Texas-Z
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Posts posted by Texas-Z
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Mike and I made a trip out to our home lake (Decker) today to try something new. We remembered a nice piece of bank space across the lake that was right next to the deepest channel so we figured we would take the jon boat and load up the kits and headed that way.
Hit the lake a little after 7 this morning, loaded the boat and headed across. The place we were thinking of originally was, well, underwater... So we found a suitable spot in the area and got to business. We baited up a bit and found some deeper holes on the depth finder. We got all the lines out and settled in. Didn't take long and we had a couple of fish on the bank.
The wind kicked up something fierce at this spot. I mean horrible, we couldn't cast for crap, lines were all over the place. We must have missed 3-4 buff at this spot because we couldn't see drop backs for nothing with the wind. Eventually we packed up and headed back to the main park side and the wind was calmer there. We caught a mess of fish, i stopped counting the commons, all were between 8 and 15lbs, and a few decent buffs. Oh and I managed a crappie and a bluegill while trolling from one side to the other. We had a great day, ill just let the pics to the talking.
New PB buff for me 34#04oz
Mikes 17#'er
Big fish of the day...
39# and some change
We caught a bunch of commons in between these fish. Including this purdy one.
Around 7 the wife showed up and we started packin up to leave. I was in the middle of packing up my first pod when my oldest asked me if he could reel the last rod in from the first pod. I told him to go for it and heard a bunch of alarm beeps shortly after. I ignored them thinking it was just Dylan messin with that rod. Bout that time I see my youngest run by in a blur, rip a rod out of the second pod and set the hook like daddy taught him, and the fight was on. I let him do his thing, I went about cleaning up and he called me over once he had it close... and here it is...
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My 8 y/o has his first mirror! 13#14oz Was a beautiful fish. He was stoked.
And that was how our trip ended. All in all a wonderful day!
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I just LOVE that pic!!!!!!!
Yeah thats my youngest, Derek, he is 8 and he is a fishin fool! We played a game all weekend that if he could beat me to the rod then it was his fish. Needless to say I didn't get to land many myself. And he works those 12' rods like its are going out of style. Considering getting him a set of 7-9' rods of his own. Not sure Im ready for that kind of investment though.
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We had a family camping trip this past weekend out at Turkey Bend park. Ended up being a decent weekend. The wind was ROUGH to say the least. We got to the lake around 10ish on Friday morning, went about getting camp set up and Mike and his girl joined us shortly afterward. We got everything set up and I took the jon boat out for a baiting spree around noonish and also set out a few jug lines.
Fishing the first day was horrible, the wind was so bad we could hardly keep the pods on the ground. We didn't try very hard because of the wind, so we played in the water and just hung out. The wind died down in the evening and we started hearing crash after crash, but we called it a day early.
Day two is when the action picked up. Mike and I caught fish after fish, im pretty sure there was only 2 or 3 times throughout the whole day where we actually managed to have all of our rods in the water at the same time. We got so wore out we just let the kiddos take over and be in charge of the pods. All in all 65 fish were caught on Saturday. Here are a few of the pics.
LMAO, this picture looks like Derek is fixing to go shank someone prison style.Anyways, all in all a great weekend, we put a lot of fish on the bank including a few cats that are in the freezer now and a purdy gar.
We also landed a common with some funky markings, maybe an old wound? Then the scales above it looking un-uniform, we thought it was interesting.
Great weekend, good times with good friends. Glad you were able to show up and get a few fish Don. Next time you need to drag the ole lady out. Until next time...
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That must be about the single best picture on this forum! Congrats...
Lol, I was trying to get out of the picture but that buff was kickin his butt!
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Another pic.
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After sitting on the bank with me for two days during the ATC my wife finally decided that she wanted to give carp angling a go. So she went and picked up her license this morning and away we went. We made it out to Melrose swim on LBL a bit after lunch time. It didn't take to long before the first fish was landed. My wife was the one who took point, she did everything herself today, baiting, setting up the pod, responding to the alarms, the whole shabang. Anyways, on to the fish. None of which I got to catch, i played net man for the family all day long!
Ashleigh's first carp ever...wait for it... wait for it... 35#3oz, what a first fish!
Second fish went to my 10 y/o. 41#5oz buff! (His PB is higher than mine now)
Third fish went to my 8 y/o. He landed it on my 12' rods with absolutly zero help.
There was one more fish that my wife caught. It was a 20#11oz common. What a day for the fam to catch some fish. And what a first fish for my wife! She crushed many people PB's with her first carp ever. Im so jealous. Congrats babe, im proud of you!
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1) No I don't think you can accurately predict a swim on LBL. For us it seems like the first fish doesn't usually come for about an hour to an hour and a half after setting up. We have been practicing fishing random swims with no prebaiting done. I have noticed that first fish has been coming sooner and sooner for us as of late, i presonally would like to think that its the modifications we have made to our method mix thats getting the attractants out there and bringing the fish in sooner. At ATC fish fish cam half an hour or so after rods went in, yesterday the buff came 27 minutes after lines hit, and yes, im keeping a log, lol.
2)I can't really have much input on the bait question because I have fished such a limited selection. We like to keep it simple and in doing so there have been many occasions that we are catching fish and the people we are fishing with/next to are blanking.
As for the rest of the questions Ill sum them all up with one general opinion. We don't move, I personally think that just about every spot on LBL has the ability to produce. It has been my experience that we have never been able to "hold" carp in the area at LBL. By that I mean that I think they are on the move ALL the time. Perhaps we don't put enough ground bait in to hold them, I don't know. It seems to me like they come though in groups and hang around for a few min then leave. Day one of the ATC we caught 4 fish within an hour and a half window, then blanked for 7 hours, then caught 3 more, day 2 we were catching 2-3 at a time, then nothing for a few minutes, then 2-3 more, and repeat. Never really had just a single fish. I say that to say this, if you have the right method to catch their attention and the right hook bait to entice them to bite, then its all a matter of waiting in your swim till the fish come by. Now, there will be pegs that are "on fire" but i honestly believe that you can have a good session just about anywhere you can find enough room to get a line in the water on LBL.
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Hmmm Rich, if ya were using K-1 Tutti and didn't catch the only thing i can think of is maybe you weren't holding your tongue right, lol.
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We didn't bait up much at all either. We threw maybe 5 method balls into 2 areas and then fished those two areas all day.
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Our $100 voucher for the Carp Tournament Series. I dont know how to go about doing it so if you wanna take the helm on putting it up for auction or whatever Scott with proceeds going to CAG, ill mail to whoever wins.
Thanks again for everything you do bossman! Mike and I are just trying to give back what little we can to support a wonderful cause and a great organization.
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Due to Mike and I being relatively new to the carp scene our commercial bait selection is rather limited to say the least. I would like to expand it a bit in the near future but I was hoping for some feedback from those who fished the tourney this year. I know many of the folks that participated have baits ive never even heard of let alone ever thought about trying, so if your willing to share, I would like to know what baits produced well/not so well for everyone.
For us day one was dominated by K-1 Tutti fruti boilies and homemade maize soaked for a few days then boiled in a lot of salt, a little sugar and then put into a container and topped off with a couple cap fulls of K-1 tutti additive.
Day two we found that for whatever reason we had a number of hits on the boilies but we kept having pulled hooks, like they werent taking them in all the way or something. We switched over to the tutti maize and to our plain o chili powder maize and those two seemed to be the ticket.
My big fish 35lb came on a tutti maize then half a boilie then another tutti maize sandwich.
We tried a number of other baits, all home made and none of them produced at all, some pineapple maize, grape maize, several flavors of an attempt at homemade boilies failed as well.
What about you gents?
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Yesterday ended a two day fishing bonanza that I had the pleasure of participating in with my buddy Mike. This is our experience.
Day 1 (Corn boil/ meet and greet)
After a long day that seemed to drag on and on we headed to the host hotel around 6pm to meet all of the competitors and hang out and talk fishing. We met some great folks, many of whom have a very extensive knowledge of carp angling and were not afraid to share what they knew. After a couple slices of pizza and a few too many beers we headed back to the house for last minute preparations and to get some sleep. The preparations went down without a hitch but the sleep was hard to come by. Finally managed to doze off around 1am.
Day 2 (first day of fishing)
Alarm went off at 0345, my feet hit the floor running by the second note, lol. We get the truck packed and head to the hotel for peg draw. Mike and I decided to let our fate rest in the hands of my darling wife, so she drew for us. We ended up drawing The Peninsula and off we went. Its didn't take us long to get there and get unloaded so we set up camp while waiting for the start of the tourney at 0600. The time comes and bam we are fishing.
Once the rods were in we went about setting everything else up, organizing and preparing for the long day ahead.
At 0630 one of my alarms starts screaming. After a brief battle the first fish of the 2011 ATC was landed.
And what a first fish, this one went 31#08oz (A new PB) Funniest moment of the day was when I went to release the fish I stepped down onto a piece of a submerged cement pad and one foot missed. Unfortunately the water was 3 foot deep so I ate it and I got slapped in the face by the carp's tail on the way down. I didn't care though, 30 minutes in and a thirty under our belts.
Didn't take long and Mike landed a pretty 18lb common. (don't have a pic of that one)
By this time, the sun was up proper and it was a beautiful day to be out on the bank doing what I love most. Around 0800 we pulled our first double of the event. These two went 26# and 24#.
At this point we were in first place and I think Scott's team was the only other one on the boards. But the bite died on us and we didn't post another fish for 6 hours I think. We did manage to hook into a few grass carp, but we don't know weights because they mysteriously came unhooked at the net.
Since the fishing slowed down we decided it was time for lunch. We fired up the pit and made some kick arse fajitas. We figured if we were gonna do it, we were gonna do it right.
For us the slow fishing continued but for Chad and Jim it was on fire. Sometime around lunch they took over the top spot and they never looked back.
Around 1530 our dry spell ended and once again I shattered my PB. This monster went 35#06oz. It would also stand as big fish of the tourney for 3/4 of it.
We managed 2 more fish throughout the afternoon and when fishing stopped at 1900 we were in a pretty solid 2nd place.
Unfortunately Jim and Chad had slayed em throughout the day at Red Bud and they finished the day in first with an amazing 17 fish and 355#s. We had managed 130ish pounds throughout the day and 2nd place standing so we were thrilled with our performance in our first Tourney ever. We packed up and headed home with our heads held high. We were somewhat daunted by the sheer numbers of the first place team and in our heads all we could do at this point was keep on keepin on and try to hold onto our 2nd place spot.
Day 3 (Last day of fishing)
Alarm went off again at 0345 but it took a lot of effort to crawl out of bed. Made it to the 5am peg draw and waited our turn. I drew for us today and I almost needed a new set of drawers when I saw that I drew the hottest peg of day 1, Red Bud. I'm not sure my feet hit the ground on my way outside to let Mike and my wife know, we were on cloud nine and once again full of hope and determined to give the top team a run for their money.
Let me tell ya, Red Bud produces a lot of fish but OMG its a heck of a walk to haul a long sessions worth of gear to.
I can't even begin to describe the fishing we experienced that day. There were some lulls but overall we caught fish constantly most of the day.
We caught our first fish pretty early and it was on from there. By noon we were closing the gap between us and first place. But out of no where the Bates bros did some massive hauling and the battle for second was on in earnest.
Even though the fishing at Red Bud is hot im not sure I ever want to draw that peg again. People these days have no courtesy and I was surprised at how many actually went out of their way to give us grief. My understanding is that on the first day of fishing, there was an incident in which a dog got hooked. After that the park rangers hung a caution tape around the very tip of the peninsula for the protection of the animals and the anglers gear. Evidently people took that as a personal affront. All in all we had the police called on us 3 times and the game warden once. The police took our side both times they actually came out and jumped on a couple of the more unruly protesters. Get this, the last time someone called the police an anonymous caller called 911 and informed the police that we were there distributing alcohol to a bunch of minors. We didn't even have any alcohol that day. The same officer that had been responding all day came down, had a good laugh with us, talked fishing for a bit then left.
Back to the fishing. Around noon our marshal had to go weigh another pegs fish and get some lunch, so he told us to start bagging fish and once we got 2 he would come back. It didnt take long to get two in the sack, but when we tried to call we couldnt get ahold of him. Third fish was landed and we finally got him on the line and he said he was headed our way. 4th fish landed and we were out of sacks, so the two smallest got doubled up. We were in panic mode at this point. Some of the fish had been in sacks over an hour and we were out of room. Fifth fish came and I had to stand in the water with the fish in the weigh sling, praying to God the marshal showed up soon. My heart sank when the sixth fish was on, i just knew we were going to have to let one go or risk damaging them. Luckily the marshal showed up just as the 6th fish was being landed.
After weighing all the fish and a couple quick calculations we realized that we had just moved into the top spot. We were literally dancing around the peg, hootin and hollarin. From that moment until the end of the day I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. I was having major issues trying to get the baiting needle through the loop on the hair rig and everything.
We knew it was far from over so we did everything we could to keep producing. Around 4pm they opened the dam and the bite died hardcore. We were in panic mode, yeah we were on top but one good fish by 2nd or 3rd place could knock us off. We switched up our approach because the current became unfishable. Our perseverance paid off and we managed to pick up a couple more fish. The last couple of hours were absolutely nerve racking. We killed 4 smart phones because we were constantly checking the online leader boards. At 630pm we landed another decent fish and I looked at the standings then looked at Mike and said "Um, Mike, I'm pretty sure we just won the ATC" I can't describe the feeling.
Mike and I almost didn't fish because of financial difficulties. But we did manage to enter. We set our goal pretty high when we signed up. Our only goal was "not to embarrass ourselves" and well I suppose we didn't. I can honestly say that if our peg draws had been different this trophy wouldn't be sitting in my living room. But we did our fair share of work and we had to bust our butts for the win. I can't describe how happy and excited I am. This event was a blast, i look forward to trying again next year. Unfortunately Mike and I may not be fishing together to defend our title, I think next year my loving wife will be sharing the bank with me!
Oh and for those who were wondering the 2011 ATC was won using only chili maize and tutti fruity maize! See y'all next year!
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Not to shaaby for a couple of newbies now, lol. Im so sleep deprived its not even funny, going to pass out now! Awesome event, had a blast, we will be back to defend next year!
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Well if ya want them for the raffle then they are yours, if you dont then anyone who does want any of them just shoot me a PM and ill bring with me to the boil.
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Zebco XR11
Garcia Mitchell 306
Daiwa 7700Ra
Shakespeare 1969
Diawa Procaster PL-100 X2
Johnson Century Lite 125
Like I said, I dont know if they would even be worth anything to anyone, but i figured I would throw them out there.
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No one has offered anything up so I've been doing some digging. I do not have anything of value to throw in but I did find a bag of fairly old reels that i found in my grandpas garage years ago. I don't know, maybe they might be worth something to someone who can clean them up as a collector item or display or something. Ill post pics here in a few and maybe someone can tell me if they are worth a darn. Or if anyone would even want them.
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Ill cover ya as long as I get half of any pot you might happen to win! Bwahahaha!
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I think Ive got it... I can neither confirm nor deny that I have spent the afternoon outside with umpteen buckets timing how long it takes different method mix combinations to break up and how cloudy they are and so forth. Its mildly pathetic, my neighbors are beginning to look at me funny.
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Does anyone happen to have a winning weight number list from all the previous years? Id be interested in seeing how its changed year to year.
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I know that several people have been having some really good days on Lady Bird in the last week or two although for one reason or another some of those folks are reluctant to post reports. Im not, as you can see from the report from yesterdays outing in the reports section.
Im thinking this year will yield the heaviest overall weight yet! Winning weight will be 330+ lbs. Im also thinking a 40# will take big fish award along with a low 30's buff for that pot. What are your predictions?
The bite is on and we have some world class fishermen fixin to grace our local shores. So here is to a record year! (cheers)
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I know there are a few new people who may not know any/many of the usual pegs for ATC but Im wondering what pegs the vets hope they get and which ones they hope they dont get...
For me, id have to say I hope we draw either the rocks or melrose. We have fished alot of the past used pegs and those are the two i am most comfortable at.
As for the ones I dont want, I really hope i dont draw red bud, i really just dont like that peg. I know this might go against everyone else, but i also hope we dont draw the gazeebo. Havent had crap for luck there.
Oh, and Scott, is there official peg list out yet?
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Ok im confused, i thought melrose and the hostel were one and the same? Just behind the hostel and to the left of the dock is where we always fish, the two spots right next to each other, each big enough for one pod. Which swim is that then?
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it's no harm to talk as much BS as you want -- because when the flag drops the BS stops
I am going to have to beg to differ here... Because win or lose, Ill be talkin smack all the way to the end! Lol, a competition just isn't any fun without a touch of friendly rivalry! Im just happy that we can have such an event as to evoke some of that friendly rivalry and at the same time promote awareness about the most awesome sport-fish around!
A Pb Broken And A Special Pb Established...
in Pictures, Stories & Video
Posted
Exactly what is the difference between a mirror and a linear? Is it just because he has the line of unbroken scales? And I noticed and was curious as to why that fish had little head syndrome. The head was tiny and the body bulged out with a big hump where the head ended. Looks really weird.
So what is the difference between his linear and my mirror?