Tag Archives: Bass Camp

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WOD Challenge 4-4-22 What a Great Week!

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.

Late sunset at Lake Fork

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.

The trail to the lake.

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!

Me during the chartered crappie trip.

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.

Bubba guided us around and through all the stumps.

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.

A still photo of the bonfire, i can’t post the videos for whatever reason.

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!

My crappie I caught from the bank!

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.

Connie caught one off the bank too!
Off course, there was the huge yearly crawfish boil!

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

Word of the Day Challenge

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Writing

WOD Challenge 4-2-20 Less Than Buoyant

A photo from last year at Bass Camp

 

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all staying safe and healthy as the epidemic rages out of control. I’m sorry to say, I’m feeling less than buoyant today because we are not going on our little trip to Bass Camp after all. We realized it was the right thing to do to stay home, stay safe, and avoid contact with others, even though the amount of people going is drastically less than last year. On top of all that, the weather will be crappy…cold and rain, so that sounds like pure misery to me. There’s always next year, another time, or whatever.

We also heard there’s a good possibility if you are caught leaving your county, you could be fined by as much as $2,000! That’s a risk we don’t want to take, although I don’t think they are enforcing it. The fact is, this thing is serious, even if we don’t want it to be, or believe it’s as bad as the media makes it sound. Just because we have been super lucky so far, does not mean others have not been. I do not know a single person who has the virus, but my life has been affected just the same. Isolation, cancelled trips and events, worry over finances, concern that we may never regain the freedoms we once enjoyed are bringing me down-yet I am blessed to be healthy and safe! So far, all of my family members are, even with my dad and my three compromised sons, we are all hanging in there.

The President said the next two weeks were going to be very bad, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I pray that is true and I hope that you all are taking this situation seriously, as if your life depends on it. Because it may. Be safe everyone!

 

Word of the Day Challenge

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Uncategorized, Writing

Bass Camp-Crawfish Boil

Before I get to Saturday afternoon and the crawfish 🦞 boil, I have to show you some pics from Friday afternoons fruitless but fun fishing trip.

My guys baiting hooks

We stayed on the fringes of the finger of the lake closest to our camp, where we observed snowy white birds, herons, I think, yet I was too far for really good pics. I tried to catch them in flight as well, but the pics turned out fuzzy.

Not sure what the bird is on top of the dead tree limb, an oriole maybe? Lake Fork is full of old tree stumps, rising up out of the water all over the place, treacherous for boaters unless you have equipment to see below the boat. Some stumps you can’t see. Fish finders show these stumps and tree roots as well as fish, yet the fish were very elusive this weekend.

Sister-in-law Connie relaxing with me in the camper

Friday night and all day Saturday it rained, so we were pretty much stuck in the camper, my sister-in-law Connie kept me company as I worked on my Diamond Art project, waiting for it to be time for the crawfish boil…the highlight of the weekend.

Later on we got a break from the rain and went over to the area where the guys were prepping for the boil. The ladies cut sausage, cleaned mushrooms, and peeled onions as part of the prep.

Here is the chef, Dennis, as he puts everything in the pot for the first run

Lucas, Jeannie, and John sampling the first batch-Jeannie holding a dead crawfish which had to be tossed. A good crawfish goes in the pot alive and kickin! In the boil is crawfish and special seasoning, potatoes, onions, garlic, Brussels sprouts, sausage, and corn on the cob. Personally, I thought the sprouts and the sausage were hotter than the crawfish, I don’t eat corn or potatoes, but they were said to hold the heat too!

Me happily eating the third batch, it had the biggest and best tasting crawfish of the day, sausage, and spicy Brussels sprouts

Hubby Dave is at the end of the table sporting a Belfor hoodie, long time friends Gary and Bruce to his left and next to Bruce is Rudy who works at Tinker’s shop right up the road. I believe that is Tim on my left, we were all taking advantage of the final batch. I wish I had worn my hat 🧢 because I’m looking pretty rough.

The patriarch John takes a rest under the covered patio as I take a shot of the bbq area.

Of course, crawfish and drinking go hand in hand, and as we all finished eating and moved to gather around the warm pots, we saw Bubba commit a party foul, see his spilled drink on the floor? 🤣

Brother-in-law Robert aka Bubba picks up his spilled drink

Later on we gathered around the fire to observe the beautiful colors from the copper something or other that got thrown in the fire pit.

Earlier, the fire pit had been filled with the day’s rainfall, we were lucky to even have one!

The sprinkles forced us to leave the fire and some of us retired to Gary and Stephanie’s camper to play a fun game called “shut the box”, here are Luke, Tim, Bruce and Bubba flashing the peace sign at us as I took a pic of the party people watching Stephanie and I play the game. Later each one of them came and played a round or two with us, which I kept winning (beginners luck I’m sure) until we finally called it quits late into the night. We were quite boisterous so I’m sure the neighbors were happy when we finally went to bed.

On the way home, I asked Dave to pull over so I could capture a few picks of the wild flowers growing on the sides of the road. We didn’t see as many as we would have had we been on I20 but I got some.

Bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush and other wildflowers in the peak of the season.

I wished I had been fast enough to capture the one area that had all the beautiful colors like orange, blue, and fiery red growing on the shoulder under an overpass.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend, a much needed break where we hardly worried about anything and just went with the flow. We we met lots of fine new folks and I would love to go again next year!

Getting home was easier than getting there, and once home we got cleaned up, did laundry and rested our sore, tired bodies. We might be out of practice and maybe a little old for all that much fun! Of course my knee is swollen even though I wore my brace the whole time, it could be from the two hour ride in the car, who knows. Dave accidentally shut his thumb in the screen door on the RV, but other than that we came out unscathed.

I even went off my diet for the weekend and after checking Pinterest when we rested a bit, I wanted some sweet potato chips, so Dave pulled out the mandolin and whipped me up a batch. Note to self, after salting I should have rinsed and patted dry before frying in the coconut oil. They we still quite tasty even though they were salty, and we had an oversized sweet potato that made a pretty good batch! I have plenty left!

Frying up some sweet potato chips

Cooking them in coconut oil makes them a healthy snack, but not Keto friendly. Needless to say, I’ll be back on the wagon tomorrow 😉

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Bass Camp-Lake Fork

No Fish Yet  Plenty of Fauna

Nestled among the pines and the cypress trees just south of Yantis, Texas is a spot my brother-in-law and his friend have been going to for fourteen years now. They call it bass camp, a gathering of good friends for fishing, fellowship, eating, and lots of shenanigans. Last night, Dave and I arrived just in time for some freshly caught crappie and French fries, and the gathering get-to-know ya group around the fire. The drinks were flowing but no blood got spilled, so it was a good night.

Dave hasn’t been anywhere to relax and decompress since vacation last summer, so it was high time we had a little get away. Let’s just say the drinking commenced and luckily, we had plans to get up early and go fishing or we would have been in serious trouble. As it was, we had mild hangovers that good coffee and a home made taquito fixed right up.

Leaving out this morning on our way to what turned out to be a fruitless fishing trip (hope we have better luck this evening) I snapped some pictures of the beauty surrounding us. Unfortunately, I was too busy keep my line in the water to take pictures of the magnificent herons, egrets and turtles we saw while out, but I do hope you enjoy the pics I took. More to come tomorrow especially if it storms all day as predicted 😔 Dave said even being stuck in the trailer would be better than being at work though. 😊 I’ll take some more pics tonight for tomorrow’s post.

We are in the Wildwood camper with Bubba and Connie. Actually, she arrives tonight, she missed last night’s feast and fun. Lucky, there’s tonight and tomorrow-pray for an early break in the rain. 😉

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