We camped with my in-laws for several days at Wilson lake in Kansas and toward the end of the week celebrated Mizike's bachelor party at a lake house on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.
Wilson is an excellent bass fishery. I would have loved to have a boat but bank fishing was phenomenal. I caught tons of smallmouth bass with some big largemouth mixed in. I had a 5-6 pound largemouth come out of the water and shake my lure loose at one point.
The lake reminds me of what I would think lake Meade would look like on a smaller level. There were huge canyons with rock face walls and steep drop offs. There were also areas that were shallower near the bank line with grass, willows and shrubs coming up out of the water.
I didn't get to do a lot of fishing as I was spending time with family but the time that I got was awesome.
My nephew Peyton and I spent some time down below the spillway fishing for catfish and anything that would bite as well. We caught tons of fish down there along with some decent sized catfish. I had a snapping turtle hit my plastic worm as I drug it across his face and had a fun fight with him until the hook finally slipped out. Peyton broke off on a big fish that he couldn't get to the surface or slow down. I did the same thing then lost an 8 to 10 pounder as I was lifting it up the cement wall. Peyton caught a good sized catfish and we got a picture of him with it. The next day he had a 5 - 6 pounder that he brought back to camp in a cooler but we didn't get a picture of that one.
Leo had fun climbing in the trees and swimming with his cousins. Gavin was scared of the water. He had fallen into the deep end of a pool a couple weeks before and was deathly scared of getting close to the water of seeing us out in it. By the end of the week he was back to his daring self running and wading in the water up to his chest.
Leo and Gavin filled cups with rolly polly's and were playing with any bug they could find. Everybody played volleyball, kickball and baseball throughout the week. Peyton, Anton, and David helped me put on a fireworks show on the 4th of July.
Mom and Dad showed up on their way home from visiting family at Council Grove lake. We ate lunch with them and the in-laws at a restaurant in Lucas, KS and visited a place called The Garden of Eden afterward. That is one strange place. There is a huge story about it when you visit. Everything is built out of limestone or cement and everything the guy built represented his religious beliefs or his political beliefs. He built the whole place for tourism. In the mausoleum you can even view his body behind enclosed glass. I would recommend visiting if you ever near the area.
We spent the latter half of the week with Christina's Mom and Dad in a cabin at Wilson. We settled down and played cards and relaxed. One day we went wine tasting and ate at an awesome restaurant in Russell.
The week went quick and I was soon on my way to Lake of the Ozarks. We had a blast there, shooting fireworks, drinking, socializing, swimming, fishing, boating and jumping off cliffs. The place we stayed at LakeWest Rentals was a well kept nice out of the way place with a boat that you can rent while you stay at the cabin. I would have recommended it but was not happy about how some things turned out and how it cost me hundreds of dollars for small mistakes. The owner verbally treated my like I was a little kid.
We took the boat out about an hour before dark to get some evening fishing in. Mizike hooked into a large fish neer the shore that towed us out deep and around a cove not far from the cabin. He fought the fish for over a half hour until it was getting close to dark and finally started wrenching on it to try to get it to the boat eventually breaking his line.
It was getting close to dusk so we turned on the lights to the boat. The back light did not come on. We messed with it for about 10 minutes to get it to turn on and started to the cabin. We went slow for safety reasons on our way back to the cabin and as we were pulling into the cove with the cabin the owner called. He said "I noticed you are not in with the boat yet and it is dark." I told him about the fish that we were fighting and that we were getting ready to dock the boat. He said, "Well the rules say that you cannot have the boat out after dark." I assured him that we were pulling the boat in and it was just past dark.
I got some of my 400.00 deposit for the house and boat back today but he had charged me 200.00 for having the boat out after dark. I had also called him the next morning as we went to the 2 marina's he had marked on his map with the boat and both were out of gas to see what his recommendation would be. He asked us to leave 50.00 on the table for the half tank of gas we had used. He charged me a 25.00 convenience charge for filling the boat up plus 85.00 for gas and 15.00 for oil. We had the boat shut off most the time we were using it and never got more than a half mile from the house. Gas at the marina's was 3.50 on the pumps so he is saying we used 24 gallons of gas and burned through 15.00 of oil. As a boat owner and boat user for 16+years there is no way we used that much gas. Maybe 10-12 gallons max and that's an extremely huge estimate. We only had the boat for 4 hours and fished and swam out of it most of that time with the motor off.
Did we violate the rules, yes. Was he at all forgiving, not at all. We never purposely violated the rules and he charged us for every little mistake. That is why I do not recommend Lake West Rentals.
The trip home seemed like it took forever.
Just some other gripes as I feel like I am losing my mind right now with all that has happened since Sunday. Somebody hit my car at a restaurant and did not report it as we were leaving the lake. They had hit the front driver's side and I did not notice until I noticed the steering was weird and got out and looked. Once at home somebody took a shopping cart down 3 quarters of our van and put a deep scratch in the paint from the front door to the tail light. My wife deposited the money from the cabins I had collected from the others and a 50.00 bill must have stuck to another and the deposit was 50.00 less than I had sent. My cell phone bill went over by 250 minutes, I was making a lot of calls planning then had tons of work calls on vacation.
Don't feel sorry for me I am working through all that. I am just glad we had a good safe trip. The rest is money. Just don't let me catch you damaging my vehicles cuz one more time may set me off.
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