Cletus T.
Senior Member
WET……WET…….and more WET. That was a running theme for us this year on our annual Spring Fling Fishing Trip that was held out at Charlie Elliott WMA over the weekend. It was by far the wettest spring fling we have ever had but it was also one of the best. As far as sheer tonnage, it was the best ever because some sure enough big girls came out to play. There were 3 bass that weighed 6 pounds or better and we had a total of 13 fish that were 3 pounds or better so the quality was there. The quantity was down a little bit as it was a real struggle to get bit but once you did get bit, it was usually a good one. Yes there were some rinky dinks caught and I caught one little tiny dancer that wasn’t even as long as my pointer finger. I still don’t see how it got that jig in its teeny tiny mouth but it did. We ate like Kings because we have a guy that cooks for us that is unbelievable. He really is……..he’s like a cooking machine. He never stops, he just moves from one thing, to the next to the next. Cutting…..prepping…..basting…..rubbing.....smoking……serving…..that man truly is an out of this world cook. As fired up as me and the rest of these crazies get for bass fishing, that’s how fired up he gets about cooking and seeing people stuff themselves off his food. I’ll talk about this man and his amazing food a little later in the story and you will also see some killer shots of the food we feasted on. Let’s get to the action, what you say?
Day 1
Well…..folks, I meet my good buddy Mr. “Wojo” Jenkins in Winder on Thursday morning and I was going to follow him down 11, all through the small towns and go that route instead of having to deal with the interstate. There was also one fine Hardee’s sitting in Monroe that we were going to have a sit down breakfast at. Our plan was to sit out the storm / rain and then once we got there the rain would have passed and it would be beautiful. Well……………it didn’t really play out like that. First off, the biscuits and gravy at Hardee’s was right on point (It always is) and Wojo and I had some excellent morning conversation. I admired Wojo’s beard and even the gravy stayed away from the sheer “manly-ness” of this beard. Wojo had grown one solid beard and stash. He looked like a mountain man. You see…….a good many of us grow our beards out for this trip and I think if we gave out an award for the best looking beard then Wojo would win that running away. No other beard there even got close to Wojo’s. So now that I’m done talking about biscuit and gravy and beards let’s get to the fishing. We got on the water around 10 and it was raining pretty hard. We got some video footage that will show you just how hard, but it was coming down good. I started out with a Sam Rabun Red Laser Lure lipless crankbait and Wojo is cranking it too from the front of the boat. We fish our first point and then after about 30-40 minutes of steady rain it started to let up. By this time “Old Man Wisdom” had shown up and he was fishing right behind us. He was cranking too. Rhetro a.k.a. “Old Man Wisdom” was throwing a square bill crankbait just knocking it off the stumps and wood that was so heavy on Lake Bennett. The rain had almost come to a complete stop and it was rather peaceful. Wojo had his little IPod playing and we were listening to some Led Zeppelin, which I will revisit a little later in the story because the Zeppelin played a crucial role in the fishing this past weekend.
So Rhetro was throwing that square bill crankbait and he was fishing all by his lonesome self because his partner hadn’t shown up yet, when he looked over at me and said “Cletus…….get your camera ready”, he slung that square bill toward the shore and after a few knock arounds on the wood something loaded up on it. Rhetro leaned into that hook-set and let out a small grunt and Wojo and I just watched as he tried to fight this fish and then it came up and wallered and that’s when Rhetro said “Oooooo it’s a pig” in a way that only Rhett can say and then he tried to get the net, which was hung up on the back fishing banana seat but he finally got the net loose and he scooped that pig up. He Babe Ruthed it, meaning he called it. He said get your camera ready and then he whacked one. This was the first fish of Spring Fling 2010 and also it was like his 4th or 5th cast of the day. It was an amazing…..he Babe Ruthed it!!! We cruised over to him and gave him the scales so he could weigh this ole largemouth. It looked solid and it had some shoulders on it. It pulled the scale down to 6 lbs. 13 oz. and we had a strong new leader sitting a top the big bass leader board. Now folks…….when you look at the picture of this fish you got to know that ole Rhetro is a big ole boy, he stands about 6 foot 4 and we weighs just a hair under 300 pounds. So you got to remember that when looking at this fish held out in front of him. I promise you folks…..that fish was every bit of 6 13. He dropped her back in the drink (which I have some amazing video footage of the release…..I’m talking National Geographic footage here folks). Wojo and I knew we had our work cut out for us because it was going to take one solid fish to upset the 6 lb 13 oz that set atop the leader board but we booth knew that there were plenty of fish swimming in Lake Bennett that would smoke that 6 13 so we kept our spirits high. Wojo knocked the skunk off our boat a few minutes later when a lil ole pounder hit his Carolina rigged lizard. He smacked her good too. A few minutes later I smacked my first fish of Spring Fling 2010. It smoked that lil ole green pumpkin jig that I soooo love to throw. A few minutes later I rear back again and things are starting to feel right. The mood is most defiantly right because we had that Zeppelin playing and it was soooooo good. I mean the rock and the blues that they mix together is unbelievable. They were an amazing band. I would also work my bait to the beats of John Bottom pounding on them drums. There were times when the music played right in line with everything that was going on around us. We were in the zone folks……the “Zeppelin Zone”. We broke for lunch and re-grouped. We were going over to fish Fox Lake in the afternoon and the sun was finally starting to burn those clouds off.
Fox Lake is a tough nut to crack and even though it looks real bassy with the standing timber everywhere it can be a real challenge to get bit on this lake. We start fishing Fox and the weather is turning downright sexy. The sun is getting high in the sky and the clouds are rolling out and at times I just sat there and just looked at how beautiful it was around us and I thought how God sure knew what he was doing when he built this place. We fish around the timber and drag some humps but we can’t seem to get bit. We truly are enjoying ourselves though and I love fishing out of Wojo’s boat. It’s so big and wide and I can really get into my hook setting without tipping the boat over and everybody knows that I love to power hook-set. So we are coming up to a lone tree hanging out about 10 yards from the bank that sits on the edge of a slight decline in depth. I fling my lil green pumpkin jig toward the tree and it lands perfectly right up against it. I let it sink and I let it soak, meaning I don’t do a thing to it. I let it sit there for 30 seconds or so and then I go to bumping it along the bottom. I bump it….let it fall…….let it soak….then repeat. I was zoning into the Zeppelin and all the sudden something feels funny, so I do what my Daddy told me to do so many years ago. “When something feels funny….set the hook”. I never felt the bite but I rear back and power hook-set my jig into the mouth of some swimming creature. It felt funny at first, almost like my bait was hung on some old fishing line down there because it felt like it was running itself up the line but what was really happening was I was getting bulldawged down deep and it was about to get hairy. I knew that it had to be a pretty good one because it still hadn’t shown itself and when they do that it usually means it has some shoulders on it. Wojo ask me if he needs to get the net and I told him it might be a good idea and about that time it comes and goes air-borne for us and that’s when the shakes start. She was a good one! She makes a hard push around the boat and then goes deep again. She then comes up to the top and moves some more water. Wojo is trying to get her in the net but she is just out of reach. She then drops like a runaway bowling ball right under the boat and my whole rod and reel are in the water trying to keep this ole gal from breaking my line and my heart. I finally get her back up on top and as the Zeppelin rings out, Wojo scoops her and she is in the boat. There was some serious hooting and hollering and high-fiving going on in the boat. This fish had real pretty color and a nice little gut on her and she looked to be four or five pounds and even though I knew she wouldn’t beat the 6 lb. 13 oz. that Rhetro had already busted, I was still very proud of her. She pulled the scale down to 4 lbs. 10 oz. and we took some pictures and did a little filming and then let her swim off to fight another day. We fished for the rest of the afternoon but we couldn’t land another largemouth. We did receive a photo text message from Perk “The Weasel Dawg” who had finally got there and he was fishing with Rhetro. The photo was of Rhetro holding another 6-pounder. A 6 lb. 9 oz to be exact. Ole Rhetro was on ‘em!!! The Weasel Dawg had busted one too. We meet Mike D at the boat ramp of Fox who was in our group and he had been out there all day and he caught 3 fish with one of them being around 3-pounds. Not a bad first day if I do say so myself. We eat like kings because our World-Reendowed Chef had made a feast that would make your mouth water from 300 yards away. We dealt with some passing rain but Tarp Kingdom held strong for the first night in the wild. We ate….we washed it down and we sat around the fire for the evening and then turned it in because we knew that we had our work cut out for us. Old Man Wisdom was atop the leader board and it would take a solid fish to knock him off.
Day 2
The morning of Day 2 came with some sun and Mike D, my partner for Friday fishing wasted no time in getting one in the boat. He fooled a Charlie Elliott bass with the Carolina rig. We were on Bennett again and a little bit later I reared back on one too. We then got our first double of the weekend as we booth set the hook on two feisty largemouth’s. Things were looking up and then, like it did all weekend……the weather changed. It went from sunny to cloudy…..to rainy…..to windy…..to real rainy…..to hairy / hairy storming. We put the bibs and hoods up and we hunkered down in the storm and tried our best to fish this bad boy out. Thunder was rolling and there was some lighting off in the distance but we hung in there. The rain would let up a little and then it would start all over again. We did our best but the fishing really never improved. I slung my laser lure right into a log and I thought for sure that it was lost because we sat over this log in the pouring rain trying to untangle it for 10 minutes and brother…..it wasn’t budging. I finally gave to the rod to Mike D and after a few attempts he had that pole back in my hand with the laser lure still attached. He had done it and I was truly grateful. The rain let up some and it made for some pretty cool fog photos but the fishing never ever picked up. Mike D caught a couple other little ones but the fishing became tough…..very tough. We finally had enough and called it a day. The rain just soaked us as well as camp. We had Tarp Kingdom pretty good and locked down so we never had anything blown away but we had a lot of adversity to deal with this weekend. There was a lot of standing water and mud puddles all around us. One false move and you could be face down eating a mud pie. You had to be on alert at all times. This sense of alertness gave me a motto that we tried to live by throughout Spring Fling 2010, and that motto is… “BE RELAXED…….BUT……..BE READY” That will probably be going on the t-shirts of next years Spring Fling. And on that note I can not go any further until I mention the t-shirts and the unbelievable man that makes these t-shirts for us.
You see…….for the last three years of these trips I have been getting t-shirts made for our trip. The first two years I used a local printing company and they did a great job and everybody was always very pleased with the t-shirts, or so I hope they were since they are usually my design. Well last year was this ole boys first Fling and he and his Dad have a t-shirt / printing company and they do amazing work. I mean it……AMAZING work. Well ole boy, Thomas as he is known to many made an awesome t-shirt last year and then he followed it up with a “blow your mind” t-shirt this year. I had an idea and I told Thomas about it and he went and made my crazy idea a true reality and probably the best feeling shirt your skin will ever feel. Not only did he do t-shirts this year but he rocked our world with some fishing mesh-net hats too. ARE YOU SERIOUS????? DID HE JUST DO THAT????? There are pictures below that show the sheer bad-ness of this man’s work. You will see that this year’s logo was “Stay Bassy My Friends” and maybe if you are on top of your game you can tell me who that is on the back of the shirt and where that logo comes from. Anyhoo…….Thomas…..you do unbelievable work and you have taken this trip to a whole other level now and we love you. We ate beef brisket that had been smoked all day by our World Famous cook, Mr. Gary Brown and he even brought his meat slicer to camp. Freshly cut slices of beef brisket served hot. We had corn beef and hash as well……thick sliced white bread…..chopped pork…..Brunswick stew that would make you slap your Grandmother right in the face and smear her lipstick. We ate like kings all weekend long.
Day 3 (Championship Saturday)
There is always a certain feel to the final day of fishing. It’s like a “swing for the fences” kind of feeling. Everybody knows what they have to catch in order to get that Big Bass Champion Trophy. They are gunning for the money and the custom built *Spring Fling 2010 Champion* rod that Mike D makes especially for this trip. Plus you get the Glory and the bragging rights for a whole year and you want it! You want it so bad that you can almost taste it and feel it and smell it! Our champion from last year, Mr. Lane had shown up the day before and they were catching some fish but he was still searching for that one bass that would knock the 6 13 into second place as we all were. My good buddy Buck had some friends show up as well and they were really nice dudes and I had a feeling from these ole boys that they would go out there on the final day and whack a monster bass. He had a really nice Stratos bass boat and he just seemed to know his stuff. He lived down in Columbus and he told us how he would kill ‘em on Eufaula. His name was Mr. Garrett and he was on the water pretty early on Sat. I saw him cranking some stumps on the right side of Bennett and I saw him boat a couple good size bass. Well it turns out that Mr. Garrett got into them and I mean he got into them in a BIG way. He caught several 3 and 4-pounders and he had one in the box that went 7 lbs. 11 oz. That’s a Spring Fling all-time record folks. I didn’t see it with my own two eyes but I saw pictures of it but you see folks this is where a “situation” kind of came up. You see…..Mr. Garrett never gave me his $$$ to put in the Big Bass Pot so even though the fish counts as far as an all-time record and one monster of a bass, it doesn’t count in winning the money and the trophy and the custom built rod. It’s a tough pill to swallow but that’s the way the Spring Fling by-laws are written. What makes it even worse is that he was trying to pay the person in charge of holding the big bass pot and that person is me………but he never found me. There was some miscommunication and I feel really bad about it but we couldn’t count that catch to offset Rhetro’s 6 lb 13 oz bass. He understood and was totally fine with it, plus he had to leave early and head back to Columbus so we got two t-shirts in the mail to him and his fishing partner. It will also be dooly noted in the official Spring Fling Yearbook that a 7 11 was caught and that it is an all-time record and who it was caught by. It was a tough situation but that’s the way it had to be. I fished with another buddy of mine named J-Bird who had come down early that morning so as you can see I was playing musical boats this past year. My normal partner “The Weasel Dawg” had a wedding he was in and he couldn’t get out of it! So I bounced from boat to boat and I loved it. Well….J-Bird and I really struggled to locate any feeding fish. Other than a few bites, we had very little action in our boat. The wind was whipping us around and we were getting beat up so we slipped on out of Bennett and took it to camp to eat some lunch. After a very tasty lunch I decided to do some bank fishing with my brother. Get back to my roots and not have to deal with the wind and being blown all over the place. I did add one little rinky dink to my total fish count but other than that my fishing was over. It was nice getting to share an afternoon fishing with my brother because we use to do that a lot as little boys. It was a very nice and relaxed way to end the fishing at Spring Fling 2010.
Now we had Banquet night to attend to. This is where Gary Brown cooks all the finest meats and this year we had racks upon racks upon racks of ribs for banquet night. We had beans and all the leftovers from the two nights before. He also makes ho-cake on the smoker for desert and it was delicious. We put on our most polished Redneck print shirts and we get down to business on the food and on the awards. Mr. Rhetro won the Big Bass Champion with that 6 13 he caught on day one. It was the first fish caught and the most important at that. Rhetro has had a tough 2010 fishing wise. He fishes in a club and he has yet to catch a fish in two tournaments as well as the practice leading into these tournaments. Sometimes…….it’s just your time, and this year was Rhetro’s time. We have never had a single day performance quite like Rhetro had on Thursday. He caught the winner (6 lb 13 oz) the 2nd place fish (6 lb 9 oz) a couple 4-pounders, a couple 3-pounders and then a few in the 2-pound range. All in all he caught 10 fish on Thursday and most of them had shoulder pads on them. He smoked the competition and he looked good doing it. We packed our necks once again on Gary Brown’s finest, had our awards ceremony where our small town Mayor Mr. Buck gives a solid speech and recaps our weekend. The final touches are put on through the art of “Fire Jump” and this year there was a mini-tramp brought to help me reach that next level of air and brother I was flying high again. The Jordans were on and laced up tight and the ole Bocephus shirt was on for good luck…..I think the pictures will give you an idea of the BIG AIR that was taken place in the wild. Fish were caught on square-bill crankbaits (the biggest fish were caught on these) Carolina-rigged lizards and the lil green pumpkin jig. Those 3 baits probably accounted for the majority of the fish, though there were fish caught on plastic worms as well. The lil green pumpkin jig helped shake the skunk off of Josh “The Renegade” Dunaway as well as James “Kid Dynamite” Mora. They fished their tail off and no one can doubt their intensity. The numbers weren’t there this year but boy the quality sure showed up.
Day 1
Well…..folks, I meet my good buddy Mr. “Wojo” Jenkins in Winder on Thursday morning and I was going to follow him down 11, all through the small towns and go that route instead of having to deal with the interstate. There was also one fine Hardee’s sitting in Monroe that we were going to have a sit down breakfast at. Our plan was to sit out the storm / rain and then once we got there the rain would have passed and it would be beautiful. Well……………it didn’t really play out like that. First off, the biscuits and gravy at Hardee’s was right on point (It always is) and Wojo and I had some excellent morning conversation. I admired Wojo’s beard and even the gravy stayed away from the sheer “manly-ness” of this beard. Wojo had grown one solid beard and stash. He looked like a mountain man. You see…….a good many of us grow our beards out for this trip and I think if we gave out an award for the best looking beard then Wojo would win that running away. No other beard there even got close to Wojo’s. So now that I’m done talking about biscuit and gravy and beards let’s get to the fishing. We got on the water around 10 and it was raining pretty hard. We got some video footage that will show you just how hard, but it was coming down good. I started out with a Sam Rabun Red Laser Lure lipless crankbait and Wojo is cranking it too from the front of the boat. We fish our first point and then after about 30-40 minutes of steady rain it started to let up. By this time “Old Man Wisdom” had shown up and he was fishing right behind us. He was cranking too. Rhetro a.k.a. “Old Man Wisdom” was throwing a square bill crankbait just knocking it off the stumps and wood that was so heavy on Lake Bennett. The rain had almost come to a complete stop and it was rather peaceful. Wojo had his little IPod playing and we were listening to some Led Zeppelin, which I will revisit a little later in the story because the Zeppelin played a crucial role in the fishing this past weekend.
So Rhetro was throwing that square bill crankbait and he was fishing all by his lonesome self because his partner hadn’t shown up yet, when he looked over at me and said “Cletus…….get your camera ready”, he slung that square bill toward the shore and after a few knock arounds on the wood something loaded up on it. Rhetro leaned into that hook-set and let out a small grunt and Wojo and I just watched as he tried to fight this fish and then it came up and wallered and that’s when Rhetro said “Oooooo it’s a pig” in a way that only Rhett can say and then he tried to get the net, which was hung up on the back fishing banana seat but he finally got the net loose and he scooped that pig up. He Babe Ruthed it, meaning he called it. He said get your camera ready and then he whacked one. This was the first fish of Spring Fling 2010 and also it was like his 4th or 5th cast of the day. It was an amazing…..he Babe Ruthed it!!! We cruised over to him and gave him the scales so he could weigh this ole largemouth. It looked solid and it had some shoulders on it. It pulled the scale down to 6 lbs. 13 oz. and we had a strong new leader sitting a top the big bass leader board. Now folks…….when you look at the picture of this fish you got to know that ole Rhetro is a big ole boy, he stands about 6 foot 4 and we weighs just a hair under 300 pounds. So you got to remember that when looking at this fish held out in front of him. I promise you folks…..that fish was every bit of 6 13. He dropped her back in the drink (which I have some amazing video footage of the release…..I’m talking National Geographic footage here folks). Wojo and I knew we had our work cut out for us because it was going to take one solid fish to upset the 6 lb 13 oz that set atop the leader board but we booth knew that there were plenty of fish swimming in Lake Bennett that would smoke that 6 13 so we kept our spirits high. Wojo knocked the skunk off our boat a few minutes later when a lil ole pounder hit his Carolina rigged lizard. He smacked her good too. A few minutes later I smacked my first fish of Spring Fling 2010. It smoked that lil ole green pumpkin jig that I soooo love to throw. A few minutes later I rear back again and things are starting to feel right. The mood is most defiantly right because we had that Zeppelin playing and it was soooooo good. I mean the rock and the blues that they mix together is unbelievable. They were an amazing band. I would also work my bait to the beats of John Bottom pounding on them drums. There were times when the music played right in line with everything that was going on around us. We were in the zone folks……the “Zeppelin Zone”. We broke for lunch and re-grouped. We were going over to fish Fox Lake in the afternoon and the sun was finally starting to burn those clouds off.
Fox Lake is a tough nut to crack and even though it looks real bassy with the standing timber everywhere it can be a real challenge to get bit on this lake. We start fishing Fox and the weather is turning downright sexy. The sun is getting high in the sky and the clouds are rolling out and at times I just sat there and just looked at how beautiful it was around us and I thought how God sure knew what he was doing when he built this place. We fish around the timber and drag some humps but we can’t seem to get bit. We truly are enjoying ourselves though and I love fishing out of Wojo’s boat. It’s so big and wide and I can really get into my hook setting without tipping the boat over and everybody knows that I love to power hook-set. So we are coming up to a lone tree hanging out about 10 yards from the bank that sits on the edge of a slight decline in depth. I fling my lil green pumpkin jig toward the tree and it lands perfectly right up against it. I let it sink and I let it soak, meaning I don’t do a thing to it. I let it sit there for 30 seconds or so and then I go to bumping it along the bottom. I bump it….let it fall…….let it soak….then repeat. I was zoning into the Zeppelin and all the sudden something feels funny, so I do what my Daddy told me to do so many years ago. “When something feels funny….set the hook”. I never felt the bite but I rear back and power hook-set my jig into the mouth of some swimming creature. It felt funny at first, almost like my bait was hung on some old fishing line down there because it felt like it was running itself up the line but what was really happening was I was getting bulldawged down deep and it was about to get hairy. I knew that it had to be a pretty good one because it still hadn’t shown itself and when they do that it usually means it has some shoulders on it. Wojo ask me if he needs to get the net and I told him it might be a good idea and about that time it comes and goes air-borne for us and that’s when the shakes start. She was a good one! She makes a hard push around the boat and then goes deep again. She then comes up to the top and moves some more water. Wojo is trying to get her in the net but she is just out of reach. She then drops like a runaway bowling ball right under the boat and my whole rod and reel are in the water trying to keep this ole gal from breaking my line and my heart. I finally get her back up on top and as the Zeppelin rings out, Wojo scoops her and she is in the boat. There was some serious hooting and hollering and high-fiving going on in the boat. This fish had real pretty color and a nice little gut on her and she looked to be four or five pounds and even though I knew she wouldn’t beat the 6 lb. 13 oz. that Rhetro had already busted, I was still very proud of her. She pulled the scale down to 4 lbs. 10 oz. and we took some pictures and did a little filming and then let her swim off to fight another day. We fished for the rest of the afternoon but we couldn’t land another largemouth. We did receive a photo text message from Perk “The Weasel Dawg” who had finally got there and he was fishing with Rhetro. The photo was of Rhetro holding another 6-pounder. A 6 lb. 9 oz to be exact. Ole Rhetro was on ‘em!!! The Weasel Dawg had busted one too. We meet Mike D at the boat ramp of Fox who was in our group and he had been out there all day and he caught 3 fish with one of them being around 3-pounds. Not a bad first day if I do say so myself. We eat like kings because our World-Reendowed Chef had made a feast that would make your mouth water from 300 yards away. We dealt with some passing rain but Tarp Kingdom held strong for the first night in the wild. We ate….we washed it down and we sat around the fire for the evening and then turned it in because we knew that we had our work cut out for us. Old Man Wisdom was atop the leader board and it would take a solid fish to knock him off.
Day 2
The morning of Day 2 came with some sun and Mike D, my partner for Friday fishing wasted no time in getting one in the boat. He fooled a Charlie Elliott bass with the Carolina rig. We were on Bennett again and a little bit later I reared back on one too. We then got our first double of the weekend as we booth set the hook on two feisty largemouth’s. Things were looking up and then, like it did all weekend……the weather changed. It went from sunny to cloudy…..to rainy…..to windy…..to real rainy…..to hairy / hairy storming. We put the bibs and hoods up and we hunkered down in the storm and tried our best to fish this bad boy out. Thunder was rolling and there was some lighting off in the distance but we hung in there. The rain would let up a little and then it would start all over again. We did our best but the fishing really never improved. I slung my laser lure right into a log and I thought for sure that it was lost because we sat over this log in the pouring rain trying to untangle it for 10 minutes and brother…..it wasn’t budging. I finally gave to the rod to Mike D and after a few attempts he had that pole back in my hand with the laser lure still attached. He had done it and I was truly grateful. The rain let up some and it made for some pretty cool fog photos but the fishing never ever picked up. Mike D caught a couple other little ones but the fishing became tough…..very tough. We finally had enough and called it a day. The rain just soaked us as well as camp. We had Tarp Kingdom pretty good and locked down so we never had anything blown away but we had a lot of adversity to deal with this weekend. There was a lot of standing water and mud puddles all around us. One false move and you could be face down eating a mud pie. You had to be on alert at all times. This sense of alertness gave me a motto that we tried to live by throughout Spring Fling 2010, and that motto is… “BE RELAXED…….BUT……..BE READY” That will probably be going on the t-shirts of next years Spring Fling. And on that note I can not go any further until I mention the t-shirts and the unbelievable man that makes these t-shirts for us.
You see…….for the last three years of these trips I have been getting t-shirts made for our trip. The first two years I used a local printing company and they did a great job and everybody was always very pleased with the t-shirts, or so I hope they were since they are usually my design. Well last year was this ole boys first Fling and he and his Dad have a t-shirt / printing company and they do amazing work. I mean it……AMAZING work. Well ole boy, Thomas as he is known to many made an awesome t-shirt last year and then he followed it up with a “blow your mind” t-shirt this year. I had an idea and I told Thomas about it and he went and made my crazy idea a true reality and probably the best feeling shirt your skin will ever feel. Not only did he do t-shirts this year but he rocked our world with some fishing mesh-net hats too. ARE YOU SERIOUS????? DID HE JUST DO THAT????? There are pictures below that show the sheer bad-ness of this man’s work. You will see that this year’s logo was “Stay Bassy My Friends” and maybe if you are on top of your game you can tell me who that is on the back of the shirt and where that logo comes from. Anyhoo…….Thomas…..you do unbelievable work and you have taken this trip to a whole other level now and we love you. We ate beef brisket that had been smoked all day by our World Famous cook, Mr. Gary Brown and he even brought his meat slicer to camp. Freshly cut slices of beef brisket served hot. We had corn beef and hash as well……thick sliced white bread…..chopped pork…..Brunswick stew that would make you slap your Grandmother right in the face and smear her lipstick. We ate like kings all weekend long.
Day 3 (Championship Saturday)
There is always a certain feel to the final day of fishing. It’s like a “swing for the fences” kind of feeling. Everybody knows what they have to catch in order to get that Big Bass Champion Trophy. They are gunning for the money and the custom built *Spring Fling 2010 Champion* rod that Mike D makes especially for this trip. Plus you get the Glory and the bragging rights for a whole year and you want it! You want it so bad that you can almost taste it and feel it and smell it! Our champion from last year, Mr. Lane had shown up the day before and they were catching some fish but he was still searching for that one bass that would knock the 6 13 into second place as we all were. My good buddy Buck had some friends show up as well and they were really nice dudes and I had a feeling from these ole boys that they would go out there on the final day and whack a monster bass. He had a really nice Stratos bass boat and he just seemed to know his stuff. He lived down in Columbus and he told us how he would kill ‘em on Eufaula. His name was Mr. Garrett and he was on the water pretty early on Sat. I saw him cranking some stumps on the right side of Bennett and I saw him boat a couple good size bass. Well it turns out that Mr. Garrett got into them and I mean he got into them in a BIG way. He caught several 3 and 4-pounders and he had one in the box that went 7 lbs. 11 oz. That’s a Spring Fling all-time record folks. I didn’t see it with my own two eyes but I saw pictures of it but you see folks this is where a “situation” kind of came up. You see…..Mr. Garrett never gave me his $$$ to put in the Big Bass Pot so even though the fish counts as far as an all-time record and one monster of a bass, it doesn’t count in winning the money and the trophy and the custom built rod. It’s a tough pill to swallow but that’s the way the Spring Fling by-laws are written. What makes it even worse is that he was trying to pay the person in charge of holding the big bass pot and that person is me………but he never found me. There was some miscommunication and I feel really bad about it but we couldn’t count that catch to offset Rhetro’s 6 lb 13 oz bass. He understood and was totally fine with it, plus he had to leave early and head back to Columbus so we got two t-shirts in the mail to him and his fishing partner. It will also be dooly noted in the official Spring Fling Yearbook that a 7 11 was caught and that it is an all-time record and who it was caught by. It was a tough situation but that’s the way it had to be. I fished with another buddy of mine named J-Bird who had come down early that morning so as you can see I was playing musical boats this past year. My normal partner “The Weasel Dawg” had a wedding he was in and he couldn’t get out of it! So I bounced from boat to boat and I loved it. Well….J-Bird and I really struggled to locate any feeding fish. Other than a few bites, we had very little action in our boat. The wind was whipping us around and we were getting beat up so we slipped on out of Bennett and took it to camp to eat some lunch. After a very tasty lunch I decided to do some bank fishing with my brother. Get back to my roots and not have to deal with the wind and being blown all over the place. I did add one little rinky dink to my total fish count but other than that my fishing was over. It was nice getting to share an afternoon fishing with my brother because we use to do that a lot as little boys. It was a very nice and relaxed way to end the fishing at Spring Fling 2010.
Now we had Banquet night to attend to. This is where Gary Brown cooks all the finest meats and this year we had racks upon racks upon racks of ribs for banquet night. We had beans and all the leftovers from the two nights before. He also makes ho-cake on the smoker for desert and it was delicious. We put on our most polished Redneck print shirts and we get down to business on the food and on the awards. Mr. Rhetro won the Big Bass Champion with that 6 13 he caught on day one. It was the first fish caught and the most important at that. Rhetro has had a tough 2010 fishing wise. He fishes in a club and he has yet to catch a fish in two tournaments as well as the practice leading into these tournaments. Sometimes…….it’s just your time, and this year was Rhetro’s time. We have never had a single day performance quite like Rhetro had on Thursday. He caught the winner (6 lb 13 oz) the 2nd place fish (6 lb 9 oz) a couple 4-pounders, a couple 3-pounders and then a few in the 2-pound range. All in all he caught 10 fish on Thursday and most of them had shoulder pads on them. He smoked the competition and he looked good doing it. We packed our necks once again on Gary Brown’s finest, had our awards ceremony where our small town Mayor Mr. Buck gives a solid speech and recaps our weekend. The final touches are put on through the art of “Fire Jump” and this year there was a mini-tramp brought to help me reach that next level of air and brother I was flying high again. The Jordans were on and laced up tight and the ole Bocephus shirt was on for good luck…..I think the pictures will give you an idea of the BIG AIR that was taken place in the wild. Fish were caught on square-bill crankbaits (the biggest fish were caught on these) Carolina-rigged lizards and the lil green pumpkin jig. Those 3 baits probably accounted for the majority of the fish, though there were fish caught on plastic worms as well. The lil green pumpkin jig helped shake the skunk off of Josh “The Renegade” Dunaway as well as James “Kid Dynamite” Mora. They fished their tail off and no one can doubt their intensity. The numbers weren’t there this year but boy the quality sure showed up.
