06-01-2009, 09:00 AM
<br /> Each year all of my college buddies get together for a Man Weekend. We have buddies fly in from as far as Orlando to DC to spend the weekend hanging out, fellowship, fishing, cooking, eating, cornhole tournaments, fishing, eating, sipping brews, telling lies, sharing war stories, hiking, eating, fishing, and then close it all out with a little eating. We had 17 guys show up this year for our retreat to Buck&#39;s Pocket State Park Primitive Grounds on the banks of South Sauty Creek. We were right in the middle of the gorge, and it a beautiful place.<br /> Anyways to the fishing... I kinda played guide all weekend, and we started out on the main lake Friday morning. RKnight, pbobo and I found them pretty quickly relating to hard bottoms with grass cover nearby. We found them a little deeper than we did last weekend. We had 10 keepers and 10 throwbacks by 7:00, and our best five weighed in at 18.5 lbs. Fish came on an assortment of lizards, traps, and spinnerbaits. We decided to come in at 7:00 to get ready for the days events and show off our catch, especially to Garrett D who had been talking smack about out fishing me all week. <br /> Ventured back out that afternoon with CooperJD and DMucha in Mucha&#39;s Cobra. Headed back out to the main lake to the same area. This time the fish were heavily feeding on shad in more shallow water. We nailed em to the tune of about 17 keepers and a few throwbacks. The quality was really good, and we still had a mix of post and spawn fish. Dmucha and Cooper were nailing them on traps, and I busted them on a super light texas rigged lizard. The water temps were 76 degrees, and we had decent flow. Fish were relating to hard bottoms again.<br /> The rest of the crew worked the far upper stretches of South Sauty Creek (which are beautiful). Garrett D redeemed himself in the creek with spinnerbaits, to the tune of a nice 12-13 lb sack. Those are nice for creek largemouths. IRBS and pbobo spent the afternoon nailing crackers and gills from the bank on assorted jigs. Garrett D also entertained the crowd by whiffing on every gar that came within striking distance of his bow! <br /> We enjoyed fantastic food all weekend... we rented a smoker, and rolled it all day at 225 (thanks spur!!!) and rubbed our butts down in MONKEY DUST. We finished off two bottles of grillin sauce real quick to. That mixed with assorted smoked items and a fish fry made for fine eating all weekend. We even smoked a whole channel cat that Garrett D caught on a jug, that ended up mighty tasty.<br /> It was a GREAT weekend with the best friends a guy could ask for. It was great to see my buddies from out of town, especially CooperJD... I think catching them Guntersville bass again might get him to come home and leave the concrete jungle and corruption of DC!<br /> As RSimms says, life if good and getting better every day!