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!!

SPI - Spearfishing with a whale shark!!!

On saturday 9/24, I had one of the greatest experiences I've ever had on the water. Keith, Cesar and I headed out of the jetties and ended up at the Little Sarah rig about 10 miles out. Keith and Cesar jumped right in with their snorkels, and I decided to stay in the boat and drop down to try to catch some snapper. I had a couple snaps and grouper to the boat and had gotten hit by a big 'cuda, but nothing too exciting. After about an hour, Cesar finally got a shot on a big ling that they had been stalking. We decided to stick around a little longer, so I geared up and jumped in to check out the scene underwater. The visibility was about 60'+ and there was almost no current. The rig was a beautiful sight and there were lots of fish on it. Most of the snapper we could see were just out of range, but there were lots of big barracuda cruising around. I was getting ready to shoot a barracuda when I heard Keith yell that a whale shark was coming in. I looked over and saw the 25'-30' behemoth slowly swimming toward me!! We swam toward it and could see that there were about 10 big ling swimming with it. For the next hour or so, the shark was circling the rig, and it came up about 4 or five times. We were picking off the ling at every opportunity and taking short rides on it's fins.... We took a little break, and as soon as I got back in the water, it was coming up at about a 45 degree angle about 20 yards from me. I swam to it, shot a ling, and then grabbed its dorsal fin. It kept coming up, so I let go of the dorsal and grabbed its tail. By then it was on the surface, and I got a nice tail ride for about 5 swoops of it's tail!! The whole time, I had the ling pulling on the line, but I was able to pull out the camera and take the video. In the video, you can see my shot ling, Caesar taking a fin ride, and Keith going in for a shot that he decided not to take. You can also see a snapper that was caught by a kid in a little skiff on the surface. After this last encounter, we loaded up and went to the sea buoy where we found a nice tripletail sitting under the buoy. I got up close and personal with it and gave it a skewering... From there, we hit the end of the jetties. I stayed in the boat and fished for some of the tarpon that they were seeing, while they shot several more mangrove snapper. We ended the day with five nice ling, the tripletail, and about 8 mangrove snapper!!! I must say, Keith has found a cool new hobby and I can't wait to get out there again with him! This trip will be stuck in my head forever. I'll never forget taking a ride on the biggest fish that swims in the ocean, and I'm really glad I had the camera to capture some shots of this beautiful animal!!
This was the first thing I saw when I jumped in:

This 'cuda was the second thing I saw:

Caesar fighting up a big ling:

Enter the whale shark:

Keith down about 40'+ You can see the whale shark under him:

Keith coming up:

Keith with a nice ling:

Me with a ling:

Big ling:

Gangster fishing!!!

Me with the tripletail:

Whale shark video:

Lake Travis 9/11

I hit Lake Travis today with Lance Hale and his neighbor, Domingo. The day started off with steady action on crankbaits and frogs. Lance caught a nice bass and then a nice yella cat on a crankbait. We hit a few more spots and I picked up this one on a Lucky Craft crankbait. It was 5.5 on Lance's scale, but I'm callin' it a six!!!