Fishing trip from long ago but never forgot!

Many years ago we used to fish a old oxbow lake off the black warrior river near Fosters Al. There was 2 or 3 of these,you had to be a member or have a member with you. I was lucky my friend was as I couldn't and still can't afford their rates:)
The lake we were fishing was full of standing timber,laydowns,weeds, Lilly pads every where, the kind of lake Bill Dance seems to fish often:)
We started our morning throwing buzzbaits,pink floating worms and topwater baits. We prolly caught 20 or so "footballs" these fish were healthy almost as fat as long and dark green color. The water was a tanic color and full of fish.
After fishing around one side and wearing out the bass I decided to go big:) I tied on a 12 inch worm without a weight and swam it among the lillypads. There was a section of pads,prolly around 20'x20' 15 or 20 feet off the bank that we haven't fished yet.

My first cast across the pads, I slowly started swimming the big worm when the whole pad field exploded, and I mean exploded, the wake of it made our 12' boat roll. We both about had a heart attack and thought that had to be a state record of some sort. I miss the biggest strike I've EVER had:(
Well, I reeled up and made another cast same place, I hadn't move the worm 2 feet when the fish hit again, blew a hole about 5 feet and missed my worm. I kept on swimming the worm(now my shakes had put more action to it also:)Bout 5 feet more and again someone threw a cinder block into the pads at my worm, and again it missed:( I was just about to the end of the 20 or so feet of pads when it happened again, this time I dropped my rod and watched my line, this time it started moving and set back with all I had,when I stuck the fish it didnt move, I set it again and this time the fish went ballistic, it pulled our little tin boat about 20-30 feet while I tried to gain control. After about 5 minutes,seemed like 5 hours I had the fish close and told my buddy to get ready to help. We had no net and didnt know what we had yet. When the fish surfaced it was the biggest gar I had ever seen in my life.
I could not lift it out of the water, all I could do was lift it about half way. Thought about keeping it because it was at the time by for my biggest fish of any kind. We both guessed it weight in the area of 60-70 lbs. But really didnt want that thing in a 12' tin boat:)
After talking to a local taxidermist he said it was a alligator gar and he would have mounted it for free since it was so large.
Man I would give anything for at least a picture, but now after catching 100lb tarpon, 50 lb cobia, 30lb red snapper and 10 lb black bass in my life so for that one fish with it's multiple hits and finely boating it is one top of my list of fish caught. I'll never ever forget that day and glad I got to share it here, sorry for the length and grammer,etc...
I fish way better than I write:)

Forums REopened on Fishcraze.com

I've reopened the forums at Fishcraze.com
I shut it down about a year ago because of spammers and a problem with the board to keep them out I've tried to find a board to use and keep the old one open for the 4-5 years of infomation that's on the old board.
I couldnt find what I wanted, so I reopen the old one. I'm going to try to make it work and hope to keep a grip on the spammers. Wish me and the mods luck on that:)

I hope ya'll stop by we're be adding more stuff and hope to have the cobwebs cleaned out and everything running smooth in a day or so

I'll be back to post about the hog I caught this past saturday morning at lake lu.

fish on
Danny

Happy Indepence day!

Please think of those that are in harms way today and to those that have servered and to those that have gave the ultimate sacrifice so we can all enjoy the BBQ's,beers, and to be with loved ones!


One of my fav for sure, thank you and SemperFi!


I got this picture from this blog
Great read on the 4th.

I might to go fishing tomorrow, full moon coming up, front coming down, big bass cruising! Could be good :)

Fish on
Danny

New World record bass from Japan

Here's a video of the massive bass that was caught on july 2 in Biwa lake in Japan.


that's crazy! It looks like it'll Tie with Perry's long held world record bass. It has to be 2 ounces over the current record to be a new record. Whatever!?

I want to catch one that big :)

fish on
Danny

Weekend at lake Lu

Crossing the dam Lake Lu Saturday 27th of June.

I decided to fight the heat and hit Lake Lu at daylight Saturday morning 6-27-09
3rd cast of the morning with a zara spook in baby bass color.I didnt even work the lure, I didn't see the hit, but I heard it, the cider block hit, it was loud and it was fun.
(I have a vid, that's not too good I'll add at the end of the post of this fish.)

First fish of the day, what a great way to start, cool, calm and explosions at daylight:) There's a tape that goes to 18 inches in the photos, you can tell pretty much how long they are.

another pic of her, over 23 inches and over 8lbs.

I caught 5 bass total Saturday, 3 dinks and another toad of almost 5 lbs. The 5 hit a shakyhead in some brush. It was hot, but those fish made is seem like I was fishing in Alaska :)

Sunday, the lake opens at 1230 or so on Sunday, I wasn't in a hurry to go and sweat so I got there around 230. slight nw wind with some clouds(thank you lord)
Both days the water temp was in the low 90's but it's green that's a good thing.
I started fishing and went a couple of hours with only 2 small fish on a crankbait. around 5 or so, I hit a shallow bar where I've caught some big fish in the past and was bumping the bottom around a bream bed and this fish hit and went crazy, she was around 19 inches and around 5lb

sweet! that's why we fish.

That fish made my day and I was ready to start fishing back to the boat area. I stopped to hit another shallow bar that sits about 15 feet off the bank, I know it's a bream bed,seen the big holes when the water was clear. I started dragging the crank though the holes, feeling it hit then bounce up, on about the 3rd hole I felt the crankbait go away from me, I leaned into the hit and knew I had another solid fish on. It went crazy, I stumbled around for the net,when a 9/10 pounder jumps it's awesome(as long as I'm not in a tourney:)

This fish was over 24 inches long and I know it was close to if not over 10. I didn't weight it, cause it was just too hot to keep it out long, I wish I did weight it. Ohwell it was big toad! Sunday all 4 fish hit a H2O crankbait, was a long slender chartreuse with a green back kind that runs about 4 feet deep.

Both days were hot but fun. 2 over 8 and 2 more around 5. Now that's bass fishing in the south in June :)

Here's video I shot on Saturday of the 8, sorry quality, it's hard to fight the fish and shoot the vid, I'm working on my technique :)


Fish on
Danny

Turtle fight

Went fishing down on Lake Lu in livingston al. Been going down there about every weekend, hoping the big toads will start their summer feeding patterns. I've done so so. Nothing over 5 or lbs since April but the last couple of weekends the fish have got a little bigger. On may 30th the biggest 5 would have gone about 15 or so. They were sitting on a brush top on a ledge. Crankbait were the ticket. This past weekend, I caught a couple from that brushtop but I found some good fish on another. Past Sunday jump off one over 5 and boated 2 over 4 with some misses. Hot though!

Here's a quick video of a turtle that got a little too close to my crankbait. This is the first of my vids I'll be uploading this summer to my youtube channel. REALfishcraze.



I'll be in north alabama this coming weekend to fish Wheeler lake, I'll blog about it next week. Untill then, follow me on Tweeter :)
Danny

Fishing and Balloon races

Great morning for flying :)

Been busy working on several things, some of my irons in my fire are toast:) Ohwell, live and learn. I spent the weekend over at Lake Lu. That's a small 55 acre lake on the campus of west Alabama campus in Livingston Alabama. I'm going to do a post on that lake soon so you'll see what the deal is. Big fish is the deal :)

Saturday,got there at sunup, clear sky's light nw winds. The fishing was pretty slow most of the day. Around 12 or so I found some fish on brush near the channel and started catching some nice fish. 4 over 15 inches and a couple more around 12" or so. most came on a Banditt Flatmax(my fav:)

Sunday, went to the balloon race at sunup,see pic, pretty cool, I wanted to fly with them but instead just took some pics. see top!

Sunday, headed to lake lu at 12pm for about 5 hours, started off at the same place, caught 2 nice ones, missed one and thought well I know there here I'll go find more and come back here and really clean up......nope,didnt find them anywhere else and when I got back to the brush on the ledge, caught 1 more about 3. that's it. Fun of course anyhow.That's way we do what we do :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I can't wait untill I'm on the water again.
until then, fish on
Danny