With Christmas on the way, my family is planning to spend a week together at my parents’ cabin on Lake Martin. My two brothers, my sister and our families are spread out all over the country, so not everyone shows up at the same time, but we make it work because this is a tradition we all look forward to.
We don’t have much of a schedule, but we do a lot of fishing — and we catch everything. It’s primarily spotted bass, but we catch a few white bass, stripers, crappie and catfish.
They put the blueback herring in there about 10 years ago, and the white bass have almost disappeared. Now, the lake has been taken over by stunted spotted bass.
The spots got fat for a while, but we’ve had die-offs two years in a row. Now, we can catch 80-100 spotted bass that weight a pound and a quarter in a day. We’ll keep 10 to 15 to eat and release the rest.
It’s fun, but it gets old. I have to go throw a swimbait or a jig to try to catch a largemouth; I can’t do it all day.
Last year, I never caught a spotted bass over 1-12, but dad said he caught a 3-pounder at Thanksgiving. I don’t think there’s a lake in the country that has as many fish. I’ve never seen anything like it.
When we want to chase something bigger, we catch blue catfish off our dock. We feed them dog food off our dock all year, so we have a lot of big well-fed catfish.
I caught one that was about 19 to 20 pounds and that’s not a big one. We have a scale that only goes to 50 pounds, and we’ve had three that were bigger than that. Dad caught an 80-pounder once.
We also have a lot of carp in the lake. My dad uses a hot glue gun to stick a piece of dog food to a hook so the kids can catch the carp.
I guess our entire trip revolves around fishing. We might ride around a little, but it’s fishing, fishing and more fishing.
We’ll catch a bunch, come in and sit around the fire, then go back out and catch some more. Then when it gets dark, we go out there and catch catfish. I’ll throw a castnet and catch a few shad for bait, or we’ll catch a bluegill and cut him up.
We typically do Santa at home for the kids, then drive up to the cabin about 30 mins up the road. Dad is going fishing Christmas morning with or without us. I have to get everybody moving if they want to go fishing.
The kids are usually up early. My motivation is more weather dependent.
For me, it’s more about the family tradition, making memories and resting up for the next Elite season. I’ve already started studying my notes for the first two Elite events, and I’ll probably pre-fish both of them.
Back in the day, I felt like I could just show up and catch ‘em, but next year will be a change up. We usually start with it a little warmer, but with the first two events, the fish could be in winters patterns or early prespawn. I think it will be worth it to put some time in.
Sometimes you start the year, you haven’t fished for a couple months and it’s a little rough. I’m trying to avoid that this year. It’s always good to start off strong, so that’s my goal.
