Bass Fishing, Texas Style, Part 2

Joe's Tank, on the farm!

Last week's post described our first day of bass fishing in Texas on beautiful Lake Fork, East of Dallas.  After our day of fishing we loaded into Matt's truck and headed to Joe Stanfield's farm (or ranch) closer into Dallas, in Farmersville, Texas.  There Joe with his wife Jeanette has about 100 acres of land that has a beautiful house on it, about 38 llama's roaming around, his own grass airstrip for his plane, and a couple of ponds, however I have been corrected, they are called tanks.  No matter, I call them ponds!  The largest on on their land is about 5 - 7 acres in surface acres and is stocked with largemouth bass, crappies, and channel catfish.  Because of the amount of rain they had, it was plump full of water and like the day before, the water was pretty cloudy.  Joe has a pretty nice setup including a quite innovative setup for a guest house up on the hill overlooking the pond.  He poured a slab of concrete then had two 8 x 45 foot steel shipping containers configured to make a nice relaxing place to get away.  The were overlapped at about 25 feet, welded together then had patio doors and window installed.  The inside was spray foamed complete with a bedroom on one end of one, the

One of the few pictures of me with a bass.

bathroom on the end of the other one, and the middle was 16 feet wide so it had a sitting room, kitchen, dining area, and all the things one needed to be comfortable.  We cooked steaks for the evening, and just enjoyed the birds singing and the sunset.  Both Matt and I slept in the "guest house" as I took the bedroom and he took the couch as he was going to leave early in the morning then come back for me as he offered a ride to the APEC conference that was in San Antonio, about 5 hours away.  I woke up about 8:30, Matt had already left so Joe was going to take me fishing.  His equipment was a lot to be desired and although he had some lures, I wasn't that impressed so I decided to use a spinner bait as the water was not clear and felt something that would make some noise in the water would be good.  That was a good decision as I did catch my first bass from Shore as Joe was getting the trolling motor and battery in his small 12 foot Jon boat he keep on the pond.  The rod and reel I had to use looked like it came from Goodwill but it casted good enough.  We worked the shoreline around the pond and I suspect I caught 5 bass on the spinner bait and crappy rod/reel setup. They were all in the one to three pound range, no much different that what we caught the previous day at Lake Fork.  In fact the picture of me on the right is one I got a Lake fork, apparently my friends either didn't take any good pictures of me, or if they did I haven't got them yet!  Never the less the picture is proof that I did get something!!  You can get a good idea of how cloudy the water was and it wasn't much different at Joe's place.  I know one thing, the guide on Saturday had much better equipment.  Matt had gone home to get some stuff done and finally got back about 12:30.  With Matt in front of the Jon boat and I running Joe's new Minnkota trolling motor and battery set up, it was my time to guide him around the tank!  Fortunately I was able to find some adequate fishing line in Joe's pile of stuff and filled his Abu Garcia casting reel with enough line to allow the spool to be thumbed properly and control the backlash.  this was a huge improvement from earlier in the day when my the spool was only about a quarter full.

Matt's nice bass from Joe's Tank

Retracing our route from earlier in the day and with basically the same spinner baits, we did catch a number of bass including this wonderful picture of Matt with probably the largest one of the day.  The bass from Joe's had much more color than the ones on Saturday, I suspect the fish in Lake Fork have spent more time in deeper water than at Joe's.   Joe doesn't fish this much so Lord knows how big they actually get in this Tank, but it was a lot of fun.  Sending this to my friend, the first thing he noticed was an automatic feeder in the background.  The speculation was that Joe was feeding deer however come to find out it's worse...he's feeding the Canadian Geese that live in his tank.  Now up north here we know how messy geese can be and in a small body of water they can be a big nuisance.  I suspect that Joe's wife Jeanette likes them so there ya go!   Me, I'd definitely take that feeder down but that's just me!  The fact that there is catfish and crappies in this tank is interesting and it would have been fun to try and catch some yet time was getting short and we had to leave.  Saying goodbye at around 3 in the afternoon, it would get us into San Antonio by 8:00 that evening.  It was hard to leave Joe's place but all good things eventually come to an end, besides it was a nice drive through Dallas, Waco, Austin and finally arriving at San Antonio.  As well, Joe and Jeannette were coming down for the show anyway as Joe reps for some of the companies that were on exhibit there, apparently those two weren't totally sick of either Matt or myself!

San Antonio is a very nice city and in the first of March the temperatures were perfect.  Downtown is the Riverwalk and it is a very nice place to visit and eat, and eat we did!  It was a good chance to meet all of my colleagues in the business and get reacquainted with all of them.  My flight took me through Atlanta then on to Minneapolis and although I got in late, it worked out pretty good considering all the delays from the East Coast storms.  On Sunday my good friend Mark Applen and I went out to do some ice fishing on some nearby lakes.  The ice is still thick enough to drive but finding the fish was more challenging.  After stopping a Little Jim's in Annandale  , MN we first tried Lake John, a small lake from my past.  We were the only ones on the lake, and after about an hour and a half we only caught 3 perch about 3 inches long each.  Deciding to try something different we went to Little Pulaski in Buffalo, MN and although there were more people, the bite was simply non-existent.  Our depthfinders did mark some fish but they were pretty closed mouth and we left just before dark with nothing to show.  What's next on the calendar, I have to run back to Eau Claire this weekend, and next weekend is both the Minneapolis Sportsman Show and probably the last ice fishing trip of the year with my wife's uncle Andrew and his crew fishing the Birchwood, Wisconsin area northeast of Rice Lake, WI.

Arctic Blast

San Antonio River Walk from my balcony

Last Sunday was relatively balmy as Tom and I fished Pelican Lake.  Tuesday ended in San Antonio's 70 degree evening,  even humid enough to turn on the air conditioning in the hotel room.  Leaving Minneapolis, it was already snowing with a significant snowfall predicted during the next few days.  Meanwhile it was 80 degrees on Wednesday, unfortunately I was stuck in meetings all day.  San Antonio is beautiful this time of year.  If you've never been there I certainly recommend spending a few days in Texas's most visited city.  The focal point of downtown San Antonio is the Riverwalk, a man made canal which included the San Antonio River, circling an entertainment district downtown.  Staying at the The Omni La Mansión del Rio right on the Riverwalk, our room balcony on the 4th floor faced the river.  With the Christmas Season in full force, the area was one big holiday celebration.  By Thursday night the weather I had left in Minnesota was barreling through Texas and arrived in San Antonio unwelcomed.  Now this is a relative term as it was still a comfortable 45 degrees, enough to still walk around with my sleeves rolled up.  In the meantime the locals looked as though it was -10 below zero, bundled up in coats, stocking hats, with the outside propane heaters at full on.  I'm sorry, I just had to laugh as the predicted temperature when I arrive at MSP was -16, 45 degrees seemed tropical!  I guess it's simply relative to what you are accustom to and it was obvious no one was ready for this cold front.  The reality is we are a group of "tough bastards" up north but then again, everything is relative.  We'd probably complain about the heat come August!  The reason for being in San Antonio was our annual TTA fall meeting.  The TTA stands for The Transformer Association and I have been it's President for the last 2 years.  My tenure has been highlighted with a number of successes including an increase of almost 20% in membership and an increase in it's assets.  Probably my greatest success is leveraging my humble (don't laugh) upbringings growing up in Eleva, Wisconsin by making fun of my own heritage....Ole and Lena jokes.  The TTA has members from California, Texas, Illinois, New York, and everywhere in-between.  For me, it doesn't matter, I am who I am and damn proud of it.  I think that at first some people felt it was somewhat backwoods but in the end I believe that my genuine portrayal of who I really am became important.  I am proud of my Norwegianness, my parents, my up bringing, and my home town of Eleva.  I guess there's not much else!

Crappies from last week

Sunday was set aside to attend the St. Paul Ice Fishing show at the St. Paul Civic Center.  I really like this show and this year was accompanied by my friends Mark and Russ, two die hard fishing friends.  I've often talked about Mark, he is like a brother to me and Russ....well, just another friend that I share much in common.  I have had the chance to fish with Russ at Winnibigoshish, Red Lake, and this year we spent some time at Lake Oahe in July.   Mark and I have been discussing Wheel Houses for ice fishing and the show gave us a chance to check out all the pluses and minus's of the different brands.  I'd like to talk my brother Steve into going in with me on a new Wheel House as him and I have a lot of future plans, we'll have to see.  In the meantime Mark has added a few improvements to his wheel house and we will have an opportunity to utilize them over the Christmas holiday's, probably at Red Lake again.   So admittedly I am a sucker for these show specials that you run into while checking everything out.  My first purchase was a flag/bite indicator to install on my dead stick rod that I usually have fishing out of my portable.  Normally I have a rod with a slip bobber setup yet when a fish takes it down, you really have to pay attention.  With the flag, you have a better indicator of the bite.....we'll see!  There was a booth from Wisconsin selling Lily River Fish Breading coating, it's delicious.  I suppose just because it's from Sconnie I had to have at least 2 different varieties.  Could be worse.  Next was a device called  The Filet Claw, a stainless steel device for securing your filet while skiing to ensure a clean and effortless process while using your preferred technique (OK, I stole that from the package).  Either way it looked pretty cool so I bought 2, one for me and one for my brother Steve.  I have to admit, he's a pretty lucky brother as I am always thinking of him.  I finished the show with a purchase of a TUCR noodle rod for ice fishing.  We'll see if it lives up to it's reputation.   I decided to post a picture of last week's crappies, a limit is 10 but I did share with my neighbor Tom.  With the sub zero weather last weekend it is making ice, let's hope I can get out this weekend.

You can tell that winter is in full swing.  My friend Jeff King and his wife have left for Mazatlan, a sure sign it has started.  My other friend Keith Holtan is settled in Brainerd and catching walleyes on his lake.  In the meantime the weather continues to challenge the global warming crowd with a predicted -20 below tonight.  The weekend is suppose to warm up to the high teens, maybe enough to get out and try for some more crappies.  With the recent snows, it will be challenging for sure.  I have guests from Taiwan arriving on Sunday and their first request was if I had coats so we'll see how that goes.  Other than that, experiencing a 100 degree temperature swing is enough excitment for one week!




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