Bashin' Barnett: An official account. Better late than never right?!
Sorry fellas, a series of unexpected funerals back to back following the event had my time focused elsewhere and delayed this post.
Well guys, the crappie.com men of central Mississippi pulled the grandest ruse in the history of the website. Seeing as how we were getting a lot of press and notice based on the awesome reports and pictures coming out of the lake as of late, we put our heads together to devise an evil plot to throw off the scent of the fishhounds. Through expert fieldcraft, we weaseled our way into every non local boat that came down to fish. We laughed, joked, acted friendly, and proceeded to direct these out-of-area fisherman to the most fish free, ridiculous, Dead-Sea-esque spots in the lake. Anglers who recognized us on the lake even called and asked what would posses us to fish these spots. I had to wash my boat twice to get the stink off. We did our best to make sure no one caught fish. Even with all that effort, these guys managed to catch a few. What a shame, we worked so hard to ruin the name of this lake so they would go home and tell everyone to just steer clear. We tried hard in this endeavor and were mostly successful, but this lake is just too good to strike out. Most said they even wanted to come back. [emoji36]
Wait......that's not right.
I am proud to announce that we had the most successful get together in the history of our beloved website, GasperGoo.com! JasperGoo?
Oh wait, that's not it either.
Ah yes, it's all coming back to me. Wind. That's what we had. Wind and storm fronts. Mother Nature and her sick sense of humor struck again. We hammered fish up until the event and then May's flowers decided that they needed some late April showers. But, being that this particular corner of cyberspace is inhabited by some of the best guys on the water, we did manage to have one thing. FUN. I was not exaggerating when I said that all boats that came in from out of town got a personal on-the-water tour of the lake by a local. Different areas and spots were pointed out. No lower units were harmed for the duration of our event. Now, how is that for hospitality? I think I can safely assume that everyone attending who fished together left with a much greater understanding of the lake and that's a lot better than some stinking crappie, right?!? I mean we have freezers full of those. That was the whole point of this right? Hahahahehehe
Several guys came in early and some fish were caught towards the end of the week. I happened to win the double lottery and due to some "clerical errors" I was told I had to go take a physical for work in Mobile, AL Thursday and due to a double booking, had to move my daughters birthday to Friday afternoon so I personally did not get to get on the water much beforehand.
CliffordN and Snubbys made it out on Friday I believe, for a tour. Cliff showed Joel the lake and Joel in turn showed Cliff a thing or two about that whole crank pulling endeavor. Friendships were formed and Cliff 's lifesavings were spent that night after he found a new way to throw money at crappie [emoji23]
I had a few precious hours in the morning before the birthday party and for once, successfully begged my wife to let me go [emoji226] while she ran around and finished the details for the party(she truly is a Saint!) Since my boat had an issue crop up (I let the registration expire) I filled an empty seat in the back of 4THETHUMP's boat. Now, we have talked through this site for several years now but this was out first time linking up. It didn't even occur to me until I was standing at the ramp among 50 boats that we had no clue what the other looked like.... soon enough, though, a wizened man with a mane of silver hair down his back pulled up in a blue boat and after a few gestures we made our acquaintance. His name was Ken, but I'm fairly certain that must be short for Merlin because those 12' wands which he wields are full of magic. As we all know on here, this guy can catch fish. He talks about his silly hat, I think he has a big blue one with gold stars and a pointy top hiding in that boat. We "strolled" our way along a ledge and thumped up 15-20 in fairly short order. They must have been thick in there because on our way to leave we realized that with the wind blowing as hard as it was that we actually only covered the same 30' of the ledge in 3 hours. He would catch a fish, lose focus for a moment and then drift back to where we started. Only to do it all over again.
Friday night found us hobnobbing and rubbing elbows out on the veranda at the Jackson Yacht Club. Luckily no one brought a tape recorder because tips, tricks, locations, brushpiles, and even a few GPS coordinates flowed freely all night. We shared stories of recent events and days gone by. As the night wore out and the drinks flowed we even shared a few that we may not normally admit too. After a fine meal, and some even finer fellowship, DonDon decided to prove that he could indeed kick bigfeets square in the face and we decided to call it a night. [emoji23]
Saturday morning was beautiful, weather wise at least. It was the calm before the storm. Those of us who decided to brave the forecast met at the ramp and with a loose game plan we were off. I hopped in the boat with Mo' Money to mooch and play with his new toys and we went shallow to single pole the grass, DonDon decided to pull cranks, Thump did his normal wizardly stuff, and CliffordN checked out things on the south end of the lake. One thing remained true, as DD said at dinner "the fish are not where they should be" A few hours into the morning and several phone calls around and the reports were dim. For all our efforts on our jungle cruise, Mo and I had one big male in the soon-to-be-dead well and several brushes with the local fauna of the lizard persuasion. DonDon decided he was pre-fishing for the BassMasters tourney and trolled up some green things, Clifford forgot this was Crappie.com and though it was Catfish.com, Snubbys caught......up on some sleep, and oddly no one heard from Ken. A change in tactics netted us a few more crappie before I had to tell Mo' to point it at the dock so I could get ready for the fish fry. The wind was blowing your face off by that point anyway and right down the gut of the lake.
That afternoon found us gathered at Browns Landing Pavilion. EZpoleholder and ScottV were at the helm of the cooking station and we were in expert hands. ReesGuide had set up a fancy raffle table with all kinds of expensive toys that looked like he robbed from the back of Mo' Money's boat. Even with the forecast predicting Noah's flood, 35 members and their families made it out to the cookout. A slew of local members and several yet still made the drive in from parts elsewhere knowing what was coming. All laughing and joking aside, we had a blast. I told everyone from the get-go that if nothing else, we would have fun and fellowship and this was the epitome of that promise. I thoroughly had a blast. Everywhere you looked there were smiles. Laughter was the music of choice. Fast friendships were made and even a die hard bass fisherman could have been baptized in the way of crappie. A deaf man would have heard how to catch perch and a blind man would have seen the way. Then came the food. There wasn't a bad bite to be had! After we were all well and stuffed rumors of a super secret upside down desert cake began to circulate. It was the best thing you have put in your mouth!! It almost made you forget about the Monsoon hurricane happening around us. With the door prizes handed out and the raffles drawn, good-byes were said and we put the (annual?) Barnet Bash:2017 in the books! Not to toot my own horn but even with the weather, the uncooperative fish, and the last minute scrambling to help cover items, supplies, and other committed efforts left open when some guys dropped out or didn't show up, I think it was a great event! I know I had a large time!
Much thanks to :
- EZpoleholder and ScottV for frying up enough fish and hush puppies to give half of California high blood pressure. They even denied offers to help! (Luckily it was all set up in a way that the cooks were part of the party, too)
- ReesGuide for bringing the cooking oil, setting up the raffle, and providing items for the door prizes
- Slab for the great event T-Shirts
- Nunk2- even though he wasn't able to make it due to some last minute changes, he still dropped off the items which he had committed to. (He is not a very local guy to the event so he had to go out of his way quite a bit I believe)
- Knightshadow for donating supplies last minute even though he wasn't able to attend.
- Fishstalker Lures and Strmshadow - these guys selflessly shipped us a selection of their custom poured lures to give away as doorprizes. I won a set and cannot wait to try them out on the water.
- CliffordN, Snubbys, DonDon and Nessa, Up2Early - for donating food, supplies, and any other items we needed to make this event happen.
I'm sure there are others who I have missed and if so I am sorry, please shoot me a message and let me know!
Now to plan for next year! Oh, and as for Merlin.....Ken caught 17!! Ya jerk! [emoji8]
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