Lake Austin Drawdown

I fished Lake Austin today by myself until noon, and then met up with Lance Hale. The day started off slow, but the bite picked up in the afternoon. There's a big buzz on the lake about the new lake record that was caught this week... 16.03lbs!!!! Lake Austin can be a greedy lake, but when she gives, she can give generously!!!

Today, we started off catching little ones, and they just kept getting bigger as we moved into deeper water. All our fish came on GrandeBass Rattlesnakes on shaky heads. These two were 6.0 and 6.2 lbs. 10 hours in the jonboat is a long day!! Goin' back tomorrow for more jonboat punishment!!! The last pic is a shot of how a typical dock looks right now. The lake is about 12 feet low.

15' CTS Fly Rod

This is a 15' (yes, fifteen foot!) 3 piece CTS spey rod. It has been a long time coming, but it's finally on its way to Ontatrio, Canada. It has several firsts for me... My first fly rod, first turned fly seat, and first feather inlays! The butt, seat, and grip transition are "Original Cactus Blank" from Turn-Tex woodworks. The reel seat is a Batson, it has a Recoil tear drop style hook keeper, and peacock and hackle feather inlays. The thread is Gudebrod dark blue and metallic gunmetal, and the guides are Fuji titanium TVLSG's.

I spoke to Paul today, and he's pretty much buried in snow and it's -20 degrees up there! He'll be using this rod for winter steelhead fishing, and I have a feeling the cold is not going to keep him off his water for very long... can't wait to see some pics of those cold Canadian silver bullets laying on the shoreline!!

Another for the ladies...

Here's a Phenix 700L blank that was a Christmas present for Lauren Foster. The colors are electra turquoise and purple. It has black pearl Recoil guides, and a Recoil snake guide hook keeper. Lauren is a heck of a fisherwoman down in South Texas, so I'm looking forward to seeing some big flounder & speck pics with this rod!

Pink RN rod

This rod was a gift for a recent nursing school grad. The blank is a Phenix 700M, it has a Fuji soft touch seat, a cactus butt, and an inlaid RN cadeuceus. The guides are Recoils. The colors are Prowrap Pink and light green. Congrats Nurse Guillot!

Falcon Lake!!

Well, I finally got to fish the fabled waters of Falcon Reservoir!! The boat has lots of new scratches, spiders, and broken off thorn sticks & I couldn't be happier! Dad and I fished 12/22,23 and again on 12/27, 28. Dad caught his new personal best twice!! The first one was a 7.25lb bucketmouth caught on a black megatail rattlesnake on a main lake point. The second was a 8.25lb fat bellied mama that ate a green shad JoBaby spinnerbait with a white Zoom grub trailer. We fished main lake points, flooded brush, deep humps, pond dams, creek channels, dam rocks, bridges, submerged bridges... pretty much anything we could find, we fished. The best bite was on the spinnerbaits on tuesday. We ended up with 33.5lbs for our top five, with dad's 8.25 anchoring the sack. The bass were crushing the spinnerbaits, and at one point, I almost lost a rod when a 6.5lbr hit it so hard that it ripped the rod out of my hands! Dad and I both got a new lesson in what it takes to catch these fish out of thick cover. PULL!!!! We didn't catch an undersize fish the entire trip & we probably had a total of 15+ fish over 5lbs. I got the Falcon bug out of my system for now, but I have a feeling it's gonna hit me again soon!!!

New fishin' buddy!!!

Heeeere's Louie!! Rachel and I decided to go ahead and get a boxer puppy for Christmas. He's about 9 weeks old and he's a great little pup. Right now, he has two speeds.... sleep and destroy. We went on his first fishing trip on friday afernoon and he was pretty fired up!

LSU Tiger Rod

Here's another LSU stick! This one is a Phenix 700M blank with a Texas Algarita/purple resin butt with an inlaid LSU Tiger ball marker. It has a split Fuji Cobra finish reel seat, a winding check to match the butt, purple and gold tiger wraps, and REC black pearl guides. Time to geaux fishin!!