Grand Lake BFL Results and Moving Into the New Place

View from my camp at Grand Lake

Grand Lake is different than I expected.  Most of the lake has rock shorelines.  At least the areas that we fished.  It forced me to go out of my comfort zone and try different styles of fishing I have wanted to try but had not yet.

I fished with jigs, creature baits, and shallow running cranks most of the day.  I couldn't use most of what I normally use.  The water was clear and shallow with rocks that would catch any hook.  You had to cast far from the boat if you wanted a bite.

The first fish I caught was 13 1/2 inches but was a chunk.  It was a 1/2 inch short of keeper size.  Shortly after that I had my keeper.  Both came from an area that I was able to use my go to baits.  I had a big bite in the same area on a rubber worm and when I set the hook my line broke.

The boater I drew was great.  He has been fishing for many years and helped me to try some different techniques.  I didn't catch any fish on them this time.  (He was picking the water clean before I got to it.)  I will use some of the techniques going forward.

Towards the middle of the day I had my biggest opportunity.  I was casting a shallow crank in a foot to foot and a half of water.  I twitched the crank and right as it stopped a fish hit it.  I set the hook and started reeling the fish in.  As it got closer to the boat I could feel it was a good size fish.  At that point the crank pulled free.  The hooks were small and the bass was big.  Not a good combination.  Next time I will not pull as hard on the fish if I have small treble hooks.

I caught some fish late in the day on a top water pop-r.  They were smaller.  I was hoping to get one big one to try to catch up to the competition.

At the end of the tournament I had only 1 bass at 2 lbs 14 oz.  I finished 51st out of 108.  There were a couple missed opportunities that could have put me in the money.  It took a little over 5 pounds to be in the money and move on to day 2.

My boater had a good day and was able to cull a couple times.  He finished the first day in 6th.  His second day he did not do quite as well and fell to 19th, still cashing a check.

I look forward to the BFL's next year, where I will be trying to make it to regionals again.

Monday night we were supposed to get into our new house.  We stopped by to set up our beds and move things around.  The couple moving out were not quite finished so we just moved a few things into the bedrooms and didn't move in.

Tuesday, I was expecting sort of the same thing, but was hoping we could stay the night.  I got home from work and loaded the truck to take some things over.  When I got there the door was locked.  My wife called the couple and they said I could come get a key to get into the house.  They told me they were done over there and we could officially move in.

The house was completely empty and I moved the rest of our belongings.  My niece helped me move boxes around and dig out the bed frames.  We ended up sleeping in our own bed last night.  The boys slept on an air mattress but will have their beds set up soon.

Leo and Gavin got to work on their toys first thing.

Our pile ready to be unpacked into the new house.

My niece helping me move boxes and dig out beds.

Being a Co-Angler in the FLW BFL

All feels right with the world today.  A dried leaf blows across the road sounding like puppy's feet hopping across the pavement.  There is a chill in the air, almost moist.  The trees are still green.  They will be turning soon to the browns, reds, oranges and yellows that symbolize fall.

A feeling of tranquility waved over me as I stood outside, the sun just starting to peak over the roofs of the houses in town.  Tomorrow I will be traveling.  I will be on another of life's grand adventures. 

I can picture bass on the end of my line.  The strike, the hook set, then the battle to bring them to the boat. 

Last night I started preparations for this weekend.  I gathered all my camping and fishing gear and brought it to the house so that tonight I can organize my tackle into 1 bag and change my line on my rods.  If I forgot anything, this will give me an extra day to remember.  Already, I remembered a bag in one of my hatches of the boat that hods all of my new lures.  I might not use any of them but I want to have it along in case I decide, once I get there, that one of the lures needs to go into my bag.

The timing of this tournament will fit my strengths well.  The bass should be in transition from their summer haunts on their way to the shallower waters of the coves and creeks.  If we get on to them on the main cove points it will be a blast.  Bass after bass will be moving onto the points to feed before traveling on back into the coves to continue feeding.

Being a co-angler I don't have to locate the bass.  My boater is probably out there right now doing that.  Part of the fun of being a co-angler is not knowing where or what style of fishing you are going to be doing.  You may learn a totally different technique than you have ever tried.  I have a feeling that will be the case in this tournament.  This is a new lake for me, in a different region of the country than I am used to fishing. 

At some point I would like to take over the front of the boat.  For now, I don't have the time I need to scout the waters.  The guys in the BFL's are good.  If your not prepared you are more than likely just setting fire to your entry fees.

I have looked at lake maps, at fishing reports, at the weather forecast.  I have looked at the previous years BFL tournaments at Grand Lake.  It takes a lot of weight to win it, around 13 pounds per day.  It will take about 8 - 10 pounds to move on to the 2nd day and get in the money. 

The competition and camaraderie are why I fish these.  Fishing pulses through my veins.  The void of sports as I get older has lured me into the competition of these. 

There is a lot of luck in bass tournaments, but luck is not the key component.  You have to be good.  The more edges you have the more likely you will succeed.  Good line and good equipment is a must along with sharp strong hooks.

The biggest advantage I gained was getting quality rods.  I had always thought that I could catch fish on anything, until I got a quality graphite rod.  I got power and feel out of my rods.  I could feel the slightest of bites and was amazed at how many bites I must have missed with my other rods.  I'm talking 6 to 1.  If I hook all of those I have my limit and a cull, if they are keepers.  Most of my rods aren't that much more expensive than the rods I was buying before.  I have picked several used rods up for 40.00 to 60.00.

Line is equally important.  Some lines have substantially more feel than others do to the stretch of the line.  I rarely use mono-filament any longer.  Each line has a purpose though, even mono-filament, and matched with rod and reel it can make a huge difference.

The bait used is important too.  More important than the bait is your confidence in it.  If your good at catching bass on certain baits, that will be your bread and butter.  Get good with several so you can build your arsenal and react to what the bass want.  Try different things with your baits.  Customize them to make them yours.  Find the best way to fish that bait.  People will try to imitate you and may catch fish on them, but you will do better because you know you are doing it right.

Time on the water will make you better.  The more you live with the fish, the more you think like a fish.  The more you think like a fish, the more you will catch.

Homeless No Mo!

 

We got a call from the couple moving out of the house we will be renting.  They told us that they called the gas, electric, water, cable, and internet companies to have everything transferred to their new house on Monday.  They said we can call the companies to have them transferred to our name.

We are finally getting our house.  Homeless no more!  I will be able to piddle in the garage with my fishing tackle and tools.  I'll be able to have access to all of my belongings.  The boys can sleep in separate beds.  We get our King size bed back.  I can start selling on ecrater again.

I am excited. 

My brother and sister-in-law have been very generous sharing their house with us and I will be forever grateful to have such a wonderful family.  I am happy for them to get their house back.  My two older nephews have been displaced from their room since March.  Our things are scattered in their room so it is hard for them to get to their things. 

We have bonded through the process of living together.  It was good for me to be part of a big (huge) family.  Hopefully I have learned to be a better person from living there.

Tonight I will start getting ready for my tournament.  I like to get prepared early.  I will go pick up my camping and fishing gear.  Then I will figure out what tackle to take and get it into one bag.  There are two poles that need new line.  Then I will tie on the lures I will start with at Grand Lake. 

I wish I had my worm making equipment so I could make some of my drop shot worms for the tournament.  I had given Mizike my entire stash of homemade worms this summer, thinking that I would get a chance to make some more once I got into our new place.

It looks like there is a Bass Pro in Tulsa so I can pick up some roboworms on my way to the lake if I need to.  I took the whole day off Friday.  The drive will be 5-6 hours, so I will have time to goof around and still get to check in on time.

Turning Point

Healthy bass I caught at Clark County Lake camping trip

Friday after work I booked my flight and hotel to Las Vegas for an October trip.  Then I looked up hotels for the Grand Lake BFL.  The hotels were either higher priced than I wanted to pay or too far away from the tournament.  I have decided instead to camp.  This weekend I crawled over all of our belongings that are being stored in order to find my small 2 man tent.  I can set it up and take it down quickly by myself.  The cost savings for 2 nights will be huge.

I am excited about camping at Grand Lake.  I looked at a burn ban map of Oklahoma and it is not in the burn ban.  I can finally camp with a fire. 

I am most excited about fishing a BFL tournament again. It is the last one of the year and I will not be able to make the regional's.  I will get some good experience on a good lake.  Next season starts pretty early in the Okie league as well so I will have that to look forward too.

Saturday we watched my niece and nephews play tackle football.  They played good.  My second oldest nephew played quarterback and did a good job passing and avoiding being tackled.  The 4th-5th grade team won as well as the 6th grade team.  It seems that there is going to be a good string of teams coming up in Kiowa's future.

The rest of Saturday was spent enjoying great college football and spending time outside enjoying this nice weather.

Sunday we went to Church.  Afterwards we had planned on going golfing.  I thought it would be a fun outdoor activity that we could do as a family.  The kids could walk with us while we golfed.  My Sister-in-law informed us that they don't allow children on the course at Anthony.  I was looking up Medicine Lodge to see the rules there and saw that the course was closed for a Peace Treaty.  Alva's course was a little more costly than I wanted to pay so we stayed home.

We could have done some free outdoor activities.  I will have to remember for the future that we have tennis courts, horseshoe pits, and not too far away is a Frisbee golf course.  We could have went fishing too.  Instead we were lazy and read or napped all day.  After being on the road every weekend it was nice to relax.

Last night we ran.  We put in a good, hour long session.  My endurance is starting to pick up finally.  I turn my MP3 player on and run until I can't breathe any longer.

I didn't run much last week due to a sinus infection that was dragging me down.  I'm feeling a ton better now after being on medicine for a week.

I still have a long ways to go with running.  I only made 1 3/4 miles last night before I had to stop to walk.  I look forward to the day I can run for 4-5 miles non-stop again.  I also have a long ways to go on my weight loss.  I am starting to tell a difference in my mid section and face.  I have lost 12 pounds so far and would like to lose another 28 to get me down to 200 pounds. 

We heard last night that the couple moving out of the house we are moving into are still planning on being out by the end of this week.   

Time to Move?

This weekend we heard that there may be another house coming up for rent.  We drove to look at it.  It is a nice roomy house with a unattached garage.  It is nice.  There is a lot of work to do to it.  The garage doores are on the ground.  The garage is filled with garbage.  The yard is overgrown with shrubbery.  It is also on the highway and doesn't look like it lets much light in.  It does have an empty lot next to it.  The house we have been waiting on is more ideal for us.  The location, size, garage, roominess and modernness are all appealing. 

It felt sort of like Todd was pushing us to take the new option.  I see his point, we have been invading his home for months now, Christina and the boys for 6 months now and me going on 3.  That's a half a year longer than we intended to stay when we got here.

Christina and I talked about it for some time.  We really want to move into the house we had planned on.  We were discussing options since we feel we have depended on the Reeves too long.  We could try to get an apartment in Medicine Lodge, Anthony, or Harper to rent to us on a month to month basis.  We could take the new rental.  We could move into a motel room.  The other option that we chose to do was to talk to the couple that are moving out of the other house to see if we could get a realistic deadline.  That would help us decide what to do.

We went to the new house they are working on and visited with them.  They have quite a bit of work left to do but said that they would put in a toilet this week so they at least have a toilet, then they will move some things over and stay there while they finish the house.  They estimated us being able to move in a week and a half.

I offered the use of the shower and Christina offered to let them store whatever they needed until they got their new house completed.

It looks like we may be in our new house in a week now.  If we are not I am afraid we are going to have to take a different route.  I'm thinking of checking the local motel for a weekly rate until we get moved in.

We have drained our savings living here now.  We went from spending 300.00 a month on our budget to 1400.00 a month.  That has wiped out our savings pretty quick.  We have been leaving town almost every weekend, usually for a 3 hour or longer trip each way.  We have also been spending a lot more than we are used to on groceries.  Partially due to taxes and higher grocery prices and partially due to feeding 14 people.  We are saving money by not paying rent, but even with that we are spending 400.00 more than I have budgeted each month.

This weekend we are staying home.  We will get to watch McKenna, Anton, and Keaton play football on Saturday.  I don't know what we will do the rest of the weekend.  At least we will not be spending as much money as we would traveling.

The following weekend is the Okie BFL tournament at Grand Lake.  I will be camping so I don't have to get a motel room for 86.00 pre-tax per night.

First Shoes Then Fishing Lures

Leo figured out how to tie his shoe today on his own.  He has been trying to learn the last couple weeks.  I told him if he learned how to tie his shoe I will teach him how to tie on a fishing lure.  Looks like he will be learning some fishing knots soon.

Canton Lake Oklahoma MiCamping Trip

Friday evening came quickly as I had only worked 28 hours last week.  Ouch, that will hurt in October.

I took off a little early from work to pack up before G-Diddy showed up.  We were just finishing packing when he called and said he was around the corner.  Shortly after that we were driving to Canton Lake for our weekend fishing trip.

Mizike had gotten to the lake a long time before we arrived and had his campsite set up.  We started working on G-Diddy’s tent first.  The poles were not held together by bungee and some of the metal ends had fallen off.  It took a lot of work but we got it figured out.

By the time we started on my tent it was well past dark.  My tent went up quickly with everybody helping.  Then it was on to blow up the air mattresses.  Unfortunately, my pump was dead and never did take a charge.  I was the only one with a pump so we had to blow the beds up by hand.

Mizike and I were sharking (hand on the forehead that means it time to do a shot) each other and drinking quite a bit of Captain Morgan. 

At some point, after I was well inebriated, I was getting something in the boat.  I don’t remember anything after that.  Mizike filled me in the next day.  Apparently I was grabbing something out of the boat and fell backwards hitting my head on the pavement.  My head was bleeding, but I still wanted to go fishing.  I ended up getting back to the tent where my wife bandaged and my head to stop the bleeding.  She said that when I got the tent I was talking about Communists, how they were all around us, and going to get us.

The next morning I woke up on the floor of the tent, curled in a ball.  It was cold.  I got up before looking at the time.  It was before 6:00 AM.  The sun wasn’t out yet.  I fished off the bank in the dark for about an hour.  As soon as the sun was up I had donuts, brownies, and nutty bars on the table for everyone to eat.  Then I started to get a little louder so everyone would wake up.  That’s when I found out what had happened the night before.  I must have had a concussion the way I was talking after the fall and not being able to remember anything.

We didn’t have enough life jackets so Mizike and I drove over to a store by the dam to find one.  We snuck in some biscuits and gravy while we were there.  The whole time I had my bandage on with bloody gauze sticking out the back.  I was getting some strange looks.  We got back and had the boat in the water by around 9:00 AM.  The lake was down about 12 - 15 feet and most of the boat ramps were unusable.  We tried 2 before we found one that was barely usable at the dam.  The trailer tires would drop off the ramp but were were able to pull the boat out anyway.

The most usable ramp is in Canadian Camp Ground.  It seems to have been built for these low water conditions.

We started out trolling the dam.  G-Diddy caught one, then Leo.  It was pretty slow for trolling so we decided to drift jig heads with plastic chartreuse grubs and a worm over a drop that went from 17 foot to 3 foot in about a 100-yard stretch.

Leo kicked our butts.  He was catching about 5 to the rest of our 1.  His pole was about to get stolen.  He would offer to let Mizike reel the next one in and as Mizike would grab the pole Leo would be bouncing begging for his pole back.  Leo had a nice sized walleye up to the boat.  I tried to sling it over the windshield but the walleye shook off, right before I got him to the boat.  I ended up catching a smaller walleye shortly after that.  It wasn’t a keeper like Leo’s would have been.

It got warm and the wind was blowing hard by 1:00 so we went back to camp to get a bite to eat and some rest before going back out around 5:30.  We only fished a couple hours the next time out and had no luck.

Once we were back at the camp we got our feast ready for the evening.  We had 4 pounds of crab legs, 2 pounds of shrimp, 2 pounds of muscles, 2 packs of New Orleans Style Brats and a bunch of Corn on the cob all boiled up in a crab pot. 

We ate a ton.  Everybody was about done when we added 2 more pounds of crab legs and more corn on the cob to the pot.  Leo about ate the 2 pounds of crab himself and more corn.  He said he was miserable from eating so much and was ready for bed.

The next morning we didn’t get up quite as early.  We went out on the boat and tried drifting then trolling but couldn’t find the fish.  The wind had switched for the 3^rd time in 2 days and started to blow out of the West.  By the time we got our lines in and boat started there were already huge swells between the loading ramp and us.

At the loading ramp, I noticed a board was loose as Mizike was backing it into the water.  The bolt had come out.  I had G-Diddy hold the boat against the wind at the courtesy ramp while I went and tied the board on with braided fishing line.  It worked for the time being and we were able to get the boat loaded.

We went back to camp and tore it down.  We were on our way home a little before 1:00.

Monday after lunch I started feeling really crappy and exhausted.  My neck was hurting, the side of my head was hurting, the back of my head was hurting, and I felt nauseous and dizzy.  I finally made an appointment to see the doctor since I had fallen and hit my head.  I didn’t know if there was some swelling going on inside my skull.

They didn’t hesitate to have a CT scan done.  The results came back good.  Just a little bruising around the area I hit my head.  I did however have extreme Sinusitis.  That was the reason I was feeling so miserable.  I wish we would have known that before I had a CT scan done.  Now I will be out around 1500.00 for Sinusitis. 

I’m on several different pills now to get better.  

My Walleye and My Bandage

Several Ramps Ended at the Water Line.  Mizike was testing this one when he about slipped on the moss.

Leo and Gavin learning washers

Gavin playing washers in front of the tent

The days keepers (Mostly Leo's)