Ling on a Redfish rod!!

Here's Hailey Smith with a nice ling she caught on Cade's "Redfish" rod. They were casting for tripletail around a rig when this bad boy came up and ate her Texas trout killer!! I bet that thing gave the rod a good workout! Thanks Cade!!

Sir's Stick - Pistol Grip

This is a sweet little 6'6" pistol grip bass rod built on a Rainshadow CB66MH blank. The foregrip trim is a slice of mesquite. Lot's of rods on the rack right now, so I'm trying to crank out as many as I can before Christmas!!

Fishing for Freedom 2011

Last weekend was a fun weekend of fishing! I entered the Fishing for Freedom tournament on Lake Belton and fished with Mike Rivera. Mike is a veteran Apache helicopter pilot, so right away I knew I was dealing with a sharp dude. We were boat 197 out of the starting blocks, and we ended un in 6th place out of 286 teams!! It was a really tough day of fishing, but our three smallmouth and one largemouth were enough to get us in the money for a $700 payday! We caught our fish on white square bill crankbaits and green pumpkin hula grubs. Ok the way back to the weigh in, I spun the hub on my prop, so Mike had to get picked up and go to weigh in on his own. I made it to the weigh in just in time to pick up our checks! This one was a confidence booster, as we beat out several Bassmaster Elite series pros... This was my first time on Belton, so we'll call it beginners luck!

Takeoff... got our game faces on:

Mike with our 2 best smallmouth:

Payday:

The results are here: http://faithanglernetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FFF2011-Tournament-Results.pdf

On sunday (after getting a new prop with my winnings), I fished the club tournament at Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. Bryan Henegar and I got second place and I picked up this one that was just shy of 5lbs. My weight was enough to hold my 2nd place spot in the club standings.

Lake Travis 10/8

Tom Martens and I hit Lake Travis today for a few hours. The lake is lower than I've ever seen it... We started the morning under a little drizzle, so that was weird. We had a killer morning of fishing. Tom was on fire with a jig, and I was catching them on cranks, jigs, shaky heads, and Baby Buster. We probably caught about 50 fish from 7am until 11:30, with the biggest five about 15+lbs. I kept my 5lbr streak alive with this one... It came on a shaky head from way behind a dock. I didn't think I was going to be able to get it out, but somehow I managed to land it. I also caught this nice Guadalupe bass. Guads don't get very big, so this one was actually a "picture taker". Fun morning on the water!! I promise, some fishing rods are coming up soon!!!

Cousins weekend at LBJ - 2011

We had our 3rd annual cousins weekend at LBJ on 10/1. Keith, Travis, Ross, and Cale made it out, and we had a rip roarin' good time as usual... On friday, Ross came out a little early and we hit lake Travis in the afternoon, and LBJ just before sunset. We caught quite a few fish, mostly on cranks and shaky heads, including this one that went about 5lbs. After watching the Aggies blow it on saturday, we cooked up a feast. We had fried wild turkey with gravy, fried cobia, grilled cobia, fried potatos, T-bone steaks, and fried bass! At about 11pm, we jumped in the ski boat and went out to hit some green lights. After picking off several white bass and largemouth, Keith hooked into a GIANT flathead catfish. Unfortunately, it went on a hard run with 12lb test, and broke the line. Not even 5 minutes later, on the next light, I hooked into this flathead that was almost as big. We guessed that Keith's fish was about 8-10 inches longer than this one. After that, we had a gar rodeo when Ross foul hooked a spotted gar and Keith lasso'd it into the boat. Good times and lots of laughs with the cuz's!!