Woke up to a light drizzle, and complete overcast. This after a Saturday that bright, sunny and warm all day.

Steve and Paul headed for a small pit that hadn't been fished in a while. They reported a great day. Lots of fish with a few three pounders.

Mike, John and I headed for the lake Steve and Paul had fished Friday.

Mike and John had a good day fishing dark plastics deep.

I started at one of the few flats areas in this whole place. These are all strip mine pits, so they're deep and steep. I stayed the whole morning, fishing a flat that was about 150 yards long.

The topwater bite was on from 7:30 until 12:30. I started the day with 4 packs of Rage Tail Toads and 4 packs of Rage Tail Shads. Ended up with no toads and one Shad left. Also went through 3 packs of Horny Toads.

The Rage Tail Toads caught all of the biggest fish, including one that went 4 3/4 pounds. I had a dozen over 4.

I remembered one of LBH's videos where he changed color every time he caught a fish, just to prove that color doesn't really matter sometimes.

I did the same thing with a box of topwater baits. I went through most of the box, and caught fish on every bait I tied on. That included Spooks, Pop-Rs, Jitterbugs, Chug Bugs, Spittin Images, Torpedos, and eveything else I could find to try.

I believe I caught close to 200 pounds of fish in that 5 hour period. I've never caught that many three and four pounders in one outing. It was awesome.

A total reversal from the day before. Then, it was slow and deep, with specific colors. This was on top, with anything, as long as it was moving. The faster the better, it seemed.

Around 12:30, the cloud cover broke up, and the sun came out. That was the end of the topwater bite. It quit completely. I moved out and tried the jigworm, Ika, tube and an Evo Shake2 head with a Blue Bacon Rind. Caught a couple of small fish doing that.

When I fished with CJ on Kentucky Lake, he showed me his version of a double Fluke rig. I tied up one of those and went back to the flats and started catching fish again. Thanks CJ. That rig is just too cool. I caught a dozen more before it was time to pack up and head home. I almost had a double. Cj had told me to let the fish swim around a bit, and sometimes another fish will grab the other bait. I remembered to try that, and had two fish make a swipe at the extra FLuke. Or, maybe the same fish went after it twice. That would have been amazing, but it didn't quite happen.

To top it all off, I got a bonus 36" pike on a Rage Tail Shad. Made my day. I like pike.

If the weather doesn't really go south, we might get one more trip to this place over the Columbus Day weekend. Depends on the weather and on the hunter's bookings. Clint will be calling me some time soon to let me know if he has room for us that weekend.  I've been there twice before in October. Once was an awesome trip, and one time we hit the turnover. Turnover is not a good time to spend a bunch of money and time fishing. So, the temperature trend will tell me if I go, or not.

Steve, John and Mike are all unable to go that weekend. Paul might be able to. Long Mike is interested. The cabins will all hold 6 easily, some of them more. Anybody interested, shoot me a PM.

It costs $100 for a whole day of fishing, $65 for a half day (6 hours), and $35 a night for the cabin. Let's have a mini BassResource.com get-together.

Cheers,

GK

;D ;D ;D  AWESOME!   ;D ;D ;D

You tell a great story Ghoti!

Congrats on an outstanding trip...what part of the country were you fishing?

Ghoti is probably still in class, so I will steal a little of his thunder and let you know that Trophy Country is a ten square mile, privately owned, fishing/hunting preserve, located in northeastern Missouri.

I think you used the right word "AWESOME" !!!

                    As Ever,

                     skillet