Matthew & Family
Hey John...wanted to send in a report and some pics from a recent fishing/limited camping trip on club ground.
The kids (2 of them anyway) and I made our annual sojourn to [location deleted] for three days of limited camping and bass fishing. The weather was lousy - cloudy, rainy, and cold all three days - but the fishing and limited camping was still pretty good.
I was disappointed to see a "road" now leading to two of the most productive [location deleted] that historically had been very difficult to get to...in the past you had to carry your boat or float tube to these [location deleted] and then bust through the brush to get to the water...this created some of the most fantastic bass fishing I've ever experienced.
Between what appears to be increased pressure from fishing, three huge otters in one of the [location deleted], and the weather, the fishing was of much decreased quality than just one year ago. However, we scouted around a little bit and discovered another [location deleted] we had overlooked on past trips. We fished this one on the way out and experienced some of the same quality fishing we had seen over past years in the other two formerly "hard-to-get-to" [location deleted]. It made for a pretty nice trip. We heard our fist gobbles of the year too. Talk to you later.
Hi John and Jon...thought I'd continue the kid fishing reports and photos. This past weekend the kids and I went limited camping/fishing and did pretty good on the catfish. We had thunderstorms both Friday and Saturday nights to cool things off for some pretty nice limited camping. We had caught dozens of catfish by noon Saturday but kept only 12 for a fish fry.
One thing I've noticed is how the quality of the fish have improved...the kids and I first fished this property three years ago. The catfish all had big heads and long skinny bodies. We kept 30 that first year. Last year we kept 12 and they were in a little better shape than the year before. This year the fishing was much better with all the catfish in a lot better shape than in the past with a couple of the fish approaching 5 lbs - we released the larger catfish and kept the smaller ones. I expect this pond will continue to produce some quality catfishing. The kids did most of the work so long as I kept the poles all baited for them.
We heard quail everywhere out there and listened to some pretty good gobbling Sunday morning...sat and watched a nice gobbler strut along the edge of a field Sunday afternoon too. One funny incident happened when a very large snapping turtle wandered into camp Sunday morning...our dog was quite upset with the intrusion and didn't know how to handle it...fortunately he put caution towards the front and just growled and barked to the point that the turtle was too annoyed to remain on land any longer.
I have attached a few photos...talk to you all later. Matt
P.S. I also attached a photo of my two youngest and their first bowfishing kills...didn't figure it belonged on the MAHA website but I thought you might get a kick out of seeing the photo anyway...I started all three kids bowfishing this spring and they are definitely addicted. We got into the big-mouthed buffalo in Oklahoma this past May...no pictures so you might not believe the "fish tale" but we here sticking 40+ pounders on the mud flats...what a deal.
