A Curious Thing

 

A curious thing happened today. All the people from Mission #2 who like to go the increasingly popular Shooky's of a Thursday evening turned up at Mass first, without any prompting. That's right, with not a word from me, not even an annoyingly jocular clerical bribe, "Hey, there's a 10% discount if you go to Mass first," ha, ha, sorta thing. No, they just turned up.

Well done, team, and it makes sense. Our communion with one another flows from communion with God in the Mystical Body of Christ, nourished, vivified and deepened at the Altar. Get that right and the other follows naturally.

You know, I recall a priest in DC who told me, "We're at the point where the people here don't even think of doing a parish event without going to Mass first." Right on, worship, giving ourselves in love to God, comes first, always. 

It's what we're created for, and we saw a little bit of that North Central Texas this evening.

Stella Maris,

LSP

STRIPER

One of the best things about being an Illuminati Master is you get to go on guided Striper tours. And that's what we did, rounded up some NWO elite and went fishing.

Before you could say Davos the fish were biting. Boom, in comes a Striper like some kind of CDS gone wrong. And then... nothing much, almost as though the algos were taking it easy.

Then BOOM again. Rod goes double once, then twice, then... pick it up and reel the monster in. No kidding. Reel. It. In. And that's not easy when a ferocious Striper's making like some kind of ferocious shark. Gave me blisters.

I tell you, big fun. And tasty too, Striper makes for good grilling and guess what? Unlike the rest of your food you know where it comes from.

Destroy the NWO and fish on,

LSP

Don't Be A Pathetic Lib, Fish

Now that the risible "Russians hacked the election" narrative is dying the death of a thousand failing PR spins, the team decided to go fishing. We'd tried Soldiers Bluff the day before and the young 'un did well with a good sized Hybrid but I struck out. Today would be different, I promised, at the dam spillway.

Sure enough it was. The water churned and foamed and we cast off with circle hooks and worms. A few minutes in and Boom! out came a decent Black Drum and we could see the Gar schooling off the current. Big excitement as the prehistoric looking river monsters circled and prowled like submarines in search of prey.

After a few false starts, as the fickle Gar took the bait, ran with it and then let go, I felt an encouraging tug on the line. That firmed up, the rod bent double and the fight was on; I thought I'd caught a Catfish but no, a big Bass broke the surface and tried to run downstream. Sorry fish, you're coming in and up came a decent sized Leviathan. Great result.

Then the Cadet started catching, Black Drum, and that's the main thing. You want kids to experience the action so that they get into the sport. Otherwise they'll be tempted to write it all off as a boring game of waiting for endlessly non-appearing evidence and give up. Or worse yet, be forced to retract the story altogether as a phony piece of CNN-style agitprop.

That wasn't the case today; it was fish on and thank you mighty Brazos for the opportunity.

Tight lines,

LSP

Crazy Mental Insane Fishing

There I was at Lake Whitney, casting away without a whole lot of success, and my luck was mirrored by the multi-ethnic band of anglers that make up modern America's fishing community. Good people, no doubt about it, but no one was catching any fish.

Then Shad started schooling in the channel, about 30 yards off of the bank. You could see them flicking out of the water and swirling in ever increasing numbers. I waded out along a submerged ledge to get in the action and send my lure into the Shad in the hope of picking up feeding Bass. 

Random Widemouth

Not much was happening, just more and more of the jolly little Shad messing about in the water. Then it happened. A surging, leaping, exploding wall of Bass broke the water about 30 feet off to the left, blitzing the Shad.

Staring in wonderment at the Bassnado, I cast into the thickest part of the surge and down went the lure. No twitching, no scientific retrieve, just boom. Fish on. Two fish were on in fact, one on each treble, and that became apparent as I reeled them in to the ledge. I held them up for my wading wary Latino pals to see, "Ha! Topwater!" they thought that was pretty cool, "You're on them, man."

No sooner were the Hybrids back in the water to live to fight another day, than another wave of marauding Bass exploded up. Cast! And another catch. This went on for about 30 minutes, as Bass tsunami after tsunami burst on the merry little band of Shad. 

I tell you, it was crazy, mental, insane, fast fishing. Watching the ferocity of the Bass erupting out of the water was excitement enough. Catching them only added.

Then the sun was setting and it was over; time to head back to the compound.

God bless,

LSP

Topwater

Heddon Tiny Torpedo

Fishing with topwater lures can offer explosive action and big fun, no doubt about it. Bass will attack that twitching bit of plastic, hitting the lure like steam train before pulling it down into the depths, and the fight's on. 

The emphasis here is on can; a lot of the time, if you're me, poppers, torpedoes, spooks and the like produce no action at all. Still, the other day at Lake Whitney I had good success with a Torpedo and decided to read up on the subject. I found this article helpful, here's an excerpt:

Wham! When the strike came, I stifled my jerk reflex and waited for the fish to pull the bait down. Then, when I felt tension, I set back, and in short order a surprised three-pounder was flopping in my net.

Heddon Spook

...Most every brushpile harbored bass, and my Tiny Torpedo and that stay-put, irritating retrieve were the keys to catching them. Those fish never hit when the lure first gurgled into range. Instead, it was the twitching that changed their mood from neutral to aggressive. By tantalizing them long enough, the lure triggered their instinct to kill the "helpless prey" even though they weren't hungry.

So this is the object with topwater lures, to present bass with a vulnerable, unaware "creature" that is an easy target, then allowing nature to take its course.

You can read the rest of it here and learn something about the why, where, when and how of topwater lures. For me the why's simple, sheer excitement at the ferocious, leaping, impact of the Bass. 

Lake Aquilla, The Challenge Is On!

Nothing like it and while I'm no expert, the success I have had makes me want more. A lot more.

Fish On,

LSP

Texas Floods, So You Fish

Texas is mostly underwater, which forces us to fish. I tried out the old chicken liver and night crawlers method today, all in the hope of getting a monster catfish.

That meant clambering over the bluffs looking down on lake Whitney, and dropping a Carolina rigged treble hook baited with liver onto a recently submerged limestone ledge. I'd seen two big Channel Cats grazing there, so my hopes were up.

OK, Not a Monster, But Still, A Fish.

I left the rod in its holder and waited for the liver to do its trick while I fished the topwater with lures. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, down went the float, out played the line, and the rod bent with a vengeance. Big excitement, no doubt about it, and I dropped the one rod and scrambled for the other. Reel that fish in! And I did, or at least started to, then... nothing. Whatever it was dropped the bait. 

Fierce Little Thing

My guess is that a Gar hit the liver and ran with it but let go after discovering something was up, they do that. Nothing was biting after that, so I moved on to less adventurous water and was rewarded by a Catfish and a Sunfish.

Gratuitous Texan Sunset Over Lake Whitney

They hit worms on treble hooks in shallow water with the kind of zeal you'd expect from Bernie Sanders promoting the Communist Manifesto. Aggressive beasts, fish. And that, readers, is that, except that it isn't, because the challenge is still on for a big Cat.

Fish on,

LSP

I Went Fishing

I thought I'd step out of the mix for a couple of days, shoot some skeet, brush up on pistol and carbine skills, see if the Lee's scope was still on (it is) and do a bit of fishing. Good plan, eh? But look what happens, with apologies to LL.

Welcome to the Buffoonalia

Dobby and his Chinos decide to make wimmin bishops, (next stop gay marriage) Israel invades Gaza, ISIS savages destroy Christianity in Northern Iraq, 100,000 people are without water in Detroit and pneumatic plague fires up in Colorado. 

Killer

Meanwhile, John Woodentop Kerry wanders around the world like a malfunctioning wardroid and lest we forget, a giant sinkhole has opened up in Putin's Siberia. Some speculate that the Archbishop of Canterbury is using this as an underground HQ to direct operations to further destroy what's left of his deadending church. Others claim the hole's caused by the explosion of ice, hot gas and space aliens. As in, "Church of England."

Killer

Whatever, I went fishing today on lake Whitney and deployed plastics, rooster tails, Twizzlers(!) and spoons. A couple of bites, no strikes and a lot of fun standing on the Limestone bluffs watching the world go by.

Christians, Rise Up

That included cliff jumpers, who were mostly men. Backflip off cliff. Thump Splash! "Dude, like an awesome bomb and a dive. Bombdive! Unh hunh." 

I saluted them with my rods. Fellow cliffmen.

Pray for the Christians of Mosul and the Middle East.

LSP