Celebrating and the Big Catch!

Week four begins with July 4th celebrations.  Our friend, Bill headed out early Saturday morning and caught his biggest fish so far; a 7 lb, 27 inch Catfish. (Pic below). Plan was to head into Alex Bay and go to the Big M for donuts.  But have to get there early to get the good ones, and we slept in too late. Maybe another time~   I had cut up all the veggies and meat yesterday and left to marinate overnight.  So today was threading the skewers and making a fruit salad.  Lazy most of the day, but enjoyed the boats and pontoons going by blaring horns and all decorated in red, white and blue.

We all gathered a little after 4:00 at Bill and Linda's cabin.

They have a nice tent cover which is nice for sitting out and not being in the sun. There was 7 of us, Rich and I, Bill and Linda, Dean and Cherrie ( Cherrie - top right)  and Chuck (black shirt). Neighbors (top center) stopped over to say HI.    Delicious Food!!  Chicken Kabobs, Kielbasi, Potato Salad, Fruit Salad, Corn on the Cob and Cherri made delicious brownie cake with a peanut butter icing.  Add a beer and a glass of wine and the celebrating was on!    It was almost dark when we headed back to our camp.  Lots of fireworks around the lake that was nice and didn't last all night!

Sunday morning Rich and I headed out to a new spot for fishing.  Headed toward Mutt and Jeff Islands (bottom left) and made our way to a bay just past them and fished along The Wall ( top left).  Nice breeze so we were drifting.  Rich hooked on to his biggest catch, and the adrenaline started pumping.  It seemed like forever before he finally had that fish in the boat.  Got a 28 1/4 inch, 8 3/4 lb. catfish!  WOW!  Definitely the biggest fish I've seen caught.  He followed that with two nice small mouth bass; one keeper at just under 16 inches and another just a hair from being a keeper at almost 15 inches.  In all we caught 24 fish before heading back.

We were both tired, Rich more than me, after cleaning the fish, so we relaxed in the afternoon, had a quick dinner about 5:00 and then headed back out to fish.  Went back to the same area.  Rich wasn't as lucky tonight, but did catch 3-4 good size crappie keepers.  I caught another Northern Pike at 22 inches and a decent catfish at about 12 inches.   All in all, it was a good day. Total catch for the day - 39.  Fish count to date - 330 with Rich pulling way ahead 175 to 152.

Decent sunset that night as we were heading back to camp.  It was almost 8:45, so we still had time to head up the road for ice cream.  Peanut Butter cup flurry for Rich, and the same old, same old, for me - dish of Butter Pecan.   Early to bed - tomorrow temps are supposed to reach upper 80's.  Was kind of hoping this cool, comfortable weather would hang around a bit longer.