Big Pike, Catfish, and Hybrid Stripers

Jared Plattner with huntplots.com took his parents and their friend Bill and Janice Russell fishing on Friday evening. They were going for monster hybrid striped bass and they caught several really big ones!





Bill, where is the picture of your big fish? Oh wait, let me see if I can dig one up so you don't feel left out.....


I can't sleep any longer this morning, been laying awake in bed writhing in pain since 4 am. Can hardly move and finally mustered up enough strength to make it over to the computer desk and start typing. I didnt actually get hit by a train, but I bet it doesnt feel quite this bad! Every movement shoots pain all over my body.

What actually happened was at high school boys camp this weekend I forgot I was 50 lbs overweight and severely out of shape. My body knew better but my mind for some reason got caught up in the good times of physical competition and before I knew it I spent the whole day Friday playing football, dodgeball, and basketball with about 200 high school and college athletes.

We played until 11:30 pm and I could physically no longer walk, was getting stiffer by the moment. I went and sat in the hot tub and went to bed. For some dumb reason I decided the next day to play in the basketball tournament at 8 am. What an idiot. Anyhow, throughout the weekend I had my moments of glory, although they were short bursts of energy followed by several minutes of gasping for oxygen.

Back in the day I used to be a 6'3" 210 lb brick wall and could compete at a high level all day long. Now I have scientifically developed several layers of high tech muscle protection and natural insulation and tip the scales at about 280 lbs. I think I am evolving into the ultimate ice fisherman and now can sit on a bucket in 10degrees all day long!

I have a decision to make at this juncture of my life- either give up all competitive physical activity completely and be content watching from the sidelines comfortably in a nice chair for the rest of my life or actually physically get myself back into better shape. I think I am fine with either choice, its just you cant mix the two together is the reason why I am in the condition I am today.

Every single muscle and I think maybe even several bones ache this morning. After the basketball tournament we went out to the lake with all 200 guys and we played hard there too. We also caught bunches of catfish, hybrid striped bass, and even this monster pike. Then we cleaned all the catfish and had a big fish fry.




Last week was a great week! We got tons of stuff accomplished. Rocke Brothers are laying the stone at the big lodge we are building in Fulton County. Here are some pics, that project is moving along at a rapid pace:




We also built this dock for Lisa in Congreville in just 7 hrs on Tuesday:




Lisa's dock still gets a diving board that Cornerstone Architectual Concepts is making from White Oak this week and she also is getting a huge rope swing that we are gonna start putting in right after the 4th of July. Will definitely have pictures of the rope swing process, it is going to be an awesome rope swing!

This dock for Todd Staley in Farmington took our crew just 2 hours to build!


We have built lots of docks this spring and still have a half dozen very big docks to build yet this summer. Monday we are building a big dock for Butch in Cuba. It will have an 8x16 boat slip and a roof over most of the dock! Gonna be a neat one.

Hope everyone has a great 4th of July coming up this weekend! As of right now it kind of looks like there is sun forecasted this upcoming week, that sure is gonna be a weird feeling if that happens.