Canyon Lake 8/3/12 - Personal Best

My fishing partner, and step-father, Fred and I decided to go to  Canyon Lake for the full moon. It's been a while since we've both been there, but we had high hopes that our old spots would payoff with some fish and hopefully a trophy sized fish, since this lake is known to have a few. The weather looked like it would cooperate without any summer monsoon storms. The lake was 84-86 degrees but above the water it was over 100 degrees.

We started the evening off right, Fred caught a nice fish on a dropshot Roboworm withing 5 minutes of being there. We figured maybe the bite of flipping the canyon walls and rock boulder ledges was the right idea. We headed further into the canyon and I caught one on a texas-rigged Menace Grub. A few minutes later Fred caught one on a texas-rigged 10 inch red shad worm, it was about 3.5lbs. While he was tending to that fish I flipped into the exact same spot and set the hook and yelled FISH, GET THE NET! We knew it was a good fish when he told me "put it up" and I couldnt! After a few heart racing moments it was in the boat, my personal best at 6.94lbs. I was stoked to say the least and full of energy, took me a few minutes to regather my thoughts. A few minutes later I thought I had another big fish, turned out to be a good sized flathead catfish, fun fight but not what we were looking for.

After another pass through the area we decided to move since the sun had gone down and slowed things down considerably. The move didnt payoff but after we made another move a lesson was learned very quickly. We hadn't noticed that the aerators had been accidentally turned off and the big fish wasn't looking too good. She was quickly turning white and breathing rapidly. We flushed the system with fresh water and filled it to the top and poured in some U2 Pro Formula. It wasn't looking too good but after about 45 minutes she started to come around and turned dark green again and was staying upright on her own. The hard work paid off and she was good to go.

We decided to make another move to where we started and it proved to be the right decision. The wind was blowing down the channel and across the area and there was a small area that was very calm. After pass or two I popped a brush hog over a rock on the ledge and the bait just stopped. I set the hook and knew instantly it was another good fish. It was dark but the fish made a splash on the water that sent water everywhere trying to shake the hook. It jumped again trying to get in the back of the motor then dove deep. It made a massive run then as it came up Fred completed a great net job and the fish was in the boat and I was speechless and adrenaline filled. We both looked at the fish and knew it was way bigger than the other fish we caught earlier. We weighed it on the Accu-Cul and Cul-M-Rite and it went 10.11! It took me a few minutes to settle my emotions and get my brain back to functioning properly to finish out the night. We made a move and Fred caught another fish at about 4.25lbs. At 1:00am we weighed the 3 biggest at 21.30lbs!

21.30lbs, what a night! It was a night of personal best and a team best. We may not have caught a ton of fish, but we caught the right ones. It was a night we won't soon forget, I couldn't be happier and glad Fred was with me on a night I broke the 10 pound barrier.