Grandma's Campout Birthday Weekend and Catfish Massacree...

Cathy's birthday is coming up (hint, hint) and all she wanted was a big campout. We loaded up the Wolf Pup camper (don't worry we made two trips to get the boat) and headed 20 minutes down the road to Hanks Creek, a Corps of Engineer Park on Sam Rayburn Reservoir. We stayed 5 nights and the Zamora family including their friends, Travis, Veronica and kids reserved a campsite across the road for one night. Rose and grand kids Warren and Coraline drove up from Lake Jackson and stayed at our house a couple of nights for some good family fun had by all.   

 

Final count on the fish was somewhere in the neighbor hood of 42 catfish and 20 white bass. Anyone that picked up a fish rod caught fish. The catfish bite was red hot in 4' of water next to the bushes and I found the white bass schooling on flats in the exposed north wind, busting up schools of shad in half acre sized schools that quite biting about 7:15 AM every morning.. Naturally on the third morning I talked Cathy in to joining me but the wind shifted to the south and they were gone. Fortunately the catfish had missed us and bite faster than you could bait a hook. We ate all we could and brought home three frozen packages of meat. There's a really great freezer in our camper and we will probably eat some of this on trips this summer. 

The white bass liked a little crank bait from my dad's old tackle box that's probably 45 years old. I call the color pattern "Parrot." 

Even Miguel, who is not all that mad at fish till they are served hot from the grease caught a fish. Amazing thing is that we saw only a couple of other boaters in this pass behind Miguel in the photo during the whole trip. I've fished here going on 50 years and depending on the time of year it's full of some kind of fish just waiting to be caught. 

Boys out on the boat. The girls gave us an hour counting drive time and we boated 5. 

Milo, who was holding a rod or be damned like everyone else actually hooked a fish his mom had to reel in but in this photo he has the "man, my cousin caught a big one" look on his face. 

We had a great site. The trip began with a storm that prevented us from fishing Friday evening (camper is cozy) and was followed by three days of sun. Today as we left storms were rolling in again. We met some locals stetting up for a 12 day fishing extravaganza. One was an old co worker and we had friends in common with the others. We will see them again. 

Many sites at Hanks Creek are closed. They were wrecked last summer during Hurricane Beryl and the flooding also left many dead and leaning trees. Sites that had been fixed with nice new pads since the last flood several years ago had the RV hook ups set in concrete housings that were toppled off their foundations. Due to limited sites and the popularity with locals plan ahead for reservations.   

We love our camper but naturally the Zamora family wins coolest camper award. 

Water temps were 75 degrees and I asked Mary if she would let the boys swim. She said, "How to I keep them out of it?"

It was a good trip and I think a good start to Cathy Week. 

If plans hold next camping trip is the beach.