Memorial Weekend camping and Loking,..

Mischief · May-29-2007, 07:26 PM

first, big thanks to the Steve (Ready4TheYellow) for inviting my family to go with him and his wife camping up in Madera next to Fresno,..it was one of the most peaceful and beautiful place i ever been too, since his family owns it , the place was private so we had it to ourselves along with alot of his family, it use to be a huge fish farm with over a hunderd fish ponds, they had everything from goldfish to trout to bass and many others, now they just have gold fish, people use the place now for duck hunting,..they also harvest bees so we were able to get a jar of some home made honey, man it is delicious! we were camping between a huge pond and the San Joaquin river, just feet from each other, the wife and kids got to swim and kayak while i fished and hiked around the place, we left friday night and arrived there 5 hours later, it was around 1am in the morning, you would think that after we set up the tent we would just knock out, nope, straight cracked open some beer and started throwing our lines out for some catfish, after awhile with no luck we hit the tent, somewhere in the early morning we heard our bell ring on one of the rods, we both crashed out the tent trying to get to the rod, the fish was off by then, damn it,..oh did i forget to mention i hit my head on Steves side mirror? well i was walking back to the camp fire after getting something from steves truck when i was looking on the ground for snakes with the flashlight i smacked right into it, i got a big cut on my forehead, thank God for beer cause i barely felt it,..lol,..well, we woke up later to the twins walking around the tent wondering where the hell were we, oh man, were they in for a big surprise, right away we got to unload the gear and go outside to look over the place, just straight beautiful, loved everything about it, met Steves family, damn they are the nicest people, deliah had some kids to play with around her age, which was great, also these kids were in their best behavior with Deliah and the other peoples kids, i mean i've taken Deliah to the park to play with some kids and im sorry to rag on my race, but latino kids can be cruel and play to ruff, not for my little girl,..she had the time of her life swimming and playing with the kids, so she was good, my wife and steves wife started chatter boxing away while me and steve would go fish here and there, it was until later in the day i hooked into my first LMB, he got unhooked but man it was a rush, i never caught one on my own, i tied on my own plastic, used all the tactics i've read from many of you bass anglers and the info worked out great, i landed my first ever LMB! it was jumping and fighting like hell, man it felt good, pulled him out snapped a pic and off he went, i made sure not to touch his body and unhooked him properly, got the pic quick and off he went, sweet,..oh and that wasnt the end of it, i was catching bass like crazy all day, they would be jumping out like crazy! i also saw some huge koi in the pond, i mean these suckers had to be in the 3 to 5 pound range, maybe more like 3, but they were huge, i saw alot of bass crusing the pond, cool sight to see,..at night we lit a huge campfire, tossed out some nightcrwlers for some cats and got real drunk, we kept catching little ones, oh well, cant win them all, Steve got a bass the next morning but i was passed out trying to fish for them kitties, so i didnt get a pic,..my little girls were having the time of their life, the little ones were throwing rocks in the pond while the oldest was swimming with her friends, while i went on one of my nature walks, deliah got on a boogie board and started to drift away, she called out my wife and my lady jumped in clothes on after her, good thing she got to her in time, she would have been in for a long ride! lol,..later on Steve and I went on a little boat to catch some bass up river, they told me stripers and huge bass can be caught at this one part of a inlet, on the way over there i troll my rat-a-trap and caught another first, a Small Bass! booyah! it was a little guy but a LMB fo sure,..so i was really stoked on catching a striper but steve had other plans, cause up river he decided to lose the top part of the motor into the water, lol,..great! there gose the boat ride for everyone else, we turned around and head back for some more drinking and having fun,.. let me see, oh, when i went hiking i checked out some of those empty ponds, saw a fox and a bunch of frogs, ran into a cows carcass, saw some fake ducks, so this is where they hunt them, man it was alot to explore and since i was alone i decided to go back and fish the pond but had no luck, since the i lost the last of the plastics i was catching the LMBs with and my rat-a-trap, i met another bass angler named Dave, we were fishing together when we seen a huge LMB crusing by, right away we tossed our plastics to him and the bass favored Dave, turned out to be a 5 pounder, booyah catch for him! at night, we got some more worms for the cats, but instead i was catching blue gills, another first for me but i wanted a big cat! oh well, this was our last night so maybe another time, got hammered and drank all the beer, sucks, we bullshyted around the camp fire until one by one we all passed out,.. man, i wish i had more to write, but pretty much i can sum it up on that we had a blast, on the way out Deliah got to see the horses, the newborn pony came and gave her a kiss, that was sweet, the ride home wasnt bad, no traffic at all so we made it back cool and smooth, Steve and Sharon took a detour to the Sequoias, lol,..if we didnt want to take a bath so bad we would have went, the kids had a great time, i cant wait to go back, next time i will be better prepared to catch the bass, the pond was great for tubing too! sucks that it got slashed lol,..i already let it go,..man, while writing this report i cant stop and think what a good time i had, it was our first camping trip for the family, my daughter didnt want to leave, too bad we couldnt stay, thanks again Uncle Steve and Aunt Sharon, my family will never forget you for taking us to your familes place, man i wish i had family like that, i was so worried i wasnt gonna be able to catch any fish, lol,..not at a place like that, when we gonna go back dude??? too bad its a far ride, if it was close i would be freshwater fishing from now on, lol jk,..but it would take up alot of my time,..well i hope you all like the pics, theres alot so i hope it downloads fast for some peeps! cause every pic is a good one! peace out and i hope you all had the same good time as we did on this Memorial weekend, God Bless the Men and Women of our military who made this possible for us to have a great time with the family and friends, God bless you all!!!

San Joaquin River,..

Lokey's Pond, since i asked the owner what was the name of it, he said there wasnt so i went ahead and named it after me,..lol

My first Large Mouth Bass,..

A LMB (note that steve lied to me about it being a SMB, you bastard!

)

My first Blue gill,..

Steve pulled in this fighter,..

my lovely family,..

Deliah playing with the worms,..

her friends,..

preparing to go down river,..lol

the knock out twin incredibles!

took the wife yakking,..