We have FISH!!!!

Well I'm back from a nice weekend at Lake Texoma and the tournament went much better than expected but started off a little rough. After a decent night of drinking Friday night, Mike and I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning for the fishing tournament. DAMN that's early!!!

We headed to the Oklahoma side of the lake and dropped anchor. No fish :-( Pulled the anchor up and "attempted" to start the boat. Wouldn't start! I have a battery jumper in the boat and tried that, still no success. I thought I was going to have to call the park ranger to tow me into the marina. Luckily I decided to check the battery cables and sure enough the one of the thumb screws on the battery had come loose. Once that was tightened, we were on our way again.

We headed west and found a few guide boats anchored. Decided to drop anchor around them. They hate that by the way ;-) Here came the fish!!! I pulled in 5 stripers and Mike got none. Then ran out of bait and had to head back to the docks to get more.

After about 20 minutes of driving, realized I had no idea of where we were :-( Since it was dark when we left, we got a bit turned around, not to mention I have no sense of direction. Another lucky moment, I had a GPS hand held unit that told me I was heading in the opposite direction. Needless to say, we turned around and after quite a long drive, got more bait.

We had about 2 more hours before the tournament ended so headed back out. Unfortunately, we were not able to find the fish again. So we headed back to the docks for the weigh-in.

In total, we (technically I :-)) had about 11 lbs of fish with one being being 5.3 lbs. The 5.3 lbs fish was 23 inches in length and took me about 5 minutes to reel in and get into the boat. What a fight!!!

I'm sad to say that we did not win tournament nor the big fish prize. It was close though. We were able to get 2nd place which exceeded all our expectations as well as everyone we know.

Below are just a couple of the fish I caught during the tournament (I only have 2 hands ;-)).



After the tournament and a quick nap, we headed back out for some evening fishing. Boy am I glad we did; I caught another 5 stripers! Below is a picture of one of them.



Mike's day was not a total loss, he managed to catch one 20 inch striper. As you can see by his expression, one fish does not entirely make up for a whole day of being skunked...hehe!



I cannot wait to get back on the lake but now it is back to reality...work :-(