On To The Next Hobby

I picked up a new bow the other day, its a Bowtech 82nd Airborne and its sweet. While it wasn't brand new  it looks like it is and shoots like it is, and man oh man is it fast. While bow season started about a month ago, I may still go out and give it a try, I've been shooting in my back yard and have it dead on out to 35 yards, I haven't shot it further than that but I bet my 45yd pin is pretty close.

This was the first night I had it, shooting at 20 yards, it took alittle while to get it dialed in but now its on.

And this is shooting at 35yards. I'm thinking if I replaced the pins with smaller ones it would help to shoot tighter groups at longer distances.

Dink Fest 2012

Well I finally broke my curse of kayak bass fishing with the camera filming. We went out Saturday morning with hopes of yankin some 5+lber's but as we found out, that wasn't the case. Tried several tactics but none caught the bigguns. Maybe next time. I'm just glad I got some on camera, and edited up halfway decent.

Long guns and pistols

Man oh man, why are guns so much fun. Got to take the brother in law, and wife's cousin's fiance out the other day. The cousins fiance has quite the collection of guns so that made it even more fun. One of the guns he had was an AK-47, while not full auto, it was still a blast to squeeze round after round off. Of course we had the shot guns and shot off several hundred rounds at clay pigeons. We also pulled out the pistols and did some double wielding stuff, it's kind of fun to fire off two clips at a time... Wish we'd had some tannerite to top it all off, maybe next time. All in all it was a large time.

Wax Slugs

A while back I'd picked up a flat screen TV and had kept it in my shop since we didn't have anyplace to put it in the house. So once Summer started cooling down, I got to thinking, I'd put it on our patio, so we could watch the then Rangers play. Well, everything about it was great, I'd put it out when we were out and take it in when we were done. Then, one night I forgot to put it up and the next afternoon when I went out, it was gone. And heres the dumb part, who ever got it, didn't unhook anything, just ripped it down and broke the little male screw the cable plugs into and left the power cord.

The thing about this whole ordeal that made me the most mad is that someone was on my back patio, no more than a foot from my back door and could have just as easily kicked it in came in and robbed us. So after telling some people, I learned of these slugs. Made about a dozen and boy are they bad to the bone.

Here are some 3" Black Clouds I made. I used #2&4 Steel, Black Cloud Flightstopper & Flightcontrol Steel, and #7&9 Lead BB's. The 2 3/4" shells did some work so I can only imagine what these will do.

Opening Day 2012 Dove Season

Finally got out of the house, and had a successful day. Went out with three others and almost everyone got a limit. There for a little while, the dove were thick in these parts but we had a big cold front and it pushed most of the birds out. Since then in certain areas it's been lights out. I finally broke down and picked up a mojo dove after everyone else I hunted one having one and hogging all the birds. Well here a picture of what we ended up with after the first day.

Mexican Blue Water

Made it down to Riviera Maya a few weeks ago and got to jump into some serious fishing. Besides having cut my hand and having a long night the night before the fishing trip it was awesome. And from my experience, that part of Mexico seemed pretty safe, there were times it felt sketchy, but never in danger. 

As for the fishing, it was great. We went out on a 30'+ boat and within 10 min of leaving the dock, we were hooked up on two Mahi Mahi, the one I caught took what felt like 20 min to fight in and was about 4 foot. All the fish we caught were on tolling some big ass lures with Ballyhoo wired onto the hook, and for the most part were on top.  Between my buddy and I, we caught 5 or so Mahi Mahis and he caught a trophy Sail Fish. I try to not call it a once in a lifetime trip because I can't wait to go back. Here's several pictures of the trip as well as some video.

This Sucks!!

Well a few weeks go I went out an on mountain bike ride and took quite the spill! Ended up with a broken left collar bone, right elbow, and shattered my right wrist. A week or so after breaking all that I had surgery on my wrist and they stuck a big ol' screw in it. It hurt like nothing I've ever felt!!! This weekend all my friends are on the Brazos doing a big trip. I thought about going but decided I'd better not. I went out earlier and tried pitching some jigs and it didn't hurt like I thought it would so maybe here before too long we'll be back in the saddle. Here's some pictures, enjoy.

And now after surgery

March Recap....

Well, I started the month with high hopes! Even fished some real productive places that I've done awesome in the past. But, between the curse of trying to get a fish on camera, and the several BIG rains we got have this'ol boys fishing screwed up. We headed out east about 50 miles to a big ranch that has several lakes we usually catch LOTS of numbers and several big ones, when we pulled up, it looked like chocolate milk. Ended that day catching 3 little dinks. Thats the way the fishings been every time, either gail force winds or lots of rain, sucks... Hopefully April will turn out to be alittle better, it usually is.

Tight Lines!

A Cool Rainy Day of Fishing

Well I finally got a free weekend so I asked a buddy if he'd care to join me at our place on Lake Nocona. So we got out there Friday night and spent the evening respooling and rigging up rods with big plans of catching the bass. Well morning came around, we cooked breakfast and then about the time we were going to head out the wind picked up as a front was blowing in and so we decided we'd load up and move around to another place. Well the wind was blowing hard there so we decided we'd stop back at the cabin before we headed on around the lake.

It was perfect timing because just as we got there the wind died down to just alittle puff. So we put in and everything was great, clear water, a slight breeze and some good cloud cover. A few minutes went by and I was thinking "man, why don't I come out here more often, it's awesome." Well anyways, we fished for about an hour before it started raining and then we fished about another in the rain. We ended up catching one little dink on dead shad while trying to catfish. This is also the first trip with my Playsport and I got to learn a thing or two about it. Anyways, I shot some video and put this together, granted theres no fish being caught, but you can see how nice it was and some neat places.

Lure Making - Alabama Rigs, Kind Of

When Bassmaster Elite pro Paul Elias won a tournament on Lake Guntersville back in October, with a lure not known to the bass fishing world, he opened a whole new way of fishing nobody ever thought could happen. He was using the now famous Alabama Rig. Since his win, B.A.S.S has now banned it in the Classic and Elite Series because people feel its fish catching abilities put everyone not using it at a disadvantage. Anyways, since all of this hype I have ordered mine and have also tried my hand at making some and the lure I have come up with, is some what of a hybrid between a Jig and a Alabama Rig. I think if this thing can catch fish, it could have the potential of being something pretty wild. The thinking with this rig is that being smaller than the normal Alabama Rig, you'll still be able to fish it with your normal 6'6" or 7' rod and wont have the need for the serious braids and heavy duty outfits like you do with the A-Rig. Once we get some nice weather, and I can get a chance to go out, I'm going to give these a try and hopefully, catch a few fish while I'm at it.

Bowfishng & High Powered Rifles

One of my buddies has a big ranch, and theres this little river that flows through it. Last week, he asked if he could borrow my yak, because he's thinking about getting one and wanted to try mine, so I said sure, nothing better than another friend with one. He came back and was telling me that since we're in such a drought, their river has pretty much turned into a long, shallow, skinny lake thats full of carp and that we need to go out a see if we can stick a few. 

So, I met them out there Saturday, I try and figure out how I'm going to tackle this, the mud is that smelly black kind thats about knee deep and sticks to everything so that made it even more fun. I get into my yak, stand up and start paddling, I get to a part thats alittle deeper and all of a sudden theres about 100 or more carp going nuts all around me. What happens next is kind of what I should have expected after not shooting my bowfishg rig in about 7 years. I get off about 5 misses, then I notice, half of the knock has broken off. Theres fish all around so I give it abother try, with the broken knock and stick one. I'm pretty excited now. After that, I realize the handle on my reel has fallen off and I guess it went on through the scupper holes so I can't reel in any more line but I keep on trying with the broken knock, after about 10 dry fires, we find an extra knock and with a few modifications, it's glued to the arrow. We shoot a few more times and miss before we decide to go on another shooting adventure elsewhere on their place.

 This was some fun shooting, we were shooting beer cans starting where that dirt road bends, 200yds, then back to 350. I was shooting an old open sight 30-30 and getting within a foot of it a 200, pretty hard to see much further than that without a scope. The guy shooting in the picture shot a milk jug at 540 right before we got there. Pretty impressive.

Spring Cleaning

Even though its still January, the weather we've been having feels like early spring. And with that, I've been getting the bass itch!! So, I've been cleaning rods, cleaning and re-spooling reels, building spinner baits, and organizing my tackle for this up coming bass season. I've gone from about 10 plano trays full of lures to 4, and 3 big Tupperware deals full of worms to 1. One thing I want to do is carry more stuff but in a smaller package so I have been digging through everything I have, seeing what I think I'll want to use and setting it out. The only thing is it all has to fit into a worm bag and ONE, plano tray. I also want to see if I can get away without having to buy anymore lures, except when I loose one. So far its been pretty easy to get what I want in there so we'll see how it works. I feel confident in what I have, and really it's possibly too much, but oh well having alittle too much is usually ok.

Anchor Management

I rigged this up on my Coosa the other day, its real simple to make, probably less than 10 bucks worth of parts to make.

New Year, New Goals

I've been getting ready for this upcoming Spring for the past several weeks now, new reels, new rods, among other things. I've been thinking mainly about setting up a few multi day trips to some of the big time fishing rivers here in Texas. Last year we had planned a trip to the Devils, and the night before we were to head down, we got the first big rain of the year and it just happened to be in Aug. So I feel mother nature owes us a good year this time. We did a trip down the Brazos last year and that was a fun one, so we'll probably do it again. Most importantly, I plan to work on two of my goals I've had for the last 10 years. The first is to catch a 15+ pound bass out of Lake Nocona, last year there were several people who caught a few double digits, the biggest being 13 something. The other is to catch a new lake record out of Arrowhead, I've only had that one for about the past four years, but really haven't had any luck on big fish, mainly just 5 pounders and smaller.  Heres to a good year!

The Drift

I took off new years day and decided I'd do alittle cat fishing at our local lake again. And like always, if their biting, your bound to catch a few. I had a slow start as catching shad has proven difficult the past few weeks, and I just found out the place where we've been catching them is rumored to have golden algae, which kills all the fish. I usually keep several bags of frozen shad just in case for back-ups and always freeze what I don't use after going fishing, so theres almost always bait.

I get out to Arrowhead some time after one, and paddle out into the wind and throw out a few lines along with the drift sock. The area I start is where I have most faith, but no bites there. As I drift back towards were I put in, theres one more area, we've caught fish in and right at that moment, one of the rods starts doubling over and theres a fish on. I get it to the boat and its a nice keeper so I'm excited now, their biting. I re-bait all the hooks and paddle back up to where I start, the wind has changed directions alittle now, so it's blowing me out into deeper water. I start my drift this time with one getting hug up on the bottom and breaking off, so I rig that one back up as fast as I can and get it back into the water. This time when I get into the second good area, I'm on the deeper end of it, and one of the rods bends over and looks like it could rip the holder of the kayak if I didn't grab it soon enough. I get it in, and finally have one big enough to use the net on and it's huge. I didn't have a scale but I think it might be the biggest one I've ever caught. After that I made one more drift and the wind quit blowing, usually when that happens they shut off, so I fished awhile longer and had no luck so I called it a day.

After I got all these cleaned up, we had a nice little fish fry with hush puppies, french frys, onions, pickles and the always delicious cold beer.