Slaying Stripers at Lake Texoma
The latest fishing club adventure took place in picturesque Kingston, OK on Lake Texoma. The trip started with 16 intrepid souls making their way to Oklahoma. Dany & Cassandra Dickey, accompanied by Kaj Sorrensen drove from Florida on a 2-day trek. Tom Minerva and yours truly flew into Dallas and rented a car for the 2-hour drive. Kaj’s son Erik flew in from Minneapolis, Martin Kelly’s son Brian flew in from Cleveland, and Martin Kelly, accompanied by 2 of his grandsons Stephen and Justin, flew in from Panama City. Jesse Scott and his son Chris flew from Pensacola and drove from Dallas. Denver & Linda McCormick were in Kansas City visiting their grandson and flew in from there. Ken & Sandi Hill arrived in the most interesting way aboard their new 45’ Tiffin motorcoach, what a beautiful rig. Originally there were 2 other club members who were supposed to be on the trip Norm Hall and Frank Nicoletti. Unfortunately, health issues prevented both from attending. Y’all were missed.
Now let’s talk about our fishing adventures. Day one we met for breakfast about 6AM and set out to the marina about 7 for a 7:30 departure. On this day we would have 4 boats. On boat one was Denver, Linda, Ken, and Sandi. On boat two was Danny, Cassandra, Kaj, and Erik. Boat 3 was Martin, Brian, Stephen, & Justin. Boat 4 was Tom, Kenny, Jesse, and Chris. We got to the fishing spot in about 15 minutes and quickly began fishing. Very quickly we all began catching big, beautiful Stripers! Allow me to digress and provide a bit of information on Striper limits. Each person is allowed 10 total with 2 being over 20” and 8 under 20”. Well on the first day, Martin’s boat was back at the dock and had limited out and had all fish cleaned and vacuum sealed like an hour before we arrived back. Why you ask? Well; fishermen always talk about the huge fish that got away. This time we want to talk about the big fish that didn’t get away. Our boat quickly reached our limit of over 20 inches; where we had trouble was catching fish under 20. Almost every fish we pulled in was 20 plus inches long. Wow! When have you ever heard of a bunch of fishermen begging to catch SMALLER FISH. That is exactly where we found ourselves. We did finally catch our limit of Stripers and headed back to the dock. Great first day.
Day two of fishing was another killer day catching fish. Do the math 10 fish per angler times 16 fishermen, that’s 160 Strippers each day. The bite was soooo good that we were limited out, had all the fish cleaned, vacuum sealed, and iced down by noon! Yeah baby, 4.5 hours from shove off to what do we do now.
Did I mention that Denver’s daughter Amy has a lake house up here? So Denver’s daughter Amy has a lake house at Lake Texoma. Denver and Linda were staying at Amy’s and were kind enough to host a wonderful steak dinner for everyone. We are talking choice filets, creamy baked potatoes, blue cheese wedge salads, warm croissants, all started off with some fresh ceviche’ made from the days catch! What a feast!
Day three fishing was not looking good, the weather the evening before included lightning and even hail stones!
On the third morning the rain continued so fishing became optional. Half of the folks decided to forgo fishing and head back home. The rest of us decided to wait out the rain and about 8:30 the rain appeared to lighten up enough that we headed down to the dock, decked out in our rain gear. The wait paid off as we were able to send 2 boats out and again caught our limits.
All the fish was vacuum sealed at the dock and iced down in a giant ice chest in the back of Danny’s truck. He transported it back to Destin and we all met at the Kelly Plantation Owners Club to distribute our bounty.
A special thanks to Denver & Linda McCormick for planning and organizing this fantastic trip.