New PB Buffalo, and a few tiny cats

About a week ago a few friends and I decided to try our luck at the crappie in White Rock Creek, well it didn't go so well so we decided to leave. I recommended a little pond that I knew (Caruth Park) had a few channels and some nice carp in it. We ended up catching a few each.

Talk to the fish

Townsend with a nice channel

Haha, Dylan with a little bullhead.

A few days ago I tried my luck at some carp fishing with Austin at a pond he had been having a lot of luck at lately. I didn't take me long to catch my first common at 6lbs but we then waited a few hours without a fish.Austin started talking to someone on the phone and I quickly got tired of him talking so I went out to a dock to try for some bass. I was gone for maybe 15mins but when I came back my rod was gone and Austin had something in the net while still talking on the phone. I looked down on a buffalo that went 21-2 and I was pissed. Austin took my rod, netted and landed a fish while talking on the phone the whole time. 

Shortly after I had another run and was there to get it. I did end up catching it and it was my new PB at    19-9. This fish made the whole trip worth it.

That was my last fish of the day, but Austin landed another buff and a fat channel cat. The next morning we went to Moore RD. Park for some more carp and buffs. I blanked because I left early but Austin caught this nice one before I left.

I'm leaving tomorrow for camp Cherokee in East Texas. Hopefully I'll get some nice bass and and a grass carp while I am there.

Camp Cherokee, Thanksgiving, and Lefty Kreh

Two weeks ago I did a wilderness survival camp out where I had to build my own shelter and spend the night in it as well as cook your own food and start a fire with a flint striker. I did a little fishing and caught a few bass as well as foul hooking a 30lb grass carp on a red-eye shad that shook itself off.

Yes I really did have to sleep under that. It sucked! I got bitten by every known bug indigenous to the area. 

Biggest bass of the trip.

For Thanksgiving weekend we always head up to Washington DC to my grandmothers house in Alexandria VA. Its not really a fishing trip but I did catch a few creek chub, a bass, and a pumpkinseed in the creek across the street from her house.

For school I have to do a project on an autobiography of our choice. I decided who better to do it on than Lefty Kreh. So I bought his book My Life Was This Big on my kindle. Then I remembered he was actually in town this weekend signing book down at Tailwaters Fly shop and I decided to meet the Legend for myself. I stood in the line without anything to sign but told him I bought an eBook of his and he told me a story of a year so ago where he was stranded in an airport for 7hour. The first thing he did when he got home was buy a kindle and said he doesn't go anywhere without it now. I ended up also getting a picture with him too.   

First Koi

After years of trying and a few *almosts* I finally caught my first koi. It was a small one at only 4.25lbs but put up a great fight for its size. It ended up being the only carp and run of the day

Dylan and Townsend both caught a few little crappie.

Breckenridge Park

So I found out my little brother was going to this park for a baseball game...I've been meaning to try this spot for a long time so I asked my mom if I can and her response was "So I'm guessing there's a pond there". Yup.

I didn't want to bring any carp stuff since I didn't have much time there so I just took a bait caster and a light spinning rod for crappie. I started casting a LFT live baby shad and within 20casts I hooked something very large. It took off running about 20ft  and immediately I knew it was no bass. Shortly after I got it to the surface and saw it was a chunky carp. Now there was a major problem...I had not net and the bank below me dropped off 5ft and was covered with shrubs and bushes. I had to work the fish 50ft down the bank to a spot that wasn't weeded out and slid down the bank about 4ft to finish the fight. In all it took about 15mins to land the fish.

I somehow wrestled the fish up the bank (thank god it was only 5lbs) and took a quick picture, then slid back down the bank and threw the carp back into the water while almost falling into the water.

 I tried showing how steep the bank was in this picture but it just doesn't give it justice.

I moved all my gear to a spot I could easily land all fish when I saw a big swirl. I threw the jig on top of it and immediately something took off with it but then spit the hook leaving a huge cloud of muck behind it.  There was more activity from carps around this spot but somehow I didn't hook anything else but two small crappie and the bigger one of the pair was camera shy and fell back into the water before I could take a picture. I  never got any bass today.

I'm alive!!

With school starting in August I haven't been able to do much fishing. Here's a few pics from a couple weeks at the pond on the creek that runs by my house while fishing with a friend. Biggest fish was a 3.5 caught off a ultralite with 4lb line. We had a lot of trouble getting it in through the weeds.

 Last weekend I went with the family to Galveston on the Jamaica Beach canals for a long weekend getaway. Fishing pretty much sucked (at least in the lights) on the canals anyway. I mostly caught those pigfish with a black drum, a hardhead, and a croaker thrown into that. Crabbing was very good an we took plenty home for dinner. One other thing that sucked about the trip was it dumped 8 inches of rain on us while we were there.

Double Rainbow!! Not sure why its not coming up clear on the computer it looks great in the camera?  

My dad and decided to brave the rainy weather an try our luck on the 61st St. Pier. We didn't catch anything huge but got enough croaker for 2 dinners. While we were they a kid his friend, and dad were having pretty good luck I'd say. Yes he really did catch this 35lb red on his own with the only needing help when it was being netted.

All of these were caught in one trap

A break in the weather (sort of)

Realizing it had been a little too long since I've hit up Austin to go for some carp and upper 70s weather made me go crazy for some fish. Fishing was slow at first with only a few runs that we mostly missed beside a small carp and cat caught by Austin of course an a nice warmouth I got.

We were packing up about to give up when the most amazing thing I have ever seen happened. At once all three of  Austin's rods shot off at once. I reeled one in by myself that ended up being a little six and I count that one for myself and then ran over to Austin who was holding two rods at once and reeled in the smaller of the fish that ended up being a nice little 10.

I have another pic of us with the fish but they are really blurry when i try to upload them on here for some reason. I'll sort this out soon hopefully.

Saturday I'm going with some friends to Lavon for some catfish and drum so I should have some more fish pics before school starts. I'm not looking forward to it.

Cypress Springs

Spent the weekend with the family and a friend at Lake Cypress Springs. Fishing was much tougher than it usually is in the Spring plus the lake was about 3ft low to make things worse but we still caught fish. I would have a ton more pics but my smart ass brother thought it would be funny to delete 1/2 of them so I lost pics of my 18in sandbass and some catfish. We had a ton of trouble getting the bass boat working so I didn't get to do much fishing on it either. 

First interesting catch was a logperch in a castnet. First time I have ever seen one in person, but he didn't make it and became catfish bait.

Silly little catfish

I got into some nice spotted bass in the lights at night including one that was over 3.5lbs. The biggest one in this pic is only 2.5. I don't think I caught a single largemouth the entire trip.

While fishing in a light for sandbass and catfish I noticed a long and skinny object circling the light. As it came closer into the light I then realized it was about a 2ft long spotted gar. I looked to my brother and said I was only using 4lb line and I was almost sure to lose it. He told me to just go ahead and cast at it before it returned to the dark depths of the lake. First cast I hooked it and got it all the way to the dock and just as my brother was about to net it the line was cut. I was pissed but of course it was expected and it was the first gar I have ever knowingly hooked.

I was really hoping to get into the crappie this trip but of course the only person who caught one was my little bro who hates fishing but my dad made me take him out when we went fishing under the bridge. He ended up catching the only blue cat of the trip too.

We still got plenty for dinner

Too hot to fish...

Lack of reports due to it being way to hot to fish. My days for the past two weeks pretty much went like this...Wake up...walk dogs and water plants before it gets too hot...play on xbox until midnight... and repeat unless I spent the night at a friends house and even then it was pretty much the same story. I fished for the first time tonight in two weeks at a neighborhood pond. Besides a few undersized bass and bluegill the only thing I thought to take a picture of was a little channel cat I got on a roadrunner I was working pretty fast just about at dark. It surprised me to say the least...

Crappy iPhone pic. Cypress Springs is coming up in a few days so stay tuned to see some nice fish pics and if I get lucky maybe a gar or bowfin.  

Galveston

Spent a week at a camp in A&M Galveston. Hardly got to fish at all but I did get a few...

After I got back I stayed with my family for two more nights on the beach and got to do some surf fishing. I did pretty well...

5lb Gaftop!!!!

6lb red

SHARK!!!!!! Look at that beast!

Philmont-an experience of a lifetime

I came home exhausted last night but with a feeling of great pride and accomplishment. While the 11 days and 10 nights in the high and cold Rocky Mountains along with the most challenging hiking I have ever done were very hard on and had very little opportunities to fishing, I had some of the greatest experiances of my life. The views were absolutaly amazing with some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

Hike to the Tooth

This ended up being one of the most challenging things we did throught out our trek. We had to hike 11 miles to a dry camp and this included a side hike to the Tooth of Time, one of the most famous landmarks in Philmont. Of course water was our biggest concern throughout this hike. We decided 2lts of water per person would be enought to make it to the top. On the way up we passes a venture crew who had just came down from the top warning us to save our water and that they were out. We wished them luck and continued our hike. We thought we there several times until we started going downhill and switchback after switchback. When they finally stopped we were several hundred feet below the tooth and looking up at the many boulders we had to climb to reach the top. Even by that time I was exhausted and we decided to eat lunch below the summit so we would have the energy to make it up there. When we made it to the top it became worth it

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                      Last water source before the tooth, I neary went insane seeing all these trout and not being able to fish for them.

Hike to the Top

The top

Wildfire we could see across the Colorado New Mexico Border

Mini-bear and huge squirrel on top of the tooth

Going back down

When we got to the bottom there was a major problem. We were pretty much out of water and were going back to our packs that we left some of our water with. We got to our packs to find the pack tarp thrown off, bear bags tied to different trees and half of our water stolen!!!! That damn venture crew was telling to to save water because they were going to steal ours! To make matters worse there was another crew there that had several kids who were severely dehydrated and we didn't even have enought water to help them. Luckily we had cell coverage were we were and notified some rangers what had happened and the gave us enough water to make it to their camp. When we got there they gave us ice water which was amazing, but the dehydrated crew pretty much colapsed as we came into the camp. Several of them were so badly dehydrated they had to have an I.V. put into them. What stunned me the most about this is that BOY SCOUTS stole one of the most important thing that you need to survive and completely screwed us!

BEAR!!!!!!

Of course we were hiking in Bear Canyon when we went over a ridge and this guy was standing on the trail 15ft in front of us. One of my friends started yelling saying "You have no friends!!!!!" and "Your mom left you as a cub because your fat and ugly". I was laughing so hard this was the only picture I could of it. Not very many crews get to see bears anymore theses days and I feel ver lucky to see one

Baldy-the highlight of the trip

One of the reasons we chose the trek we were one was because one of the scouts in our group who's dad who went here 29 years ago was not able to climb Mt. Baldy because everyone else in his crew was too tired. We had all been anticipating this climb for months (for me a week) and knew it would be the best part of the trip and it did not dissapoint us.

Climb to the top

Snow!!!!!

 Just above the treeline.

The Summit

As soon as we got to the top we were blasted by an 80+ mph wind. It was so strong that you could jump up and get blown back 2 feet. The view from on top was stunning to say the least; we could see pretty much the entire property from Baldy . 

Mini-bear on top of Baldy

Hiding behing the wind barricades

Eagle Nest Lake

We came off the mountain with an awesome experience under our belts and this is one thing we will surely remember for the rest of our lives.

Black Powder Shooting

There were so many deer everywhere we went. I think I saw at least a few every day.

Only Whitetails we saw the entire trip.

Fishing in Philmont

Like I said earlier I hardly got to fish at all the entire trip. Only for about 20 mins on the 1st day and maybe 45 on the 5th day so I only managed two fish, one on each of those days. The fishing I have to say was pretty good and I missed several more fish and crossed several creek that I could see some very nice trout in, but didn't get a chance to fish for them.

Brown/rainbow hybrid

I thought I was going to be able to fish here but it ended up being a disgusting 2ft deep pond with only diseases and bugs living in it.

Cimarroncito Reservior was one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever fished. There are a ton of fish in it too, but I kept missing them

For the scenery

If you have anymore question or want to see more pictures that I have feel free to comment