Gord and Slushy's Lake Fork adventure (long, with pics).
Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:42 pm
As some of you know, I had a surprise trip planned for Bowzog’s 50th birthday. He knew we were going on a trip, but didn’t know where or what we were going to do. On the night of his birthday, I handed him the itinerary I made up, complete with scanned pictures of his younger days spent fishing or just goofing around.
The trip didn’t start very well. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our flight to Dallas was diverted to Houston because of very strong winds. Alas, the winds didn’t really die down all week.
Monday: first order of the day, a trip to the Dallas Bass Pro Shops. We ate at the Big Buck Brewery and Steakhouse that is attached to the BPS. This place was huge and was designed like a lodge with all forms of mounted big game. The food was delicious and the beer tasty. We then spent about 3 hours and lots of money in the BPS. They had bass, gar, catfish, pannies, walleye, etc in their aquarium. Here’s a shot of the birthday boy with a couple of cats.
This is a big largemouth that was hiding in the corner, probably around 10 or 12 lbs.
Stayed too long at the BPS so got caught in the evening rush hour trying to head out of town. Didn’t see much on our drive to Lake Fork, just darkness.
Tuesday: Dennis, our guide for the day, picked us up before sun-up. The spot we were staying at was on the water, but that’s not where the fish were biting so Dennis drove to another spot. We put the boat in and cast off.
Dennis explained to us that the fish had slowed down, so we had to slow down our presentation. Lately, the fish were biting on jigging spoons dragged on bottom and Carolina-rigged flukes. Dennis really knew the spots to go to and where all the structure was (humps, old roadbeds, holes, etc).
We didn’t catch any big fish, although they had still been catching them a couple of weeks earlier. Dennis caught a nice, fat white crappie (pronounced crawppy, unless you want people to make fun of you) but he threw it back before I could get a pic. It was a big one by our standards, but small for there. Here’s my first fish, a small crappie:
And then a fat little bucketmouth.
As you can see, it was cold. We hadn’t brought enough warm clothes, but we put up with it. In this next shot, you’ll see that the water wasn’t mirror-calm because it was so windy. Also notice that the tree colours were just changing, making for some pretty scenery.
Here’s Bowzog’s bucketmouth, his biggest of the day.
Other fish we caught were yellow bass, kinda like a small striper. You had to be careful how you handled it because all its fins had spikes in it. And they hit the lures like they weighed 20 lbs, only to find a 9-inch dink at the end of your line. I hooked onto a big fish later in the day but it spit the hook. I found it hard to set the hook with the Carolina rig.
We had a pretty good day, considering the weather out there. Dennis was top-notch and a lot of fun to be with. Never a dull moment.
Wednesday, Thursday: these two days we had to ourselves. We rented a boat and tried to find the spots that Dennis had showed us.
I think the winds were stronger and it was hard for us newbies to stay in one spot long enough to put a line out. The anchor didn’t work so we had to tie the boat to a tree so we wouldn’t keep drifting. We had a few bites but nothing in the boat.
These trees are all over the lake. The water level is about 4 ft below normal, so all these stumps and limbs would be just under the surface. Yikes.
A nice sunset over Lake Fork, from the marina where we launched.
Here are the bass that we were looking for. These are all replicas. They had them in every shop or restaurant we went to. The one in the case where Bowzog is standing was over 17lbs.
Most shops also had an aquarium with a large bass in it, as shown here:
Lake Fork is the home of Lake Fork tackle and Wave Industries. We managed a pick of this:
we even saw the TikiMan himself!
Friday: Time to drive back to Dallas. As luck would have it, the Stars were playing that night, so we got ourselves a couple of nosebleed tickets. Here’s a pic of a Fish-Hawk Senators fan in Stars territory:
Saturday: How else to cap off a week of fishing than by visiting the Dallas World Aquarium. Here are some peacock bass and some huge catfish in their freshwater tank.
You can see the size of the catfish here compared to a manatee:
Sunday: Heading home. Parting shot of the Dallas skyline.
The oddest thing we saw in Texas was this tree with weird fruit.
I called it the tennis ball tree because it looked like someone had thrown old tennis balls in the tree. Notice how hairy the fruit is. They call it the bo dart tree. I searched the web for it but couldn’t find anything about it.
All in all, a great, relaxing trip. We would certainly go back there again, maybe at a different time of year!! We're also glad we weren't there last week with the freezing rain!
The trip didn’t start very well. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our flight to Dallas was diverted to Houston because of very strong winds. Alas, the winds didn’t really die down all week.
Monday: first order of the day, a trip to the Dallas Bass Pro Shops. We ate at the Big Buck Brewery and Steakhouse that is attached to the BPS. This place was huge and was designed like a lodge with all forms of mounted big game. The food was delicious and the beer tasty. We then spent about 3 hours and lots of money in the BPS. They had bass, gar, catfish, pannies, walleye, etc in their aquarium. Here’s a shot of the birthday boy with a couple of cats.
This is a big largemouth that was hiding in the corner, probably around 10 or 12 lbs.
Stayed too long at the BPS so got caught in the evening rush hour trying to head out of town. Didn’t see much on our drive to Lake Fork, just darkness.
Tuesday: Dennis, our guide for the day, picked us up before sun-up. The spot we were staying at was on the water, but that’s not where the fish were biting so Dennis drove to another spot. We put the boat in and cast off.
Dennis explained to us that the fish had slowed down, so we had to slow down our presentation. Lately, the fish were biting on jigging spoons dragged on bottom and Carolina-rigged flukes. Dennis really knew the spots to go to and where all the structure was (humps, old roadbeds, holes, etc).
We didn’t catch any big fish, although they had still been catching them a couple of weeks earlier. Dennis caught a nice, fat white crappie (pronounced crawppy, unless you want people to make fun of you) but he threw it back before I could get a pic. It was a big one by our standards, but small for there. Here’s my first fish, a small crappie:
And then a fat little bucketmouth.
As you can see, it was cold. We hadn’t brought enough warm clothes, but we put up with it. In this next shot, you’ll see that the water wasn’t mirror-calm because it was so windy. Also notice that the tree colours were just changing, making for some pretty scenery.
Here’s Bowzog’s bucketmouth, his biggest of the day.
Other fish we caught were yellow bass, kinda like a small striper. You had to be careful how you handled it because all its fins had spikes in it. And they hit the lures like they weighed 20 lbs, only to find a 9-inch dink at the end of your line. I hooked onto a big fish later in the day but it spit the hook. I found it hard to set the hook with the Carolina rig.
We had a pretty good day, considering the weather out there. Dennis was top-notch and a lot of fun to be with. Never a dull moment.
Wednesday, Thursday: these two days we had to ourselves. We rented a boat and tried to find the spots that Dennis had showed us.
I think the winds were stronger and it was hard for us newbies to stay in one spot long enough to put a line out. The anchor didn’t work so we had to tie the boat to a tree so we wouldn’t keep drifting. We had a few bites but nothing in the boat.
These trees are all over the lake. The water level is about 4 ft below normal, so all these stumps and limbs would be just under the surface. Yikes.
A nice sunset over Lake Fork, from the marina where we launched.
Here are the bass that we were looking for. These are all replicas. They had them in every shop or restaurant we went to. The one in the case where Bowzog is standing was over 17lbs.
Most shops also had an aquarium with a large bass in it, as shown here:
Lake Fork is the home of Lake Fork tackle and Wave Industries. We managed a pick of this:
we even saw the TikiMan himself!
Friday: Time to drive back to Dallas. As luck would have it, the Stars were playing that night, so we got ourselves a couple of nosebleed tickets. Here’s a pic of a Fish-Hawk Senators fan in Stars territory:
Saturday: How else to cap off a week of fishing than by visiting the Dallas World Aquarium. Here are some peacock bass and some huge catfish in their freshwater tank.
You can see the size of the catfish here compared to a manatee:
Sunday: Heading home. Parting shot of the Dallas skyline.
The oddest thing we saw in Texas was this tree with weird fruit.
I called it the tennis ball tree because it looked like someone had thrown old tennis balls in the tree. Notice how hairy the fruit is. They call it the bo dart tree. I searched the web for it but couldn’t find anything about it.
All in all, a great, relaxing trip. We would certainly go back there again, maybe at a different time of year!! We're also glad we weren't there last week with the freezing rain!
should have changed the Sens jersey for a Leaf's one 
.
Now " Get back to work" 
