It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

By Ned Tuttle

2020 was a terrible year in some aspects, and pretty damn good in others! Due to the Covid hoax, Win and I limited our travel and decided to fish and hunt in our "backyard", and had some very successful outings. We had to cancel, or we're cancelled, for our annual Bahama's bone fishing trip, our quail hunt in Coleman, and most outings with Father, but we persevered and ended up with some great trips!! Redfish in Corpus with Captain Freddy; bass fishing on Fayette with Captain Pete; dove hunting in Lytle with Dove Heaven; and bass "catching" in Louisiana with Grosse Savanne. I call it bass "catching" because it was like very few bass trips I have been on. Grosse Savanne, out of Lake Charles, Louisiana, is known as a stellar duck hunting lodge. They happen to mention they also have saltwater fishing and bass fishing. It seems they are an afterthought, and add-on, to keep the duck hunters happy. Dad, Win, and I went to Grosse Savanne at the end of 2019 to duck hunt a couple of days. The afternoon of the first day they took us marsh fishing for redfish. We caught some but were not that impressed. The afternoon after the second hunt, they took us to their bass lake, Miller Lake. It was awesome!! Cold weather, Dad, Win, and I all in one boat, and fish after fish on numerous lures. We caught over 50 fish that afternoon!

The lake is full of big crawfish, plus fat and happy bass! They are not huge, but lots of 3-5lbers and they fight well. You could throw buzz baits, chuggers, swim baits, wacky worms, and catch lots of fish, but throw a brush hog and hold on ...  We had so much fun we went back 3 times, in May, August, and October. Each trip was widely successful! Each time, we used different lures as our primary bait, but caught more fish in every outing than I have ever caught bass fishing. Our average ½ day outing, morning or afternoon, we would boat 40 to 60 fish. One trip the primary lure was buzzbaits. One was wacky worms, one was brush hogs (for me). It was amazing! It was fun! It was perfection ...

An afternoon on the water with my brother, drinking beer, catching fish, laughing our asses off! Did you see that? He jumped out of the water! Holy shit, he almost pulled the rod out of my hands! He followed it all the way to the boat!!

Life is good, especially when you get a little older and have some time and money available. Take advantage of it, you never know what tomorrow will bring ... Who's Like Us!

2020 trips
Jan 8 - Corpus redfish
Jan 20-24 Belize - Blue Horizons permit
Mar 4 Fayette County bass
Apr 23 Corpus redfish
May 13 Corpus redfish
May 19-20 Lake Charles bass
Jun 5 Gulfport redfish/trout
Jun 23-25 Corpus redfish
Jul 15 Fayette County bass
Jul 22 Corpus redfish
Aug 18-19 Lake Charles bass
Sep 2 Corpus redfish
Sep 15-17 Lytle - Dove Heaven - dove hunting
Oct 6-7 Lake Charles bass
Nov 4-5 Corpus redfish
Dec 16 Fayette County bass