Cletus T.
Senior Member
Alright folks….we’ve been doing this Spring Fling fishing trip for 10 years now and while a lot of things have changed for us like getting married and having kids and working in the “real world” we have always keep spring fling about the 3 F’s……Fishing…..Food….and Fellowship and this year might go down as the best Spring Fling EVER!!!!! But first let me back up and give you a little history on our Fling’s.
We started doing this little trip back in 2003 and it was just 4 of us. My buddy Rhettro, also known as “old man wisdom”, my buddy Buck and my buddy J-Bird left on a Friday night after work and drove all the way down to Paradise PFA down in Tifton. I had never even fished a fluke before and this was the trip that started my passion with the fluke. In fact…..I was just getting back into bass fishing and I was fishing a pop-button Zebbco 33 and an Ugly stick. That was my only pole and we fished our tails off all day Sat. and half of Sunday and I caught about 20 bass down there at Paradise and I had fallen head over heels with bass fishing again. It re-lit the fire in my belly that had been started many years ago as a little boy. So over the years our numbers grew and more people started coming on this trip and our group numbers went up and the level of fishermen went up too and the level of cooking and eating good grub went up as well. With every passing year we improved on something and even though sometimes the fishing was tough going we were always adding a new “thing” to the trip that just made this event even better. So for the first 5-6 years we went back to Paradise PFA and we caught some good bass and just feel in love with the place but Paradise is a long haul for most of us that live in the Buford / Jefferson / Winder / Suwanee area so we tried something different one year and went to the Brickyard Ponds out near Augusta and that was pretty cool but sort of like Mad Max Thunder Dome out there so we then started going to Charlie Elliott in Mansfield and for 3 years that was our home for Spring Fling but this year we were fortunate enough to get to hold our Spring Fling at a private place that blew just about everybody’s mind. We held it at Big Sandy Plantation located in Dry Branch, right outside of Macon. I have become good friends with the owner of Big Sandy and he told me a while back that we could hold our event there and I asked him if he was sure about that and he said “Absolutely” so before he had a chance to change his mind I passed the word along that we had a dynamite place to hold our fishing trip at and to stay tuned for details. We had beds and hot showers and toilets that flushed and A/C and a huge kitchen (even though we did all of our grilling outside) as we have a buddy that is the “official chef” for Spring Fling and he can cook the mess out of anything and everything. He’s a machine and he will blow your mind with his tender vetiles!!! We had electric hook ups to charge our batteries….we had a bunk house….we had a HUGE fire pit….we had it all and this years Spring Fling will go down as the fling of all flings so let’s get to the action.
DAY 1
So I’m a big fan of tradition and for the last 5 or so flings I always fish with my buddy “Wojo” Jenkins on the first day. He has a super nice bass boat and its red and black and it’s a real joy to fish out of so we always attack Day 1 together. This year was no different. We left Buford at 4 in the morning because we wanted to be on the water at first light. We weren’t the only fishing crazies that left that early in the morning as one of our buddies (Dubnik) was sitting outside the gate an hour before I got there. So we get there and hit the gate code and hit the water as fast as we can. We had 4 boats on the water by 7:30 a.m. and the excitement level was high. I had already told myself that I was going to throw nothing but a buzzbait for at least the first hour of the day and I did just that….I threw nothing but a buzzbait for a straight hour and I caught exactly ZERO fish…not even a blow up. So that told me right there that the fish might not be in the chasing mood and we would probably have to slow it down to catch these fish on this day. Wojo had started catching a few fish on a Senko and that felt good to get a few in the boat and so after I put the buzzbait down I picked up the Almighty Fluke and I busted about 4 bass fairly quickly and the biggest of the day for me was a 3 ½ pounder so that was nice but then about 9 o’clock the BIG MAMA hit!!!
Wojo was throwing that Senko into some pretty hairy and actually all the water there on the main lake that isn’t hairy….it’s stumpy…..it’s thick with vegetation…there are fallen trees everywhere….the water is golden black and everywhere you look there could be a bass just hanging out on the corner. So Wojo throws his Senko back into the jungle and he works it for a couple pops and then he lets the worm settle and then I hear him say “there she is” and as I look up I see him dropping the hammer on the hook set and Wojo has a heck of a hook set too and the rod tip just doubles over. I ask him if it’s a good one and he replies back “sure feels like it” and about that time this sucker goes completely air-born and belly flops about 30 yards out from the boat and it was a giant. I thought it was a 10-pounder at first and this bass was trying to Bulldawg Wojo into the stumps and logs and all the nastiness that is in the main lake but Wojo battled the bass beautifully and when he got here close to the boat I scooped her up with the net and the hooting and hollering and high fiving was on!!!!! She was so dark and so pretty…..she had big ole eyeballs and you know how I am about eyeballs and she wouldn’t settle enough to get a good read on the X-tool scale so I got down close to her face and I sang some Fleetwood Mac to her and that seemed to calm her down and she pegged the scale at 7 pounds even. A real heavy fish she was. So we dropped her in the live well and got back to fishing because something I haven’t mentioned yet is that Wojo and myself had a little side bet going with Rhettro and Dubnik on who could catch the best 5 for the morning fishing. We were going to weigh our fish at 12 at the boat dock and we were whacking them…….their boat……not so much and now we had a 7-pound anchor to build on so things were looking good.
So as Wojo is catching them on a Senko I break out the fluke and get to work. They normally don’t hit the fluke all that good on the main lake but the area we were fishing with all the “junk” out there the fluke fishes so well up and over and around all that stuff and guess what…….they started eating it too. I caught 4-5 bass off of it fairly quickly and then the fluke bite died so I started slinging my little baby doll jig and they sucked that in a few times as well. I busted a solid 3-pounder during this stretch too so that was nice. We meet at the boat dock at 12 and we had about 15-pounds of bass out of the 5 we weighed in……not a bad sack of fish at all. Rhettro and Dubnik had 1-fish in the boat so we won that side bet and it felt good to be a winner!!!!
We had other boats filing in throughout the day on Day 1 and there were some pretty good fish caught too. Dubnik busted one that was just a hair under 5 pounds on a Carolina rig and some other guys boated some chunky 3-pounders so it was an excellent Day 1 and it might go down as our best Day 1 EVER. Wojo had caught one that was a hair under 6-pounds and another 3-pounder too in the afternoon so the man was establishing himself as the man to beat on Day 1. So as the sun fell on Day 1 we had a strong……strong leader in Wojo’s 7-pounder. He had done set the bar way high and it actually kind of scared me because that’s a tough fish to catch up with. A 5-pounder…..you can catch up with…..heck a 6-pounder you can catch up with but a 7-pounder……that’s going to take a monster bass to knock him off the leader board. So we washed up (that’s right….we had hot showers now) and then we got all over dinner for the night which was a Low Country Boil the chef Mr. GB. He’s amazing and a cooking machine!!!! We burned some logs in the massive fire pit and then tucked ourselves in for the night so we could be well rested for the bass battle that was going to happen when the sun began to rise again.
DAY 2
I started out Day 2 with my good buddy Fast Phil and we decided that we would hit Tranquility for the morning fish and Tranquility is their “trophy managed” lake / pond and while you don’t get many bites out there, the ones you do get are usually good ones. For the first 4-5 years that Mr. Craig owned Big Sandy they would catch big bass out of these other lakes and transport them to Tranquility so the best population of BIG BASS lives there though I don’t feel like the “biggest” bass down there lives in there but there are multiple 6 and 7 and 8 pound bass that have been put in there so the chances are pretty good if you hang one….it will be a trophy….BUT……you might not get a single bite either so you have to weigh your options and decide what you are really going after. So Fast Phil and I got there as the sun was coming up and I threw my buzzbait…..my frog…..my fluke…..my jig……my worm……my swimbait…..my spinnerbait…..my sweet beaver…..my lizard……and I didn’t catch squat!!!! Ole Fast Phil however busted 4 off of a Wackem white worm but two of them were babies and two were solid 2-pound chunks so that was nice. I got so frustrated that I asked Phil if he could let me out of the boat so I could stand on one of the many islands that were showing since the water was down. I needed some time to myself and it was quite peaceful for sure. We had another boat fishing with us out there and I saw my buddy Ross nail a 4-pounder so that was nice. It was a little pale but it had a huge head on it. So Day 2 morning was no good for ole Cletus but as we gathered back at camp we heard people were catching fish and that was nice. At least people were catching fish as that was my main goal for this year…..I didn’t want any skunks this year and that is exactly what happened so that made me smile.
I got in the boat with my brother BB for the afternoon fish and we went north bound on the main lake to get up in the jungle. There is standing timber and floating trees and stumps upon stumps upon stumps up there so it is very hairy but there is a lot of life going on up there so we heading that way knowing that we were going to make a full court press on that north end and spend the whole afternoon up there. We got up there and soon found out that you couldn’t hardly fish anything that would go under the surface so we had to work over the top and we slung frogs all afternoon. I did sling a flukey-dookie up there too but my brother BB had one blow up on the frog and that made me switch to the frog. He wasn’t able to get the bass to the boat as that’s a real challenge up there. First thing is first though……..first you have to hook them…..then worry about bringing them through the jungle. BB had another BIG-TIME explosion right by the boat that had to be a monster bass as this hit was a lot more intense than the first hit but again….BB was unable to get the hook in it’s mouth because as soon as it hit, it went straight down into the salad and there was no way to get the sharp hook in the bass’s mouth. BB was bummed and I was too because I really wanted to put him on a good bass but it just didn’t happen. We were able to navigate through the jungle so well because BB has a Carolina Skiff and it drafts so well but we did get a little stuck up there so BB broke off one of the sticks that was sticking up and it made a great push pole and we got ourselves…… “almost” out. Thank goodness for the Weasel Dawg and his partner Nick for throwing us a rope and pulling us out to safety. That was a life saver. So a storm started blowing in on Friday afternoon and we actually had to get off the water a little earlier than we wanted to but the thunder was rolling and the lighting was striking so I don’t play that game. We got off the water and got ready for another awesome night of grub and being that we had access to the Lodge we got to eat inside on a table as the rain fell outside. That was really nice!!! But I almost forgot……I had been skunked all day and had not caught one single fish and I just couldn’t stand the fact that night was going to fall and I hadn’t got bass stank on my hands. So I took the golf cart up to Blue Hole (one of the 5 ponds / lakes that are out there) to show a couple guys that had just gotten there what it looked like and of course I took a pole with me and tied on was my baby doll jig and when we walked up there was a little ole guy right up against the bank running everything off of it…….it was HIS bank! So I told Duncan and Keller that I was about to catch that bass and I slung my jig out there and reeled it real fast to his face and he smoked it and BINGO-BANGO I knocked the skunk off!!!
DAY 3 (CHAMPIONSHIP DAY)
So Championship Day morning greeted us with a bucketful of rain. The thunder and lighting had stopped but it was still raining so that did keep people in their warm and toasty beds a little longer. People were slow to get outside and get on the water too but it was Championship Day so I looked at my brother and I said “You Game?” He said “Uh-huh” and off we went. We were going to stay on the main lake all day and hopefully covering every square inch on that lake we could find a bass that weighed more than 7-pounds and snatch the victory right out of Wojo’s hands……so off we went to get soaked and fish in the rain!!! We had a little company out there on the water……but not much. So I went right down to the spill well where I have caught some really good fish over the years down at Big Sandy and I had yet to catch one off the spill well so I really wanted to give it some focus time. We marked a lot of fish down in the creek channel and we threw everything we had at them but we could not get them to bite. So we eased on down the bank a ways and ole BB reared back on one and even though it wasn’t a giant (probably 2 pounds or so) it sure was a pretty bass with deep dark green color and it had some real good fight in it too but as he was boat flipping it the bass came unhooked and the Senko hit me right in the eyeball but it didn’t hurt too too bad but the funny thing was that it had been raining so hard that we had a good bit of water in the bottom of the boat, so much so that when the bass became unhooked it hit the bottom of the boat and began swimming around in the boat. It was wild and I can’t say that I’ve ever seen that happen before. So we fished hard in the hard pouring rain and we fished all the way up until lunch time and as we were eating fried catfish for lunch, the rain began to stop and it was going to come down to this………one afternoon to see if anybody could bust a bass bigger than 7-pounds and the pressure was building!!!!
::Saturday Morning Side-Story::
We had a new twist this year to our Spring Fling in that we had the opportunity to turkey hunt this year if we wanted to. Big Sandy Plantation has some excellent turkey hunting along with the bass fishing and deer hunting and it truly is a sportsman paradise. So my buddy KB and my buddy BOLO (who are cousins by the way) went turkey hunting on Friday and heard some birds and had them coming their way but the ole long beard was too smart for them and he knew something wasn’t right with the set up and at 60 yards decided to head the other direction away from the smoking barrels that were waiting for him. Well on Saturday morning a 22-lb , double bearded Eastern Wild Turkey stepped out in front of KB and he smoked him. It was a Spring Fling first……we have never killed a turkey before on our trip but this year we did. It was awesome….awesome….awesome and when I saw those wings hanging from the E-Z Up tent at lunch I got super fired up and I hugged KB’s neck and I hugged as hard as I could. See the pictures below of the super awesome bird kill!!!
So we all gave it the old college try but the 7-pounder that was caught during the first hour and a half fishing 3 days prior held…..and Wojo Jenkins became the 2nd person to become a 2-time winner of this event along with old man wisdom, Rhetrro being the other one so that is some pretty solid company to be with. I was and still am a little bummed that I couldn’t seal the deal on a Spring Fling Championship as we have been doing this for 10 years now and I have never won one. I’ve finished in 2nd a few times but I can’t ever put it together to come out on top and I fished my tail off but oh well……that’s fishing and you can’t say I didn’t try and give effort…..I gave effort as well as everybody else did too but ole Wojo is a solid fisherman and he’s a machine too as so he’s always fishing and changing lures and down sizing and trying this tactic and that tactic and watching his graph and he is just a really….really good fisherman so he earned it.
So just like every year we clean ourselves up…put on our finest Redneck Banquet Night shirt which is usually one of those Redhead shirts with a print all over it like a deer or a bass or a Turkey or something like that and we have a great meal and have our presentation. Chef GB smoked up a super juicy brisket and pulled pork and Brunswick stew and we had Mac-n-cheese and collard greens and cornbread and cole slaw and he really just blew our minds and taste buds this year. Our small town Mayor Buck gave a great speech and everybody got the opportunity to stand up and tell what Spring Fling meant to them. It got a little emotional this year for sure because it’s a pretty special thing to still be doing this fishing trip after 10 years and this year will go down as the fling of all flings!!!!
Also...it must be noted that this year I retired from Fire Jumping. I'm 34 now and I have a wife and 2 kids that need me so those fire jumping days are over for me now. The last thing they need is their daddy to be melted like a piece of white chocolate.....it's just time to hang it up and to make it offical.......I burned up my trampoline in the fire pit as Elvis sang "American Triology" A fitting end to a really....really....really good run of fire jumping!!!
We have come a long ways from that first trip where we were eating beanie-weenies and fishing with pop-buttons. My good buddy Thomas works for a print shop and he makes us these awesome Spring Fling t-shirts that are the softest feeling t-shirt you will ever feel. (S.O.G.) And this year being the 10th anniversary he made cozies and hard plastic cups and he even made a huge banner that we all signed. And as if that wasn’t enough he made me my own personal hooded sweatshirt so he really blew us away with all the Spring Fling goodies. Everybody kind of contributes in their own special way and that’s what makes the trip so special. It’s a team effort and we are like one big family. The Renegade and James upgraded our trophy this year and it is truly a trophy that everybody want to put over their fireplace……I joked all year leading up to this trip that we “upped our game” this year but we really…..really did this year. We had an awesome time and with that I have to thank Craig Brown who owns Big Sandy Plantation for opening up his really…..really……really nice place to a bunch so fishing crazies!!!!!
So another Spring Fling is in the books but oh what special memories we made and folks that is what it’s about…….making memories!!!! Until we fling again next year……Stay Bassy!!!
We started doing this little trip back in 2003 and it was just 4 of us. My buddy Rhettro, also known as “old man wisdom”, my buddy Buck and my buddy J-Bird left on a Friday night after work and drove all the way down to Paradise PFA down in Tifton. I had never even fished a fluke before and this was the trip that started my passion with the fluke. In fact…..I was just getting back into bass fishing and I was fishing a pop-button Zebbco 33 and an Ugly stick. That was my only pole and we fished our tails off all day Sat. and half of Sunday and I caught about 20 bass down there at Paradise and I had fallen head over heels with bass fishing again. It re-lit the fire in my belly that had been started many years ago as a little boy. So over the years our numbers grew and more people started coming on this trip and our group numbers went up and the level of fishermen went up too and the level of cooking and eating good grub went up as well. With every passing year we improved on something and even though sometimes the fishing was tough going we were always adding a new “thing” to the trip that just made this event even better. So for the first 5-6 years we went back to Paradise PFA and we caught some good bass and just feel in love with the place but Paradise is a long haul for most of us that live in the Buford / Jefferson / Winder / Suwanee area so we tried something different one year and went to the Brickyard Ponds out near Augusta and that was pretty cool but sort of like Mad Max Thunder Dome out there so we then started going to Charlie Elliott in Mansfield and for 3 years that was our home for Spring Fling but this year we were fortunate enough to get to hold our Spring Fling at a private place that blew just about everybody’s mind. We held it at Big Sandy Plantation located in Dry Branch, right outside of Macon. I have become good friends with the owner of Big Sandy and he told me a while back that we could hold our event there and I asked him if he was sure about that and he said “Absolutely” so before he had a chance to change his mind I passed the word along that we had a dynamite place to hold our fishing trip at and to stay tuned for details. We had beds and hot showers and toilets that flushed and A/C and a huge kitchen (even though we did all of our grilling outside) as we have a buddy that is the “official chef” for Spring Fling and he can cook the mess out of anything and everything. He’s a machine and he will blow your mind with his tender vetiles!!! We had electric hook ups to charge our batteries….we had a bunk house….we had a HUGE fire pit….we had it all and this years Spring Fling will go down as the fling of all flings so let’s get to the action.
DAY 1
So I’m a big fan of tradition and for the last 5 or so flings I always fish with my buddy “Wojo” Jenkins on the first day. He has a super nice bass boat and its red and black and it’s a real joy to fish out of so we always attack Day 1 together. This year was no different. We left Buford at 4 in the morning because we wanted to be on the water at first light. We weren’t the only fishing crazies that left that early in the morning as one of our buddies (Dubnik) was sitting outside the gate an hour before I got there. So we get there and hit the gate code and hit the water as fast as we can. We had 4 boats on the water by 7:30 a.m. and the excitement level was high. I had already told myself that I was going to throw nothing but a buzzbait for at least the first hour of the day and I did just that….I threw nothing but a buzzbait for a straight hour and I caught exactly ZERO fish…not even a blow up. So that told me right there that the fish might not be in the chasing mood and we would probably have to slow it down to catch these fish on this day. Wojo had started catching a few fish on a Senko and that felt good to get a few in the boat and so after I put the buzzbait down I picked up the Almighty Fluke and I busted about 4 bass fairly quickly and the biggest of the day for me was a 3 ½ pounder so that was nice but then about 9 o’clock the BIG MAMA hit!!!
Wojo was throwing that Senko into some pretty hairy and actually all the water there on the main lake that isn’t hairy….it’s stumpy…..it’s thick with vegetation…there are fallen trees everywhere….the water is golden black and everywhere you look there could be a bass just hanging out on the corner. So Wojo throws his Senko back into the jungle and he works it for a couple pops and then he lets the worm settle and then I hear him say “there she is” and as I look up I see him dropping the hammer on the hook set and Wojo has a heck of a hook set too and the rod tip just doubles over. I ask him if it’s a good one and he replies back “sure feels like it” and about that time this sucker goes completely air-born and belly flops about 30 yards out from the boat and it was a giant. I thought it was a 10-pounder at first and this bass was trying to Bulldawg Wojo into the stumps and logs and all the nastiness that is in the main lake but Wojo battled the bass beautifully and when he got here close to the boat I scooped her up with the net and the hooting and hollering and high fiving was on!!!!! She was so dark and so pretty…..she had big ole eyeballs and you know how I am about eyeballs and she wouldn’t settle enough to get a good read on the X-tool scale so I got down close to her face and I sang some Fleetwood Mac to her and that seemed to calm her down and she pegged the scale at 7 pounds even. A real heavy fish she was. So we dropped her in the live well and got back to fishing because something I haven’t mentioned yet is that Wojo and myself had a little side bet going with Rhettro and Dubnik on who could catch the best 5 for the morning fishing. We were going to weigh our fish at 12 at the boat dock and we were whacking them…….their boat……not so much and now we had a 7-pound anchor to build on so things were looking good.
So as Wojo is catching them on a Senko I break out the fluke and get to work. They normally don’t hit the fluke all that good on the main lake but the area we were fishing with all the “junk” out there the fluke fishes so well up and over and around all that stuff and guess what…….they started eating it too. I caught 4-5 bass off of it fairly quickly and then the fluke bite died so I started slinging my little baby doll jig and they sucked that in a few times as well. I busted a solid 3-pounder during this stretch too so that was nice. We meet at the boat dock at 12 and we had about 15-pounds of bass out of the 5 we weighed in……not a bad sack of fish at all. Rhettro and Dubnik had 1-fish in the boat so we won that side bet and it felt good to be a winner!!!!
We had other boats filing in throughout the day on Day 1 and there were some pretty good fish caught too. Dubnik busted one that was just a hair under 5 pounds on a Carolina rig and some other guys boated some chunky 3-pounders so it was an excellent Day 1 and it might go down as our best Day 1 EVER. Wojo had caught one that was a hair under 6-pounds and another 3-pounder too in the afternoon so the man was establishing himself as the man to beat on Day 1. So as the sun fell on Day 1 we had a strong……strong leader in Wojo’s 7-pounder. He had done set the bar way high and it actually kind of scared me because that’s a tough fish to catch up with. A 5-pounder…..you can catch up with…..heck a 6-pounder you can catch up with but a 7-pounder……that’s going to take a monster bass to knock him off the leader board. So we washed up (that’s right….we had hot showers now) and then we got all over dinner for the night which was a Low Country Boil the chef Mr. GB. He’s amazing and a cooking machine!!!! We burned some logs in the massive fire pit and then tucked ourselves in for the night so we could be well rested for the bass battle that was going to happen when the sun began to rise again.
DAY 2
I started out Day 2 with my good buddy Fast Phil and we decided that we would hit Tranquility for the morning fish and Tranquility is their “trophy managed” lake / pond and while you don’t get many bites out there, the ones you do get are usually good ones. For the first 4-5 years that Mr. Craig owned Big Sandy they would catch big bass out of these other lakes and transport them to Tranquility so the best population of BIG BASS lives there though I don’t feel like the “biggest” bass down there lives in there but there are multiple 6 and 7 and 8 pound bass that have been put in there so the chances are pretty good if you hang one….it will be a trophy….BUT……you might not get a single bite either so you have to weigh your options and decide what you are really going after. So Fast Phil and I got there as the sun was coming up and I threw my buzzbait…..my frog…..my fluke…..my jig……my worm……my swimbait…..my spinnerbait…..my sweet beaver…..my lizard……and I didn’t catch squat!!!! Ole Fast Phil however busted 4 off of a Wackem white worm but two of them were babies and two were solid 2-pound chunks so that was nice. I got so frustrated that I asked Phil if he could let me out of the boat so I could stand on one of the many islands that were showing since the water was down. I needed some time to myself and it was quite peaceful for sure. We had another boat fishing with us out there and I saw my buddy Ross nail a 4-pounder so that was nice. It was a little pale but it had a huge head on it. So Day 2 morning was no good for ole Cletus but as we gathered back at camp we heard people were catching fish and that was nice. At least people were catching fish as that was my main goal for this year…..I didn’t want any skunks this year and that is exactly what happened so that made me smile.
I got in the boat with my brother BB for the afternoon fish and we went north bound on the main lake to get up in the jungle. There is standing timber and floating trees and stumps upon stumps upon stumps up there so it is very hairy but there is a lot of life going on up there so we heading that way knowing that we were going to make a full court press on that north end and spend the whole afternoon up there. We got up there and soon found out that you couldn’t hardly fish anything that would go under the surface so we had to work over the top and we slung frogs all afternoon. I did sling a flukey-dookie up there too but my brother BB had one blow up on the frog and that made me switch to the frog. He wasn’t able to get the bass to the boat as that’s a real challenge up there. First thing is first though……..first you have to hook them…..then worry about bringing them through the jungle. BB had another BIG-TIME explosion right by the boat that had to be a monster bass as this hit was a lot more intense than the first hit but again….BB was unable to get the hook in it’s mouth because as soon as it hit, it went straight down into the salad and there was no way to get the sharp hook in the bass’s mouth. BB was bummed and I was too because I really wanted to put him on a good bass but it just didn’t happen. We were able to navigate through the jungle so well because BB has a Carolina Skiff and it drafts so well but we did get a little stuck up there so BB broke off one of the sticks that was sticking up and it made a great push pole and we got ourselves…… “almost” out. Thank goodness for the Weasel Dawg and his partner Nick for throwing us a rope and pulling us out to safety. That was a life saver. So a storm started blowing in on Friday afternoon and we actually had to get off the water a little earlier than we wanted to but the thunder was rolling and the lighting was striking so I don’t play that game. We got off the water and got ready for another awesome night of grub and being that we had access to the Lodge we got to eat inside on a table as the rain fell outside. That was really nice!!! But I almost forgot……I had been skunked all day and had not caught one single fish and I just couldn’t stand the fact that night was going to fall and I hadn’t got bass stank on my hands. So I took the golf cart up to Blue Hole (one of the 5 ponds / lakes that are out there) to show a couple guys that had just gotten there what it looked like and of course I took a pole with me and tied on was my baby doll jig and when we walked up there was a little ole guy right up against the bank running everything off of it…….it was HIS bank! So I told Duncan and Keller that I was about to catch that bass and I slung my jig out there and reeled it real fast to his face and he smoked it and BINGO-BANGO I knocked the skunk off!!!
DAY 3 (CHAMPIONSHIP DAY)
So Championship Day morning greeted us with a bucketful of rain. The thunder and lighting had stopped but it was still raining so that did keep people in their warm and toasty beds a little longer. People were slow to get outside and get on the water too but it was Championship Day so I looked at my brother and I said “You Game?” He said “Uh-huh” and off we went. We were going to stay on the main lake all day and hopefully covering every square inch on that lake we could find a bass that weighed more than 7-pounds and snatch the victory right out of Wojo’s hands……so off we went to get soaked and fish in the rain!!! We had a little company out there on the water……but not much. So I went right down to the spill well where I have caught some really good fish over the years down at Big Sandy and I had yet to catch one off the spill well so I really wanted to give it some focus time. We marked a lot of fish down in the creek channel and we threw everything we had at them but we could not get them to bite. So we eased on down the bank a ways and ole BB reared back on one and even though it wasn’t a giant (probably 2 pounds or so) it sure was a pretty bass with deep dark green color and it had some real good fight in it too but as he was boat flipping it the bass came unhooked and the Senko hit me right in the eyeball but it didn’t hurt too too bad but the funny thing was that it had been raining so hard that we had a good bit of water in the bottom of the boat, so much so that when the bass became unhooked it hit the bottom of the boat and began swimming around in the boat. It was wild and I can’t say that I’ve ever seen that happen before. So we fished hard in the hard pouring rain and we fished all the way up until lunch time and as we were eating fried catfish for lunch, the rain began to stop and it was going to come down to this………one afternoon to see if anybody could bust a bass bigger than 7-pounds and the pressure was building!!!!
::Saturday Morning Side-Story::
We had a new twist this year to our Spring Fling in that we had the opportunity to turkey hunt this year if we wanted to. Big Sandy Plantation has some excellent turkey hunting along with the bass fishing and deer hunting and it truly is a sportsman paradise. So my buddy KB and my buddy BOLO (who are cousins by the way) went turkey hunting on Friday and heard some birds and had them coming their way but the ole long beard was too smart for them and he knew something wasn’t right with the set up and at 60 yards decided to head the other direction away from the smoking barrels that were waiting for him. Well on Saturday morning a 22-lb , double bearded Eastern Wild Turkey stepped out in front of KB and he smoked him. It was a Spring Fling first……we have never killed a turkey before on our trip but this year we did. It was awesome….awesome….awesome and when I saw those wings hanging from the E-Z Up tent at lunch I got super fired up and I hugged KB’s neck and I hugged as hard as I could. See the pictures below of the super awesome bird kill!!!
So we all gave it the old college try but the 7-pounder that was caught during the first hour and a half fishing 3 days prior held…..and Wojo Jenkins became the 2nd person to become a 2-time winner of this event along with old man wisdom, Rhetrro being the other one so that is some pretty solid company to be with. I was and still am a little bummed that I couldn’t seal the deal on a Spring Fling Championship as we have been doing this for 10 years now and I have never won one. I’ve finished in 2nd a few times but I can’t ever put it together to come out on top and I fished my tail off but oh well……that’s fishing and you can’t say I didn’t try and give effort…..I gave effort as well as everybody else did too but ole Wojo is a solid fisherman and he’s a machine too as so he’s always fishing and changing lures and down sizing and trying this tactic and that tactic and watching his graph and he is just a really….really good fisherman so he earned it.
So just like every year we clean ourselves up…put on our finest Redneck Banquet Night shirt which is usually one of those Redhead shirts with a print all over it like a deer or a bass or a Turkey or something like that and we have a great meal and have our presentation. Chef GB smoked up a super juicy brisket and pulled pork and Brunswick stew and we had Mac-n-cheese and collard greens and cornbread and cole slaw and he really just blew our minds and taste buds this year. Our small town Mayor Buck gave a great speech and everybody got the opportunity to stand up and tell what Spring Fling meant to them. It got a little emotional this year for sure because it’s a pretty special thing to still be doing this fishing trip after 10 years and this year will go down as the fling of all flings!!!!
Also...it must be noted that this year I retired from Fire Jumping. I'm 34 now and I have a wife and 2 kids that need me so those fire jumping days are over for me now. The last thing they need is their daddy to be melted like a piece of white chocolate.....it's just time to hang it up and to make it offical.......I burned up my trampoline in the fire pit as Elvis sang "American Triology" A fitting end to a really....really....really good run of fire jumping!!!
We have come a long ways from that first trip where we were eating beanie-weenies and fishing with pop-buttons. My good buddy Thomas works for a print shop and he makes us these awesome Spring Fling t-shirts that are the softest feeling t-shirt you will ever feel. (S.O.G.) And this year being the 10th anniversary he made cozies and hard plastic cups and he even made a huge banner that we all signed. And as if that wasn’t enough he made me my own personal hooded sweatshirt so he really blew us away with all the Spring Fling goodies. Everybody kind of contributes in their own special way and that’s what makes the trip so special. It’s a team effort and we are like one big family. The Renegade and James upgraded our trophy this year and it is truly a trophy that everybody want to put over their fireplace……I joked all year leading up to this trip that we “upped our game” this year but we really…..really did this year. We had an awesome time and with that I have to thank Craig Brown who owns Big Sandy Plantation for opening up his really…..really……really nice place to a bunch so fishing crazies!!!!!
So another Spring Fling is in the books but oh what special memories we made and folks that is what it’s about…….making memories!!!! Until we fling again next year……Stay Bassy!!!
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