As you may or may not know, from last Wednesday to this past Sunday, I was in Yantis, Texas for what the guys call Bass Camp. It’s an informal gathering of friends and family that partake in fishing, playing games, eating great food, and nightly gatherings around the campfire, drinking and telling crazy stories- including wild fish stories.

I am happy to report that I kept up my daily walks, closing my rings almost every night! However, I have more than a little concern over my knee, which decided to swell up due to the rough terrain I walked on as opposed to my indoor walking workouts on the rug in front of my TV every day.

I walked up hills, perched on steep ledges, and balanced on boats all in my quest to either stay fit or catch a fish! I did too, counting the ones from the charter crappie fishing trip we took, I caught a total of 14 fish! Around 11 crappie, one big catfish, and a sand bass.

Connie caught around the same amount and type, plus a gremmal…that’s a nasty, slimy, good-for-nothing type of catfish. And, besides the wind, we also fought the cold. On the boat we chartered to catch crappie, it was a cold morning, so I had on jeans, boots, three shirts, a coat, a gator, and a rain suit jacket!

With all of that though, we had so much fun. We had the freedom to do what we wanted when we wanted except for the ability to watch TV. I saw no programs for 5 days!! Maybe it’s a good thing! In a way, I didn’t even miss it. We’ve made good friends, including Richard, an old-timer who lives on the property. The lake was so low, that we were fishing from banks that are normally underwater. Lake Fork is normally full of stumps, but now you can see all of them, not just the ones that rise above the water. The engineers had to drain part of the lake to work on the dam. It’s amazing we could even get out in the boat with all the hazardous stumps everywhere, but skilled boatsmen had no problems.

We had a nightly campfire, but on Friday night they burned a huge bonfire to reduce waste and get rid of some wood, metal, and plastic chairs that had piled up during the clean up of the property. I took awesome slo-mo pics, but can’t figure out how to post them here, I will try with my phone.

Besides cornhole, which one of the more crass visitors renamed “nutsack”, we played a game called Shoot the Moon using dominos in an effort to learn a more complicated game called 42. We never got there. Connie and I were learning Moon from the pros, Chuck B and Chuck L who also lives on the property and they get pretty busy with all of the cooking every night, so somehow we never got enough lessons. This year was much less rowdy than past Bass Camps…maybe we are all getting old, lol!

I was bummed that my husband never made it up, maybe next year. I wish we could get our own camper, then he would be more comfortable. Plus, then we could take it everywhere and eliminate the need to rent condos or cabins. Bubba and Connie just clean and button up their RV and leave it on the campsite.

Well, the pool sweep is stuck, so I have to go free it. Until next time, have a great day!