pushes under the boat she gave up the fight and I scooped her up. She was pretty stout but about as white as a ghost which told me that she had just came up from deep water looking for a mean and ole brother Wojo gave her that meal! She weighed 4 pounds even and after a few pictures she was dropped back in the drink. We exchanged high fives and got back to fishing. By this time we had a couple other boats from our group join us on Dairy. The wind was still strong and it was still kind of chilly but things were looking up. After about another hour of fishing Wojo finds a deep hump and we dig in and fish it hard. He starts dragging a Carolina-rigged lizard and BINGO….a large lipp loads up on it. He swings like Tony Gwynn and buries the hook inside that bass’s mouth. It was a solid 2-pounder. Wojo bust one more bass before we get off the water but lonely ole Cletus still has no bass to play with…..boo hoo!!!!! We head back to camp and eat some grub and talk about our day. On Thursday night we had about 12 folks there but by Sat. night (Banquet Night as we like to call it) there will be about 22 bass crazed fishermen. We end the night with some laughs and tuck in for the night! 4-pounds was your leader!
DAY 2
Friday morning comes and with it comes the frost, I mean I literally had ice on my windshield which is always something you want when you’re about to go bass fishing…..right? So I was a little bummed about the weather but oh well……what can you do, we can’t control the weather. So I get in the boat with Fast Phil who has one sweet Carolina Skiff and we hit up Shepard Lake which is a smaller lake and I was hoping to find some 60 degree water but I sure didn’t find it, nor did anybody else. We did find some 58 degree though and after going about 3 hours without a bite I was starting to slip into a deep dark place. I mean I’m not no B.A.S.S. Pro but I feel like I’m a pretty good fishermen and I couldn’t even get a rinky dink to bite so I was super frustrated so I dug through my tacklebox and really dug deep into my plastics to find that one magic bait and I came across a pack of Green Pumpkin Big Bite Fighting Frogs that our very own Matt Driver had given me and the thing looked good so I tied it on a Texas rig and got down to business. On my 2nd cast I threw it right by this little stick up and I felt a “Tap-Tap” and I rear back and I swing and I miss her so I wind it back in real quick like and I zip it back in there and there she is again but this time I don’t miss. I set the hook and guess what……there is a bass on the end of the line. This bass was a super confidence builder and even though it was a tiny dancer it was a BIG bass in my mind. I had started to get my Mojo back and a little lean in my walk. Fast Phil marks some fish on his Hummingbird and we through everything we had at them and I run a jerkbait right through them and right through them and right through them but other than a 2-pound follower that followed the McStick right to the boat only to stick its tongue out at me we got nothing. So we pull out and drive on down the dirt road to Whitetail Lake and it is one pretty lake. It’s small but it sure is pretty. It reminds me of a South Ga. Pond and he had some good stumps in it and a nice point that comes way out and I just had a feeling that we were going to catch some fish. Well….that feeling was right and I busted two more bass in this pond and even though they were still on the small side, it felt good to finally be catching some fish! My brother B.B. and his friend Pat were also in Whitetail fishing. Now we didn’t catch any more fish but it was nice to be in a smaller pond where you could talk to other people a little bit too. It was getting about time to eat a little lunch so we loaded up the boats and headed back to camp! After packing our neck with some good eats it was time to fish again. We decided to fish Margery for the afternoon bite as Dubnick and Gee had caught 6 eariler that morning out of there. For the afternoon fish, it was Fast Phil…my brother B.B. and myself all in the Carolina Skiff and even though I had my doubts about fishing 3 out of this boat at first it had more than enough room for us to fish out of it comfortably. So we hit the water and go to our first stop but we didn’t get bit, so we start moving up the right side of Margery and since I had caught 3 fish off the green pumpkin fighting frog I was still throwing it. Well……I slung that fighting frog right up to the edge of the bank and after about 3 pops of the rod tip something loaded up on it so I dotted those eyes! It was a pretty good little chunk, maybe a hair around 2-pounds and it had one set of mean eyes on it…they were fire red and the bass was trying to intimidate me but guess what….her plan didn’t work. The fishing slowed again but as we crusied through some of the shallows we started seeing some beds and some of these beds were huge. Then we started spotting some bass on these beds and they look like the males because we hadn’t seen any monsters yet but that soon all changed as I looked up under this overhanging limb and right there sitting in the circle was a bass that was well over 20 inches long. She was a brute for sure and it got so serious that I tied the Mattlure Bluegill on but really once she spotted us she took off and just never came back, oh well…..she was defiantly the winning fish but they either bite…..or……they don’t and on this day she wasn’t having it. We fished around the other side of Magery and just could not get bit so I told Fast Phil to head back over to where I had caught my fish from earlier in the day and I really wanted Fast Phil and my brother to get their first fish of Spring Fling 2011 as they were still in the hunt for her. My brother B.B. was starting to enter that deep dark place and I did what any loving brother would do in a situation like that…..I told him to throw a Senko and boy was he glad that he listened to his little brother when he caught his first bass of Spring Fling 2011 a few casts later. It wasn’t a giant but it sure was a big time moment for my brother because over the years this fish have not really wanted to come out and play for my brother but this one sure did as it smoked his Senko. We were pumped and I was really pumped for my brother and seeing the smile come across his face made the whole rough day worth it. So we were pretty excited but the sun was setting on us and we called it a day. I ended the day with 4 catches and while that’s nothing to write home about it, it really gave me a sense of confidence that had gone out the window the day before. We called it a day and went back to camp where we ate like kings. Huge pieces of split chicken marinated in Italian dressing was on the menu as well as salad and some beans too…..it was a solid meal for sure and we had to get our rest as the next day everybody would be swinging for the fences to bring home the trophy and be the Spring Fling 2011 Champion!!!
One member of the group had fished Fox Lake and they have lowered the water level so much out there that the lake looks like something out of Mad Max Thunderdome…..there is timber everywhere….it looks really wild and the boat ramp is blocked off but you can fish it from the bank and if you are up to the task, you can slide a boat in there. Well ole Dew slide his little pond prowler into Fox and he was rewarded with a real chunky bass but he was by himself and he didn’t have a scale either so it was tough to tell how big it was. From his pictures on his phone the fish looked bigger than 4 pounds….how much bigger, we didn’t know. Dew was our power forward on our H.S. basketball team and he stands about 6 ft. 5 so he’s a big man with a long torso so you have to keep that in mind but I believe the fish to be at least 4 ½ pounds if not closer to 5 but he didn’t have a scale and he learned a valuable lesson. 4-pounds is still your leader!
DAY 3 (FINAL DAY / CHAMPIONSHIP DAY)
So here we are….the final day and guess what greets us again on Sat. morning…..that’s right….frost on the windshield. Anyway……what are we going to do about it…..cry and whine like a baby……NO….we are going to “Fish our Tails Off” which BTW…..was this years theme. Every year I make up a theme for our Spring Fling trip and my buddy Matt has his own print shop and he makes the baddest t-shirts that your skin will ever feel. This years shirt may be the baddest Spring Fling shirt EVER!!! I’ll let you look at the pictures and then you can make your decision. These shirts are printed on the softest material you have ever felt……it’s like from another planet or something…..its crazy soft!
Anyhoo……to the fishing!!!
We started out on Margery because I knew where that big girl was at and I knew if I caught her I had a real good chance of winning the whole thing but I also knew she was going to be tough to catch. I was fishing in Fast Phil’s boat again and again we went 3-deep as my good buddy Buck had joined us for the morning fish. The night before Buck and I had started running our mouths and for anybody that knows Buck and Me and how we get with each other I’ll say this…..it’s not a party until Me and Buck start fighting. We fight like long lost brothers and we’ve been friends since we were little 2-year olds so it’s all in good fun but it can get pretty heated at times and ole Buck said he was going to wear me out and out-fish me so bad that I would cry like a baby. So it was on and we were both fishing as hard as we could. Fast Phil sat on front of the boat just enjoying the ride too!
We got to fishing and right off the bat ole Buck had a few tap-a-roo’s on his lizard he was throwing but they were either little fish or they just never sucked the bait in real good because both times he swung and both times the fish wasn’t there. We fished up the right side of Margery and we couldn’t buy a bite and so we went into the shallows and started looking for big girl. We scanned and scanned and she never showed her big head so we keep on moving and keep on slinging every single bait we had at them……..they just were not eating folks…..I mean….they didn’t even want to nibble on anything. It was frustrating for sure. We broke for lunch. I needed something positive to happen, I mean I was so down in the dumps about the fishing and I just needed to hear that somebody had caught something….please anything….I didn’t care if it was a catfish or a couple slab crappies…..we just needed some catches. Well…..as we got back to camp, the word started spreading that Mr. Josh Dunaway a.k.a. “The Renegade” had caught a pretty good one and that it might be our new leader. A few people had seen it and it looked to be bigger than 4-pounds…..not by a whole lot but it was bigger! That made me smile because the Renegade is a fairly newcomer to the group though he has been invited to come on this trip with us for years. I knew he would love it, if he ever started coming and sure enough he is ate up with bass fishing now and he really gets into the trip……as he should. Dunaway and his fishing partner James were fishing out of older Stratos Bas Boat so they had a pretty good livewell on it and so I was hoping to see this fish firsthand and also hang it from a scale so we would know what she weighed. About that time I look up and here they come down the dirt road. They were both smiling ear to ear and as they stopped we all swarmed the boat to see the new leader. The Renegade reached down into the livewell and grabbed her by her green jaw and out of the box she went and right into my face I saw her and YEP….we had our new leader. She pulled the X-tool digital scale down to 4 lbs. 8 ozs. So it was a solid 4 ½ pounder and that folks was your new leader. He was pretty stoked about it too because he had really struggled last year to catch fish and then up until this point I think he had only caught 2 or 3 bass so it was very rewarding for him to hang this solid bass. He caught her on the baby doll green pumpkin jig and he actually said he thought he was hung on a stump at first and then when they got close to the stump the bass came unwrapped around it and just gave herself up. He said she didn’t hardly fight at all, which was weird but he said he would take it. She was a real pretty fish with great eyeballs and excellent markings up and down her sides. We snapped a few pictures….shot a little video and then he took her back to the lake. She was caught out of Bennett. We ate a quick bite and heading back out for the afternoon fish and we we’re going to try our hand at scoring on a late game changer and win this championship, so like any good fisherman we go out to exactly where the big fish was just caught…….we head to Bennett!
So we start banging stumps again and again it’s Buck….Fast Phil and myself and we are going after them green fish hardcore. We run across ole Rhetro and Wojo who are fishing together and Wojo had busted another 4-pounder earlier in the day but guess what it weighed……4 lbs. 7 ozs. Which was 1 itty bitty ounce lighter than the Renegade’s bass…..ooooo boy was it going to be a close one this year. We fished our tails off all day and other than a little 5-minute flurry of activity that resulted in Buck hanging a nice one but she bulldawg him down into a stump field and then I connected with what felt like a really good fish but just as soon as my line started going sideways it broke because the line was weak and frayed from throwing through heavy cover all day. We didn’t catch another fish and we fished from sun up to sun down and I had never been so defeated when it comes to bass fishing. I was really….really bummed out! What I wasn’t bummed out about though, was that Mr. Josh Dunaway was going to be this years Spring Fling Champion.
So we got off the water and went back to camp where Banquet Night was about to get started. The Renegade’s 4 pound 8 oz. largemouth had stood and he was going to be crowned the champ this year and like I said before…..it couldn’t happen to a better person. Not only did he win a little bit of cash but our buddy Dubnick makes custom built rods and he wraps them in snake skin and they are bad to the bone. Last year’s rod was rattlesnake but this year’s rod was COBRA and it was bad to the bone!!! So we ate like kings one more night…..we barked at the moon a little and I ended the Spring Fling with what I have been ending Spring Fling’s with for years now. A Fire-Jump! This was my last official fire jump as I feel like it is time to put those days behind me and hang up the fire jumping high tops. I may come out of retirement but it will be many moons from now!
So another Spring Fling is in the books and while the fishing was as tough as a piece of meat cooked at 800 degrees for 4 days straight……we still make some awesome memories and got to catch up with childhood friends! That’s really what this thing is all about if we’re being honest here. It seems like a cold front messes up our fishing every year but it can never mess up our good quality times! We fished our tails off and we all left with a smile on our face!
Stay Bassy My Friends
Cletus
DAY 1
I set my alarm clock for 3:30 Thursday morning but by about 2:45 I was wide awake so at 3:00 I got up and took what I knew would be my last shower for about 3 days. I already had the truck loaded and after packing a few last minute items I was out the door and on the dark road to the Hardee’s in Monroe. I was meeting Ole Rhettro, Dubnick, Gee and Wojo to scarf down some biscuits and gravy and get my belly full so that I could do battle with the bass of Charlie Elliott! As I was waiting in the parking lot for the Hardees to open the light rain that had been falling on the way in started to turn to heavy rain and then the wind started throwing walls of rain sideways and my heart just sank! I had been watching the radar and seeing the forecast and I just didn’t want to believe that YET AGAIN……a cold front was going to blow in on us right before our annual spring fling fishing trip but guess what………she was and as ole Rhettro put it…. “This is Wendy here and she is going to bring her sister Gail to the party tom” meaning…..it was going to get super windy and brother was he ever right! So we stuff our faces and get on down to Charlie Elliott, drive by the campsite and drop off a few things and then go straight to Lake Bennett. Lane and Devin (a couple dudes from our group are already on the water) We are the second boat on the water. (Time is 6:47 a.m.) We fish up the left side of Bennett and take our time banging our squarebills into every stump out there and I rotate a rattle trap out there too. I’m throwing my go-to bait, the baby doll green pumpkin jig and ole Wojo is throwing a Carolina-rigged plastic worm and lizard off the front of the boat and we are not even getting sniffed at. Finally all the way up the left side of Bennett Wojo gets a bass to eat his squarebill but it comes un-done as Wojo said she was barely hooked and when she got to the boat she went one way and the crankbait went the other. We were kind of bummed but we were encouraged and we were thinking that they were about to turn on…..WRONG-O…..they did not turn on. We fished until lunch and I had to get off and go visit with some folks up at the Wildlife Center and then we slipped it into Dairy Lake for the afternoon. Dairy is a small body of water and we choose it for that reason, plus Mr. Jamie who works out there told us over lunch that Dairy as well as a few other lakes out there have a brand new boat ramp and dock. So we get to Dairy and I tell Wojo that there is a long point that we should hit first and so we go straight there and on his 2nd cast Mr. Big Lips loads up on his rattle trap. I ask if it’s a good one and he answered with…. “Get the Net”. So I did and when the bass came up to splash I could tell that it was a pretty good one so after a few hard pushes under the boat she gave up the fight and I scooped her up. She was pretty stout but about as white as a ghost which told me that she had just came up from deep water looking for a mean and ole brother Wojo gave her that meal! She weighed 4 pounds even and after a few pictures she was dropped back in the drink. We exchanged high fives and got back to fishing. By this time we had a couple other boats from our group join us on Dairy. The wind was still strong and it was still kind of chilly but things were looking up. After about another hour of fishing Wojo finds a deep hump and we dig in and fish it hard. He starts dragging a Carolina-rigged lizard and BINGO….a large lipp loads up on it. He swings like Tony Gwynn and buries the hook inside that bass’s mouth. It was a solid 2-pounder. Wojo bust one more bass before we get off the water but lonely ole Cletus still has no bass to play with…..boo hoo!!!!! We head back to camp and eat some grub and talk about our day. On Thursday night we had about 12 folks there but by Sat. night (Banquet Night as we like to call it) there will be about 22 bass crazed fishermen. We end the night with some laughs and tuck in for the night! 4-pounds was your leader!
DAY 2
Friday morning comes and with it comes the frost, I mean I literally had ice on my windshield which is always something you want when you’re about to go bass fishing…..right? So I was a little bummed about the weather but oh well……what can you do, we can’t control the weather. So I get in the boat with Fast Phil who has one sweet Carolina Skiff and we hit up Shepard Lake which is a smaller lake and I was hoping to find some 60 degree water but I sure didn’t find it, nor did anybody else. We did find some 58 degree though and after going about 3 hours without a bite I was starting to slip into a deep dark place. I mean I’m not no B.A.S.S. Pro but I feel like I’m a pretty good fishermen and I couldn’t even get a rinky dink to bite so I was super frustrated so I dug through my tacklebox and really dug deep into my plastics to find that one magic bait and I came across a pack of Green Pumpkin Big Bite Fighting Frogs that our very own Matt Driver had given me and the thing looked good so I tied it on a Texas rig and got down to business. On my 2nd cast I threw it right by this little stick up and I felt a “Tap-Tap” and I rear back and I swing and I miss her so I wind it back in real quick like and I zip it back in there and there she is again but this time I don’t miss. I set the hook and guess what……there is a bass on the end of the line. This bass was a super confidence builder and even though it was a tiny dancer it was a BIG bass in my mind. I had started to get my Mojo back and a little lean in my walk. Fast Phil marks some fish on his Hummingbird and we through everything we had at them and I run a jerkbait right through them and right through them and right through them but other than a 2-pound follower that followed the McStick right to the boat only to stick its tongue out at me we got nothing. So we pull out and drive on down the dirt road to Whitetail Lake and it is one pretty lake. It’s small but it sure is pretty. It reminds me of a South Ga. Pond and he had some good stumps in it and a nice point that comes way out and I just had a feeling that we were going to catch some fish. Well….that feeling was right and I busted two more bass in this pond and even though they were still on the small side, it felt good to finally be catching some fish! My brother B.B. and his friend Pat were also in Whitetail fishing. Now we didn’t catch any more fish but it was nice to be in a smaller pond where you could talk to other people a little bit too. It was getting about time to eat a little lunch so we loaded up the boats and headed back to camp! After packing our neck with some good eats it was time to fish again. We decided to fish Margery for the afternoon bite as Dubnick and Gee had caught 6 eariler that morning out of there. For the afternoon fish, it was Fast Phil…my brother B.B. and myself all in the Carolina Skiff and even though I had my doubts about fishing 3 out of this boat at first it had more than enough room for us to fish out of it comfortably. So we hit the water and go to our first stop but we didn’t get bit, so we start moving up the right side of Margery and since I had caught 3 fish off the green pumpkin fighting frog I was still throwing it. Well……I slung that fighting frog right up to the edge of the bank and after about 3 pops of the rod tip something loaded up on it so I dotted those eyes! It was a pretty good little chunk, maybe a hair around 2-pounds and it had one set of mean eyes on it…they were fire red and the bass was trying to intimidate me but guess what….her plan didn’t work. The fishing slowed again but as we crusied through some of the shallows we started seeing some beds and some of these beds were huge. Then we started spotting some bass on these beds and they look like the males because we hadn’t seen any monsters yet but that soon all changed as I looked up under this overhanging limb and right there sitting in the circle was a bass that was well over 20 inches long. She was a brute for sure and it got so serious that I tied the Mattlure Bluegill on but really once she spotted us she took off and just never came back, oh well…..she was defiantly the winning fish but they either bite…..or……they don’t and on this day she wasn’t having it. We fished around the other side of Magery and just could not get bit so I told Fast Phil to head back over to where I had caught my fish from earlier in the day and I really wanted Fast Phil and my brother to get their first fish of Spring Fling 2011 as they were still in the hunt for her. My brother B.B. was starting to enter that deep dark place and I did what any loving brother would do in a situation like that…..I told him to throw a Senko and boy was he glad that he listened to his little brother when he caught his first bass of Spring Fling 2011 a few casts later. It wasn’t a giant but it sure was a big time moment for my brother because over the years this fish have not really wanted to come out and play for my brother but this one sure did as it smoked his Senko. We were pumped and I was really pumped for my brother and seeing the smile come across his face made the whole rough day worth it. So we were pretty excited but the sun was setting on us and we called it a day. I ended the day with 4 catches and while that’s nothing to write home about it, it really gave me a sense of confidence that had gone out the window the day before. We called it a day and went back to camp where we ate like kings. Huge pieces of split chicken marinated in Italian dressing was on the menu as well as salad and some beans too…..it was a solid meal for sure and we had to get our rest as the next day everybody would be swinging for the fences to bring home the trophy and be the Spring Fling 2011 Champion!!!
One member of the group had fished Fox Lake and they have lowered the water level so much out there that the lake looks like something out of Mad Max Thunderdome…..there is timber everywhere….it looks really wild and the boat ramp is blocked off but you can fish it from the bank and if you are up to the task, you can slide a boat in there. Well ole Dew slide his little pond prowler into Fox and he was rewarded with a real chunky bass but he was by himself and he didn’t have a scale either so it was tough to tell how big it was. From his pictures on his phone the fish looked bigger than 4 pounds….how much bigger, we didn’t know. Dew was our power forward on our H.S. basketball team and he stands about 6 ft. 5 so he’s a big man with a long torso so you have to keep that in mind but I believe the fish to be at least 4 ½ pounds if not closer to 5 but he didn’t have a scale and he learned a valuable lesson. 4-pounds is still your leader!
DAY 3 (FINAL DAY / CHAMPIONSHIP DAY)
So here we are….the final day and guess what greets us again on Sat. morning…..that’s right….frost on the windshield. Anyway……what are we going to do about it…..cry and whine like a baby……NO….we are going to “Fish our Tails Off” which BTW…..was this years theme. Every year I make up a theme for our Spring Fling trip and my buddy Matt has his own print shop and he makes the baddest t-shirts that your skin will ever feel. This years shirt may be the baddest Spring Fling shirt EVER!!! I’ll let you look at the pictures and then you can make your decision. These shirts are printed on the softest material you have ever felt……it’s like from another planet or something…..its crazy soft!
Anyhoo……to the fishing!!!
We started out on Margery because I knew where that big girl was at and I knew if I caught her I had a real good chance of winning the whole thing but I also knew she was going to be tough to catch. I was fishing in Fast Phil’s boat again and again we went 3-deep as my good buddy Buck had joined us for the morning fish. The night before Buck and I had started running our mouths and for anybody that knows Buck and Me and how we get with each other I’ll say this…..it’s not a party until Me and Buck start fighting. We fight like long lost brothers and we’ve been friends since we were little 2-year olds so it’s all in good fun but it can get pretty heated at times and ole Buck said he was going to wear me out and out-fish me so bad that I would cry like a baby. So it was on and we were both fishing as hard as we could. Fast Phil sat on front of the boat just enjoying the ride too!
We got to fishing and right off the bat ole Buck had a few tap-a-roo’s on his lizard he was throwing but they were either little fish or they just never sucked the bait in real good because both times he swung and both times the fish wasn’t there. We fished up the right side of Margery and we couldn’t buy a bite and so we went into the shallows and started looking for big girl. We scanned and scanned and she never showed her big head so we keep on moving and keep on slinging every single bait we had at them……..they just were not eating folks…..I mean….they didn’t even want to nibble on anything. It was frustrating for sure. We broke for lunch. I needed something positive to happen, I mean I was so down in the dumps about the fishing and I just needed to hear that somebody had caught something….please anything….I didn’t care if it was a catfish or a couple slab crappies…..we just needed some catches. Well…..as we got back to camp, the word started spreading that Mr. Josh Dunaway a.k.a. “The Renegade” had caught a pretty good one and that it might be our new leader. A few people had seen it and it looked to be bigger than 4-pounds…..not by a whole lot but it was bigger! That made me smile because the Renegade is a fairly newcomer to the group though he has been invited to come on this trip with us for years. I knew he would love it, if he ever started coming and sure enough he is ate up with bass fishing now and he really gets into the trip……as he should. Dunaway and his fishing partner James were fishing out of older Stratos Bas Boat so they had a pretty good livewell on it and so I was hoping to see this fish firsthand and also hang it from a scale so we would know what she weighed. About that time I look up and here they come down the dirt road. They were both smiling ear to ear and as they stopped we all swarmed the boat to see the new leader. The Renegade reached down into the livewell and grabbed her by her green jaw and out of the box she went and right into my face I saw her and YEP….we had our new leader. She pulled the X-tool digital scale down to 4 lbs. 8 ozs. So it was a solid 4 ½ pounder and that folks was your new leader. He was pretty stoked about it too because he had really struggled last year to catch fish and then up until this point I think he had only caught 2 or 3 bass so it was very rewarding for him to hang this solid bass. He caught her on the baby doll green pumpkin jig and he actually said he thought he was hung on a stump at first and then when they got close to the stump the bass came unwrapped around it and just gave herself up. He said she didn’t hardly fight at all, which was weird but he said he would take it. She was a real pretty fish with great eyeballs and excellent markings up and down her sides. We snapped a few pictures….shot a little video and then he took her back to the lake. She was caught out of Bennett. We ate a quick bite and heading back out for the afternoon fish and we we’re going to try our hand at scoring on a late game changer and win this championship, so like any good fisherman we go out to exactly where the big fish was just caught…….we head to Bennett!
So we start banging stumps again and again it’s Buck….Fast Phil and myself and we are going after them green fish hardcore. We run across ole Rhetro and Wojo who are fishing together and Wojo had busted another 4-pounder earlier in the day but guess what it weighed……4 lbs. 7 ozs. Which was 1 itty bitty ounce lighter than the Renegade’s bass…..ooooo boy was it going to be a close one this year. We fished our tails off all day and other than a little 5-minute flurry of activity that resulted in Buck hanging a nice one but she bulldawg him down into a stump field and then I connected with what felt like a really good fish but just as soon as my line started going sideways it broke because the line was weak and frayed from throwing through heavy cover all day. We didn’t catch another fish and we fished from sun up to sun down and I had never been so defeated when it comes to bass fishing. I was really….really bummed out! What I wasn’t bummed out about though, was that Mr. Josh Dunaway was going to be this years Spring Fling Champion.
So we got off the water and went back to camp where Banquet Night was about to get started. The Renegade’s 4 pound 8 oz. largemouth had stood and he was going to be crowned the champ this year and like I said before…..it couldn’t happen to a better person. Not only did he win a little bit of cash but our buddy Dubnick makes custom built rods and he wraps them in snake skin and they are bad to the bone. Last year’s rod was rattlesnake but this year’s rod was COBRA and it was bad to the bone!!! So we ate like kings one more night…..we barked at the moon a little and I ended the Spring Fling with what I have been ending Spring Fling’s with for years now. A Fire-Jump! This was my last official fire jump as I feel like it is time to put those days behind me and hang up the fire jumping high tops. I may come out of retirement but it will be many moons from now!
So another Spring Fling is in the books and while the fishing was as tough as a piece of meat cooked at 800 degrees for 4 days straight……we still make some awesome memories and got to catch up with childhood friends! That’s really what this thing is all about if we’re being honest here. It seems like a cold front messes up our fishing every year but it can never mess up our good quality times! We fished our tails off and we all left with a smile on our face!
Stay Bassy My Friends
Cletus
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